Four Orphan Girls Raised To Be The Mafia Heir’s Wife. And I Only Wanted His Empire. Chapter 06
The Cage
Two gone. Two left.
Harper has Victoria’s favor. She has Camille’s protection. She’s playing the game perfectly, and she doesn’t care who she buries along the way.
I need to get out. Now. Before I become the next girl who disappears.
I’ve been saving money in secret for years. Small amounts skimmed from the allowance Victoria gives us, tucked into an account she doesn’t know about. It’s not much, but it’s enough.
I contact an overseas agency. Apply to a top university abroad. Finance program. Full scholarship. I do everything through back channels, private emails, burner numbers. Nothing that can be traced back to the Kain estate.
When the offer comes, I almost cry. When the visa is approved, I feel like I can breathe for the first time in years.
I go to Victoria to say goodbye. Keep it casual. Keep it grateful.
She holds my hands in hers, eyes glistening, voice trembling like a worried mother.
“Iris, sweetheart. It’s so dangerous out there. You’re just a girl, all alone in a foreign country. How can I not worry?”
I smile. “I’ll be fine, Mrs. Kain. I’ll write to you. I promise.”
She pats my cheek. Warm. Tender.
I almost believe it.
The next morning, I’m dragging my suitcase to the front door when my phone rings. Embassy number.
My visa has been revoked. Grounds: fraudulent application materials.
Blacklisted. Five years. No appeals. No reapplication.
I stand in the foyer, suitcase handle still in my grip, and everything goes cold. Hands. Legs. Chest.
Then I check the safe in my room. My passport is gone.
I search everywhere. The drawer, the lining of my bag, the loose floorboard where I hide things. Nothing. Someone came into my room while I was saying goodbye to Victoria and took it.
That’s when I understand. It was never just the visa. Every exit is sealed. The airport, the border, the docks. The Kain family has people at every checkpoint in this city. I’m not being kept here by paperwork. I’m being kept here by force.
That evening, Victoria calls me to her study.
The mask is off. No trembling voice. No worried eyes. Just a woman behind a desk with the calm of someone who has never been told no.
“Don’t be upset, Iris. Out of all four of you, you were always the one I valued most. I couldn’t let you leave.”
She says it the way someone talks about a piece of property they’ve decided not to sell.
“People who try to leave this family don’t do well on the outside. You’re smart enough to know that.”
I hear what she’s not saying. Maisie. Piper. The ones who left didn’t choose to leave. And the ones who run don’t get far.
She slides a folder across the desk.
“Alistair needs someone at his side. Someone sharp. Someone who can handle the things that don’t go on the public books.”
She taps the folder with one manicured nail.
“You’ll manage both sides. The clean business and the rest. You’re the only one smart enough for it.”
I open the folder. Employment contract. Position: Executive Assistant to the CEO, Kain Holdings.
That’s what the paperwork says. What it really means is: I’m his handler. His bookkeeper. The person who sees where every dollar goes and where every body is buried.
Victoria is handing me the keys to the machine.
She thinks she’s trapping me. Binding me tighter.
She doesn’t realize she just gave me the blueprint to dismantle everything.
I pick up the pen and sign.
The next morning, I start at Kain Holdings.
Alistair treats me like property. Something useful that came with the office.
In meetings, he makes me stand behind his chair while his capos and underbosses sit at the table. Makes me pour his coffee, fix his cuffs, fetch his files.
In front of men who kill for a living, he reduces me to a servant. It’s not just humiliation. It’s a message: She belongs to me. I own her. Don’t touch.
At private gatherings, the kind with no guest list and no cameras, he pushes me toward men I recognize from the files. Arms dealers. Money launderers. Men who run the ports.
One night, he shoves me toward a man named Russo. Quiet eyes, heavy hands. He runs the family’s underground gambling network.
He is the kind of men who’s never had to raise his voice because everyone already knows what happens if they don’t listen.
“Russo, my assistant’s good company. Keep her entertained tonight.”
I smile. I pour. I laugh at his jokes. And while Russo brags about his next quarter’s shipment routes with his arm heavy on my shoulder, I’m building the model in my head to gut his entire operation.
Alistair watches from across the room, drink in hand. Pleased. He thinks I’m broken. A cat with its claws ripped out, too tame to bite.
The next day, he corners me in his office. Backs me against the wall. Tips my chin up with two fingers.
“You’ve been very obedient lately, Iris.”
His thumb drags across my jaw.
“Finally figured out that I’m the only door you have left?”
I lower my eyes. Bury the contempt so deep he’ll never find it. Make my voice soft.
“You’re right, Mr. Kain. I understand now.”
He smiles. Walks away.
But every file that passes through my hands gets copied. Five years of records. Shell companies. Protection payments. The routes, the names, the amounts. All of it funneled into my private server between midnight and four AM.
Every gathering he drags me to, I map the network. Who reports to who. Who’s unhappy. Who’s been skimmed. Who would flip if the right pressure was applied.
He thinks he’s punishing me.
He’s handing me the knife.