Four Orphan Girls Raised To Be The Mafia Heir’s Wife. And I Only Wanted His Empire. Chapter 10
The Mine
Camille walks away from the Kain family three weeks later. Publicly, the Ashford family releases a statement through their lawyers. Every family in the city gets the message within the hour: the alliance is dead.
Privately, she tells me the truth over a glass of wine in my apartment.
“He’s a sinking ship. I’m not drowning with him.”
She’s already used my financial report to secure her position in the Ashford operation. Her father now sees her as the one who saved them from exposure. She doesn’t need Alistair anymore. Doesn’t need Victoria. Doesn’t need any of this.
She raises her glass to me before she leaves. “Don’t die, Iris. You’re more useful alive.”
That’s as close to warmth as Camille gets.
Now I move to phase two.
I have Harper feed Alistair through Victoria. Small comments. Casual. Delivered like a mother’s concern.
“Iris is making you look weak, sweetheart. People are starting to talk.”
“Your father never took risks. That’s why he’s stuck in the past. You need to be bolder.”
Alistair is already burning from the inside. I humiliated him at the gala. Camille left him. The elders look at him with doubt now. His authority is cracking and everyone can smell blood.
So when the bait comes, he takes it without thinking.
A diamond mine in West Africa. Introduced through three layers of middlemen so it looks like his own discovery. The geological surveys are flawless. The projected returns are obscene. The kind of deal that would make him a legend overnight.
Deals like this float around the families all the time. Legitimate fronts for moving dirty money through clean channels. Alistair thinks he’s making an investment. He’s actually being washed.
He goes all in. His personal accounts. The family’s reserve funds. Money he moves without telling the council, because asking permission would mean admitting he needs it.
He wants to prove he’s still the heir. Still the prince. Still untouchable.
Six weeks later, the mine collapses. Not literally.
The surveys were fabricated. The mining company was a shell. The people behind it vanished overnight, along with every dollar Alistair poured in.
Gone. All of it.
The fallout is immediate. The family’s cash reserves are gutted.
Other families smell weakness. Two of Alistair’s captains quietly reach out to Edward’s old allies, testing the waters.
The elders call an emergency council and Alistair doesn’t even show up.
He locks himself in his villa. Drinks for three days straight. Smashes everything he can reach. His men stand outside the door and pretend they don’t hear it.
I go to see him on the fourth day.
I bring one of my own men. He waits in the car outside, engine running. In this world, you don’t walk into a cornered animal’s den without someone knowing where you are.
He’s on the floor, back against the wall, bottle in hand. The place is destroyed. Broken glass everywhere. Furniture overturned. The smell of whiskey and sweat and something rotting.
When he sees me, his eyes go red. Animal red. The kind of look a man gets when he’s got nothing left to lose.
“It was you.” His voice is raw. Shredded. “All of it. You did this.”
I pull up a chair. Sit down across from him. Calm.
“You did this to yourself. You were so desperate to prove you were still somebody that you didn’t stop to think. Not once.”
I reach into my pocket and set the silver whistle on the table between us. It clinks against the glass.
He stares at it. His face changes. Something cracks behind his eyes.
“Remember this? Maisie kept it until the day you threw her away. She thought it meant you loved her.”
My voice is steady. Cold.
“You broke her leg and shipped her off like damaged goods. Piper. Daniel. You destroyed real people because they were inconvenient. Because they were in your way.”
I lean forward.
“Tell me you didn’t deserve this.”
He lunges. Both hands reaching for my throat, a scream tearing out of him that sounds barely human.
I’m already moving. Sideways. Out of reach.
His foot catches a bottle. He staggers, hits the railing, flips over it.
The crack echoes through the whole house. Then silence.
I stand at the railing and look down.
He’s not moving.
I pick up the whistle from the table, put it back in my pocket, and walk out.