Ordered To Serve His Mistress: Heiress's Revenge

My fiancé sent me a text ordering me to serve his mistress, unaware that the waitress holding the tray was actually the daughter of the man who owned his soul.

I was working undercover at his club, playing the role of a poor nobody to test his character before our wedding.

But tonight, the test ended in disaster.

His mistress, Jaden, walked in and treated me like dirt. When I brought her drink, she slapped the tray, spilling scalding coffee all over my hand.

The pain was white-hot. My skin blistered instantly, peeling away in angry red patches.

I showed Connor the injury on a video call, expecting protection. Expecting him to be a man.

Instead, he looked at my burned hand and then at his investors. Panic filled his eyes.

"Fix it, Blake," he roared. "Apologize to her."

"She burned me," I said quietly.

"I don't care! Kneel if you have to. Kiss her ring. Just make her happy so I can finish this deal!"

He told the Principessa of the Shaw crime family to kneel to a woman who meant nothing.

He sacrificed his future wife to save face.

Something inside me snapped. It wasn't my heart; it was the leash I had placed on myself.

"Okay," I whispered.

I hung up the phone and dropped it into a pot of boiling pasta water.

Then I turned to the Executive Chef, a former hitman who recognized the lethal shift in my eyes.

"Lock the doors," I ordered.

"And tell my father I'm ready to burn this place to the ground."

Chapter 1

My fiancé sent me a text ordering me to serve his mistress, unaware that the waitress holding the tray was actually the daughter of the man who owned his soul.

I stared down at the spiderweb fracture on the screen of the burner phone tucked into my apron pocket.

Handle it, Blake. She's important. Keep the peace.

Connor Bishop believed he was texting his submissive, lower-class fiancée-a woman who worked this job purely for the novelty of playing poor.

He didn't know he was texting the Principessa of the Shaw crime family.

He didn't know I was here to weigh his soul and decide if he lived or died.

I shoved the phone back into the pocket of my polyester apron.

The cheap fabric scratched against my skin-a stark, abrasive contrast to the silk I had been draped in since birth.

I stood in the shadows of The Velvet Lounge, the VIP section of Connor's club, The Gilded Cage.

This was supposed to be a partnership.

My father, David Shaw, the Capo dei Capi, had agreed to this union to secure the East Coast ports.

But I wasn't going to marry a man without testing the strength of his spine first.

So I became a runner.

A nobody.

A ghost in the machine of his empire.

And tonight, that machine was breaking.

The elevator doors slid open with a soft chime.

Jaden Juarez stepped out.

She stood out like a neon sign in a graveyard.

Her pink dress was agonizingly tight, her mink coat dragged carelessly on the floor, and her entire attitude screamed new money.

She didn't wait for the hostess.

She walked right past the velvet rope.

The security guard, a made man named Tony, stepped forward.

"Miss, I need to check your-"

Jaden shoved him.

She actually put her hands on a made man.

"Do you know who I am?" she screeched.

Tony froze.

He glanced at the floor manager, Mark.

Mark wasn't just a manager; he was a Capo.

He should have backhanded her for the disrespect.

Instead, Mark rushed forward, wringing his hands like a nervous servant.

"Miss Juarez, right this way. Please, forgive Tony. He's new."

He wasn't new.

He was weak.

And Connor allowed it.

I watched from the shadows of the service station, my blood cooling to a glacial temper.

This was the Bishop family.

A hierarchy built on sand.

They feared a mistress because of a blood debt Connor owed her more than they respected their own soldiers.

Jaden sat at the center table, the best seat in the house.

She snapped her fingers.

"You. The girl with the dead eyes."

She was pointing at me.

I didn't move at first.

Mark snatched my arm.

His grip was tight enough to bruise.

"Go," he hissed. "Get her whatever she wants. Connor said she's VIP."

I looked down at Mark's hand on my arm.

If I were wearing my ring, he would be missing those fingers by morning.

"Let go," I said softly.

Mark blinked, surprised by the tone.

He dropped his hand, but his glare remained.

"Don't embarrass us, Bella."

Bella.

That was the name on my nametag.

I walked over to the table.

Jaden looked me up and down, curling her lip in disgust.

"Get me an Espresso Martini. Grey Goose. And don't make it sweet."

"We're out of Grey Goose," I lied smoothly.

I just wanted to see what she would do.

"Then go buy some," she snapped. "And get me cigarettes. Menthol."

She tossed a twenty-dollar bill at me.

It fluttered to the floor.

"I'm not a valet," I said.

The music seemed to stop.

Jaden's eyes went wide.

"Excuse me?"

"I serve drinks," I said, my voice flat and devoid of emotion. "I don't run errands."

Jaden laughed.

It was a sharp, ugly sound.

"Mark!" she screamed.

Mark was there in a second.

"She's refusing me," Jaden said, pointing a manicured nail at my face. "Fire her."

Mark turned to me, panic in his eyes.

"Go get the cigarettes, Bella. Now."

"Why are you bowing to her?" I asked him, keeping my voice low. "You're a Capo."

Mark's face went red.

"I'm following orders. Connor said she is untouchable. She saved his sister. Now move."

A blood debt.

Personal favors were corrupting business operations.

It was the first rule of Omertà my father taught me: never let the heart steer the ship.

Connor had let a lifeguard who pulled his sister out of a pool dictate the rules of his organization.

He was a boy playing dress-up in a king's costume.

I bent down and retrieved the twenty-dollar bill.

Not because I was obedient.

But because I needed to see how deep this rot went.

"Yes, Ma'am," I said.

The sarcasm dripped from my lips like poison.

I turned and walked away.

I pulled out my phone again.

I typed a message to Connor.

She is testing the fence. She is disrespecting your men.

The reply came instantly.

She is family, Blake. Handle it. No scenes.

I stared at the screen.

He had chosen the path of least resistance.

He chose the coward's way out.

I slid the phone back into my pocket.

It was time to burn the costume to ash.

Returning with the cigarettes and a pack of matches, I placed them on the table. Jaden didn't bother to look up from her phone.

"Light it," she said.

I stood there, motionless.

"I said light it."

She looked up then, her eyes heavy with bored malice.

I struck a match. The flame flared to life, smelling sharp of sulfur. I held it out. She leaned in, inhaling deeply, before blowing smoke directly into my face.

"See?" she smirked. "You can be useful."

I didn't cough. I didn't blink. I just turned and walked back to the service station.

Ten minutes later, the bartender handed me the Espresso Martini. It wasn't in a chilled glass; steam curled from the dark liquid.

"She sent the last two back," he muttered, wiping the counter aggressively. "Said they were too cold. How can a martini be too cold? So I steamed the damn thing. Let's see her complain now."

"She's not drinking them," I said. "She's playing."

"She asked for you specifically," he warned. "Said she wanted the incompetent one."

I took the tray. My hand was steady, but inside, I was tallying the debt. Every insult. Every violation of protocol. It was all going into a ledger that would be paid in blood.

I walked down the VIP corridor. Jaden saw me coming and stood up, blocking my path. She swayed a little, feigning more intoxication than she felt.

"Finally," she slurred.

I held the tray out. "Your drink."

She didn't take the glass. Instead, she reached out and grabbed my free hand. Her fingers dug into my palm with unnecessary force. She flipped my hand over, inspecting the calluses on my fingertips.

"Look at these rough hands," she laughed, loud enough for the nearby tables to turn and look. "Working hands. Peasant hands."

They were creator's calluses. From paintbrushes. From charcoal. From sculpting clay. Things she would never understand, nor possess the soul to appreciate.

"You're nothing," she whispered, leaning close enough that I could smell the expensive wine on her breath. "I own this city. You're just the help."

"Let go," I said.

"Make me."

She looked at the steaming martini on the tray. Then she looked at me. A cruel smile spread across her face.

She brought her hand up and slapped the bottom of the tray. Hard.

The glass tipped. The scalding coffee and vodka splashed over my hand. The tray shattered on the floor.

The pain was instant-a white-hot shock that stole the air from my lungs. My skin blistered immediately under the assault of the liquid heat.

I didn't scream. Shaws don't scream.

I dropped the tray, clutching my wrist, my breath coming in short, sharp gasps. The lounge went silent.

Jaden jumped back, pantomiming horror.

"Oh my god!" she shrieked. "She threw it at me! Did you see that? She tried to burn me!"

I looked at my hand. The skin was seared angry red, peeling in spots. The smell of burnt coffee and scorched flesh filled the air.

Mark came running. He looked at the broken glass. He looked at Jaden, who was clutching her pearls, completely dry. Then he looked at me. He saw the burns. He saw the steam rising from my skin.

But he looked back at Jaden.

"Are you okay, Miss Juarez?"

"She's crazy!" Jaden yelled. "Fire her! I want her gone!"

Mark turned to me. His eyes were hard. He made his choice. Politics over truth. Revenue over decency.

"Clean this up," he barked at me. "And get out. You're done."

"She burned me," I said. My voice was quiet. Deadly.

"Don't lie," Mark spat. "I saw you trip. You're clumsy and you're a liability. Get to the kitchen. Get out of my sight."

He didn't offer ice. He didn't call a medic. He ordered the victim to hide so the aggressor could be comfortable.

I looked at Mark. I memorized the lines of his face. I would remember him when the purge began.

"Okay," I said.

I walked toward the kitchen. My hand was on fire. But my spine had turned to steel.

I shoved my hand under the cold water tap in the prep sink, hissing through my teeth.

But the relief was minor.

The damage was done.

The kitchen was a chaotic symphony of shouted orders and sizzling pans, a machine running at full steam.

But everything stopped dead when Jaden Juarez walked in.

She pushed through the swinging doors like she owned the building.

"It smells disgusting in here," she announced, wrinkling her nose as if she'd stepped into a sewer.

She walked right up to the pass, ignoring the frantic workflow around her.

"I want a steak," she said to the line cooks. "Wagyu. And put my caviar on it."

She slammed a small, warm jar of caviar onto the stainless steel counter.

It was cheap caviar.

A personal stash she'd dragged in from God knows where.

Austin Gordon stepped out from the back.

He was the Executive Chef, a giant of a man with arms covered in ink that disappeared under his pristine chef's whites.

He didn't move like a cook.

He moved like a predator.

Silent.

Efficient.

Lethal.

He looked at the jar of caviar, his expression unreadable.

"No," Austin said.

His voice was a deep rumble that vibrated through the floorboards.

"Excuse me?" Jaden asked, blinking.

"That's a health code violation," Austin said, crossing his massive arms. "And it's an insult to the meat. I won't serve it."

Jaden's face turned purple.

She whipped out her phone.

"I'm calling Connor."

She hit FaceTime and held the phone up, panning it around the kitchen to expose the staff.

"Say hello to your boss," she sneered.

Connor's face appeared on the screen.

He looked beyond stressed.

He was in a boardroom, and I could see men in suits behind him.

Investors.

The Apex Cartel.

"Jaden, honey, I'm in a meeting," Connor said, his voice tight.

"Your staff is abusing me!" Jaden wailed, turning on the waterworks instantly. "The chef won't cook my food, and that waitress attacked me!"

She turned the camera on me.

I was still at the sink, clutching my wet, burned hand.

I looked directly into the lens.

I held up my hand.

The blisters were bubbling now, angry and red.

Connor saw it.

I saw his eyes widen, a flicker of genuine worry passing through the pixelated image.

"Blake?" he said.

"She burned me," I said.

My voice carried clearly over the kitchen noise.

"She threw a drink at me!" Jaden screamed over me. "Connor, look at these people! They don't respect you! They don't respect who I am!"

The men behind Connor shifted.

One of them checked his watch.

I saw Connor's gaze dart to the investor. Panic flared in his eyes.

He had to look in control.

He had to look like a boss who could manage his house.

"Give her what she wants," Connor snapped.

"Connor," I said, my voice low. "She assaulted me."

"I don't care!" he roared. "I have five million dollars on the table right now! Jaden is a guest! Fix it!"

Austin stepped into the frame, blocking out the kitchen lights.

"You want us to apologize to the assailant?" Austin asked.

"I want peace!" Connor screamed. "Blake, apologize to her. Now."

The kitchen went dead silent.

"What?" I asked.

"Kneel if you have to," Connor said.

"Beg her pardon. Kiss her ring. I don't care. Just make her happy so I can finish this deal."

Kneel.

He told the daughter of David Shaw to kneel to a badge bunny.

He told his future wife to bow to his mistress.

I felt something snap inside me.

It wasn't my heart.

It was the leash I had placed on myself.

"Are you sure, Connor?" I asked.

"Do it!" he yelled. "That is a direct order!"

I looked at the phone.

I looked at Jaden, who was smirking, triumphant.

"Okay," I said.

I walked over to Jaden.

She puffed out her chest, waiting for the apology.

I reached out and snatched the phone from her hand.

"Hey!" she yelled.

I looked at Connor one last time.

"You failed," I whispered.

I ended the call.

Then, without breaking eye contact with Jaden, I dropped the phone into a pot of boiling pasta water.

Jaden screamed.

I turned to Austin.

My voice changed.

The waitress was gone.

The Principessa was here.

"Austin," I said. "Lock the doors."