Chapter 1 - The Question
The entire private dining room went completely silent.
My father stared at Dominic Vale with a rigid, panicked smile.
He had expected the infamous mafia boss to ignore the plus-size daughter sitting at the far end of the table.
Instead, Dominic was looking directly at me with those cold, calculating gray eyes.
"What exactly do you do for this company?" Dominic repeated, his voice dangerously soft.
My father immediately tried to intervene, waving his hand dismissively.
"Claire just files paperwork, Mr. Vale."
"I did not ask you, Charles," Dominic said without breaking eye contact with me.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.
Madison, Lauren, and Emily exchanged nervous, confused glances.
I pressed my thumb against my index finger one last time to steady my racing pulse.
Then I spoke.
"I fix the mistakes everyone else makes."
My father let out a sharp, breathless laugh, trying to play off my answer as a joke.
"Claire has a very active imagination," he forced out.
I did not back down.
"This morning, I caught a quarter-million-dollar error in our health insurance renewals," I stated calmly.
"By lunch, I recovered nine hundred thousand dollars from a client in Savannah because our executive team forgot to file the maritime compliance forms."
My father's face turned a violent shade of red.
"That is enough, Claire," he hissed.
Dominic leaned back in his leather chair, a slow, dark smile spreading across his face.
"So, the three beautiful daughters are just expensive window dressing," Dominic concluded.
He gestured gracefully toward me with his expensive crystal whiskey glass.
"And the woman sitting in the shadows is the actual brain of Whitmore Freight."
Nobody dared to breathe.
"This is highly unprofessional," my father stammered, standing up from his chair.
"We are leaving."
My father signaled for my stepmother and sisters to gather their expensive designer coats.
"Sit down, Charles," Dominic commanded.
My father froze, recognizing the lethal edge that had suddenly entered the billionaire's voice.
"You are not leaving," Dominic continued, setting his glass onto the table with a heavy thud.
"Because three hours ago, US Customs intercepted one of your cargo ships in the Baltimore harbor."
My father turned completely pale, sinking slowly back into his chair.
"They found two tons of unmanifested military-grade weapons hidden inside a shipment of textiles," Dominic revealed.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
Whitmore Freight had absolutely no military contracts, and we exclusively shipped commercial goods.
"And unfortunately for you, Charles," Dominic whispered, leaning forward.
May you like
"Those weapons belonged to me."
Before my father could even open his mouth to deny it, the heavy mahogany doors of the dining room locked from the outside with a loud, terrifying click.
