After 7 Years of Going Dutch, I Returned Home as a Mafia Heiress Chapter 07
Jessica’s smile froze on her face. “Wh… what did you say?”
“Book your own ticket. Go back, pack your things, and get out of my sight.”
Arthur turned around and grabbed his suit jacket from the back of his chair.
Jessica took two desperate steps after him, tears instantly welling in her eyes. “Arthur! What did I do wrong? Tell
me-”
He stopped for a half-second. “Those filthy little tricks you played behind my back… did you really think I couldn’t find out?”
“You even dared to steal the ruby brooch the company prepared for a client, wear it in photos to show off on social media?”
“And don’t ever set foot in San Rovia again. If I see your face in this city again, I have a hundred ways to make you wish you’d never been born.”
On the highway to the airport, he frantically sent messages to Vivian.
His screen was a wall of red exclamation marks.
When he tried to call, he was met only with the cold, mechanical voice of an operator.
He gripped his phone in his palm, his knuckles turning white.
During the ten-hour flight, he sat in his first-class seat with his eyes closed, but sleep never came.
His mind was filled with the rain-soaked Vivian, curling up on the floor in despair, crying and asking him why.
At the time, all he’d felt was annoyance at her fragile pride.
He thought he was paving the way for her.
He thought she would wait.
He thought that as long as he could push her to that position one day, all his past cruelty would be forgiven.
He’d never explained. Not once. Not ever.
When the plane landed in San Rovia, it was six in the morning.
He didn’t go home. He rushed straight to the office.
The receptionist shot to her feet. “Boss? You’re back early. I thought you weren’t landing until next Wednesday…”
“Where is Vivian?”
“Ms. Vivian… she…” The receptionist’s voice lowered. “She resigned. She completed her handover and left.”
“When did this happen?!”
“Three nights ago.”
Arthur sprinted toward the elevators. On the eighteenth floor, Vivian’s desk was empty.
Her computer was gone, the desk wiped completely clean. Not even the little cactus she had kept for three years
was left behind.
Arthur stood frozen in place, not moving for a long time.
Then, like a madman, he rushed downstairs, got in his car, and sped back to the penthouse on Vincross Street.
He threw open the front door. The apartment was suffocatingly quiet.
His shirts were still hanging neatly in the closet, but her half was completely empty.
Her slippers in the entryway were gone.
Not a single strand of hair was left on the bathroom vanity.
?
Her apartment key lay on the entryway cabinet, pinning down a note with a few words of chilling finality.
[Arthur, goodbye.]
He moved through the bedroom like a ghost, his eyes locking on a small pile of ashes in the fireplace.
He crouched down, using the tip of his leather shoe to poke at the charred scraps of paper and the curled edges of photo paper.
He sifted through the ashes and found a single, unburnt corner of a photograph.
The picture showed only half of his face, his eyes still holding the unreserved devotion he once had for her.
It was from seven years ago, when they were kissing under the cherry blossom trees in Central Park, and she had snapped it while blushing.
Arthur gripped that charred piece of photo paper. His heart felt like it was being torn to shreds, the pain so sharp he couldn’t breathe.
“Vivian,” he called out.
The apartment was so quiet he could hear his own breathing. No one answered.
He pulled out his phone and called his assistant.
“Tear San Rovia apart. The whole East Coast. Find her for me.”
The assistant didn’t dare make a sound.
After a long time, he heard Arthur’s lowered voice.
“At any cost.”
Three years later. I was sitting in my office on the third floor of the Rossi family’s private club.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling glass was the port of San Rovia. The lights of the cargo ships stretched all the way to
the horizon.
A solid black marble nameplate sat on the massive mahogany desk.
Gold-stamped letters spelled out a single name: Vivian.
At the monthly family meeting, our Consigliere, Silvio, stood to my right, reporting on the month’s ledgers.
That label from three years ago about “sleeping my way to the top”-no one dared whisper it in my presence
anymore.
I took the family’s legitimate businesses public, acquired two real estate firms, and brought every last one of my father’s stubborn old capos to heel. At the round table, they willingly moved the Don’s ring, from his right hand
over to mine.
Last month, at the family council, my father placed that ring on my thumb in front of every Capo.
“The heir to the Rossi family is my daughter, Vivian.”
The room was silent for three seconds, followed by applause.
Someone whispered behind me, “This Principessa is even more ruthless than her father.”
A small smile touched my lips.
The first time I heard it, I had to lock myself in the washroom just to breathe.
Eventually, I got used to it.
Used to being the only one left in the conference room at 3 A.M.
Used to returning to the estate on the hill and brewing a pot of strong espresso alone by the fireplace.
I was finally proving my worth to the only person who mattered: myself.
