BOUND TO KILL BOUND TO LOVE

Mia's pov

The epoxy floors of the De Luca estate looked expensive enough to make you forget the amount of blood that paid for them. I stood in the hallway outside my father's study, counting the seconds until someone remembered I existed. I was at eight minutes, forty-three seconds already which was actually a new record.

"Mia." My stepmother's voice cut through the silence, her voice was hoarse and filled with resentment for me for no particular reason. "Your father will see you now."

I turned to face Elena De Luca, a woman who'd perfected the art of looking disappointed without having to move a single muscle. "How generous of him, I was starting to think he'd forgotten he had three daughters instead of two."

"Don't be dramatic." She walked past me, her eyes rolling in spite, as her expensive perfume filled the air. "It's unbecoming."

Right, because being forgotten is so becoming. I followed her into the study, where my father sat behind his desk like a Godfather that was ordered from Temu surrounded by books he'd never read and weed pots.

Vittorio De Luca didn't look up, of course he wouldn't. Eye contact might accidentally convey paternal affection, and we couldn't have that.

"Sit," he barked with a commanding voice like he was talking to one of his slackers and not his daughter. But then again, that's exactly what I've been since mom died. Another one of his slackers.

I sat. Good dog, Mia, want a treat? I joked around in my mind.

Martha and Clara were already sitting on the sofa looking like matching dinosaurs in designer dresses. Martha's smile was filled with mischief and Clara's fake sympathy face was in full effect, the one that said "I'm so sorry this is happening to you" while secretly hoping it gets worse.

"We have an opportunity," my father began, finally gracing me with his attention. "One that requires your...particular expertise."

Oh good, nothing that starts with "particular expertise" has ever ended badly. "What kind of opportunity?"

"One that involved you getting married." He said still not sparing a glass in my direction.

I laughed and stopped, then started laughing again so hard until my tummy started to ache. "You're joking right?"

The silence that followed confirmed he was not, in fact, joking. The universe really did hate me more than I'd thought.

"Jonathan Mysterio," my father continued, as if he hadn't just detonated a grenade in the room. "The billionaire, you know him."

Know him, what a spectacularly inadequate verb for what Jonathan and I had been.

"I'm aware of who he is," I said carefully, grateful that my voice didn't crack even though everything inside me was.

Martha leaned forward cheerfully since her hobby had always been watching me reel in misery."We know you two had a...relationship. Last year, wasn't it? Before he dumped you?"

There it is, I'd wondered how long it would take for her to twist that knife. Apparently, thirty seconds was her personal