Page 56 of Billionaire’s Heartbreak

“What do you think?”

He took the beer and, with the same ridiculous party trick I’d seen countless times before, popped the cap off with his teeth. I watched it fly across the room and, without thinking, caught it.

Mario grinned.

“That,” he said, nodding toward the screen, “isn’t like you, boss.”

I sighed. “We don’t operate the way we used to.”

Mario took a long sip, his gaze fixed on the footage. “Maybe that’s the problem.” He shrugged. “People get comfortable when the boss gets too relaxed.”

I glanced back at the screen. And I hated that he might be right.

I’d gone soft.

After I learned that nobody had wanted to kidnap me—that the target had always been Dannie—the fear I’d carried for years slowly slipped away.

Then I started dialing down the security. My team shrank. I stopped having undercover men protecting me twenty-four hours a day.

At first, Jenny and Lucy refused to let me fire the men.

They didn’t want people losing their jobs simply because I’d decided the life I’d built around fear was no longer necessary.

So the people stayed. Their jobs changed.

Some ran errands for me and my family. Some helped around the house. Others found themselves doing things that had nothing to do with security.

I liked walking into a restaurant without counting the exits. I liked not having someone standing five feet behind me every second of the day. I liked being able to breathe.

Which was why calling Mario now felt like admitting I’d made a mistake.

I flipped the bottle cap between my fingers. Mario had always been my secret weapon. He wasn’t part of my regular security team—not really. He was something I kept hidden until I needed him.

An illegal gun in a locked drawer.

“Why am I here?” Mario asked.

I looked at him. “We need to take over a triad.”

The words hung in the room. For a moment, nobody moved.

Mario wasn’t the only one who did a double take. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Andy stop what she was doing and slowly turn toward me.

Then Mario nodded. “Yes, boss.”

That was one of the reasons I liked him. He didn’t waste time asking whether I’d lost my mind. He simply waited for the instructions.

He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it, taking a long drag before letting the smoke drift between his teeth. “Which one?”

“Dannie Wu’s.”

“Oh…” Mario’s mouth twisted. Then a slow, almost amused smile appeared. “Bcause he stole your woman?”

I laughed.

For a moment, the tension in the room disappeared. Mario laughed with me, louder than necessary, his shoulders shaking as he leaned back against the sofa.

“I like it, boss. That’s nuts.”