Chapter 3 - The Breakfast Trap
The first two months of their married life played out exactly as everyone in the Chicago underworld predicted.
At least, that was how it looked from the outside.
Seth practically lived out of his downtown headquarters, rarely coming home to the Lake Forest estate, treating the marriage as nothing more than a signed contract sitting in a safe deposit box. Back at the manor, the household staff treated Fiona like unwanted, clumsy furniture.
The head housekeeper, Helen Gable, was particularly cruel and relentless. Helen had worked for the Basil family for twenty-two tyrannical years and had apparently decided that tenure made her the uncrowned queen of the estate.
One crisp autumn morning, Fiona walked down the grand staircase and entered the sunlit breakfast room, expecting her requested light meal. Instead, she found only a heavily carb-loaded spread waiting for her at the grand oak table: a mountain of greasy pancakes dripping in maple syrup, heavy biscuits smothered in thick sausage gravy, and deep-fried pastries.
Fiona stopped, looked down at the food, and then raised her icy gaze to meet Helen, who was standing by the sideboard with a smug, patronizing smile.
"I specifically asked the kitchen staff for Greek yogurt, fresh berries, and egg whites," Fiona said, her voice dangerously calm.
Helen didn't even bother to hide her disdain. She crossed her arms over her crisp white apron. "Oh, my apologies, Mrs. Basil. I simply assumed that based on your... physical proportions, you wouldn't be interested in a strict diet. After all, a growing girl needs her fuel, doesn't she?"
The two junior maids standing near the service door covered their mouths and snickered quietly.
Fiona didn't raise her voice. She didn't throw a tantrum. Instead, she walked slowly to the head of the table, pulled out the heavy mahogany chair, and sat down with perfect posture.
"Helen," Fiona said softly, leaning forward just an inch. "In my family, people who cannot follow simple dietary instructions find themselves looking for new employment opportunities very quickly."
Helen scoffed openly, stepping forward. "Listen to me, little girl. You might carry the Basil last name because Seth took pity on your bankrupt father, but in this house, I run the staff. You are nothing here. You're just a heavy-set charity case hiding in a mansion you didn't earn."
Before Helen could finish her condescending speech, Fiona moved with terrifying, blinding speed.
In a fraction of a second, Fiona grabbed the heavy ceramic pitcher of boiling hot maple syrup sitting directly in front of her and swept her arm across the table. With calculated, violent precision, she didn't throw it at Helen—she hurled it directly against the priceless antique mahogany sideboard inches from Helen’s head.
Crash!
The heavy ceramic shattered into a thousand jagged pieces against the wood, sending scalding hot syrup and ceramic shrapnel flying in every direction. Helen screamed, jumping backward in sheer terror, her face draining completely of color as she slipped in the sticky mess.
The two junior maids froze, paralyzed with absolute fear, pressing themselves flat against the wallpaper.
Fiona stood up slowly, towering over the terrified housekeeper. Her eyes were no longer the soft, submissive pools people assumed them to be; they were hardened, lethal shards of ice.
"Next time," Fiona whispered, her voice dropping an octave into a chilling, deadpan register, "the pitcher won't miss the target. Now go back to the kitchens, pack your belongings, and if you are still breathing air inside this estate by noon, I will feed you to the guard dogs myself. Am I understood?"
Helen scrambled backward on the sticky floor, nodding frantically like a broken doll, and bolted out of the room without uttering a single word.
Fiona casually brushed a speck of dust from her sleeve, sat back down, and calmly reached for a piece of fruit from the sideboard.
She wasn't just a heavy-set bride forced into an arranged marriage.
May you like
She was the daughter of Viktor Callahan—the former legendary arms dealer and assassin trainer of the Eastern European syndicate, a man who had trained Fiona in hand-to-hand combat, tactical weaponry, and corporate espionage since she could walk. And her father hadn't died owing the Basils millions.
He had engineered the entire debt to plant his deadliest operative directly inside the Basil family fortress.
