No One Could Handle the Mafia Boss’s Daughter — Until a Poor Waitress Did the Impossible. Everyone around held their breath in anticipation.

Casey exhaled through her nose. “Of course she is.”

The pool house was a glittering wreck. A chaise lounge floated crookedly in the water. A side table lay shattered against a wall of glass. Sienna sat at the edge of the indoor pool in a white robe over a swimsuit, smoking and staring at the black water as if she might see another life in it.

When Casey stepped in, Sienna turned her head.

“The waitress,” she said.

“Casey.”

Sienna gave a small, humorless laugh. “Did my father buy you?”

“He hired me.”

“To babysit me?”

“To stop you from dying stupidly.”

That got Sienna’s full attention.

She rose slowly, cigarette between two fingers, and crossed the room. Up close, she looked younger than her fury had suggested. Twenty-two, maybe. Beautiful, yes, but also frayed around the edges. Her eyeliner smudged. Her hands faintly shaking. Her arrogance, Casey realized, was less a crown than a cast worn over some old break.

“You should leave while you still can,” Sienna said. “Everybody does.”

Casey shrugged. “Rent’s expensive.”

That startled a laugh out of Sienna, a real one this time, brief and sharp as broken glass.

Then the younger woman stepped closer and lowered her voice. “You think my father is the danger here because he’s the one in charge. He isn’t. Dante is.”

Casey hated the ridiculous leap her pulse gave at the name. “Good to know.”

Sienna studied her face. “That wasn’t fear.”

“No.”

“What was it?”

Casey met her gaze. “Annoyance.”

For a long beat, Sienna looked at her as if trying to decide whether Casey was brave, insane, or a combination dangerous enough to be interesting.

Then she flicked ash into the pool and said, “Fine. Stay. Let’s see how long you last.”

The answer, it turned out, was longer than anybody expected.

The first week was war disguised as routine. Sienna tried every trick available to a spoiled, wounded, ferociously intelligent woman who had been bored by obedience since childhood. She insulted Casey’s clothes, ignored her instructions, snuck vodka into morning smoothies, and vanished from rooms with the speed of a street magician. Casey answered with bluntness, stubbornness, and a refusal to be dazzled by money or frightened by threats.

When Sienna screamed, Casey waited her out.

When Sienna lied, Casey pointed at the lie until it got embarrassed and sat down.

When Sienna declared, “You are the most irritating woman I’ve ever met,” Casey replied, “That means I’m doing my job.”