Page 22 of Billionaire’s Heartbreak

Her eyes narrowed. “What are you saying?”

“June, don’t be naïve.” I exhaled hard. “Dannie’s family is complicated. If anyone finds out what he’s planning, they’ll do whatever it takes to stop it.”

I stared at her.

“Why were Grandma and Auntie Five murdered?” I asked. “Have you really thought about it?”

“Go on.”

“Grandma still held influence, even if she wasn’t active. People respected her. Listened to her. Auntie Five too—maybe she had less power, but she still had a voice.” I paused. “With both of them gone… who’s next after Dannie?”

“Laura.”

“On paper, yes. In reality?”

“His uncle?”

“Exactly.” I leaned forward. “If Dannie’s right, his uncle benefits most from their deaths. Not to mention any distant relatives you might not even know about.”

She swallowed, drawing in a slow breath. “Right.”

“You see how dangerous this is now?” I searched her face, hoping something had finally sunk in. “Does anyone know he’s sick?”

“No.”

“Good. But don’t be surprised if someone has already found out.”

Her gaze locked onto mine. “Do you want to tell me exactly what’s wrong with him?”

5

June

* * *

By the time the meeting ended, the funeral was over.

I hadn’t even had the chance to properly say goodbye to his grandmother or Auntie Five. I hadn’t known either of them well, but his grandmother had always been kind to me from the very beginning. Auntie Five… whenever I saw her, she was either tipsy or asleep somewhere she probably shouldn’t have been.

Still, not saying goodbye sat heavily in my chest.

Squirrel drove Kai and me to an old restaurant in a run-down part of town I’d never explored. The place was loud and packed. Every table downstairs was occupied, people queued outside, and orders were shouted back and forth between staff like a well-rehearsed storm.

He led us across a yellow-stained floor toward the back, then up a narrow staircase.

Upstairs was larger—maybe they’d taken over the neighboring units—but it still felt cramped. Thirty, maybe forty tables squeezed into the space, leaving barely enough room for the waiters to weave between them. The air was thick with food, voices, cigarette smoke drifting in from somewhere nearby, and the relentless heat of too many bodies packed together.

My chest tightened. Too many people. Too little air. At the front stood a small stage decorated with the red character for double happiness—a wedding banquet setup.

The sight tugged at an old memory—an old, dingy restaurant in New York’s Chinatown. The first place my brothers had ever snuck me to as a teenager. My first outing without our parents. My mother had been furious when she found out. Lincoln and Liam took the blame. I was sent to bed, confused about why everyone was so angry.

I spotted Dannie at a table in the center of the room. Without thinking, I moved toward him. Heads turned as I passed. Eyes followed me, scanning, measuring. Dannie greeted me, asked a few polite questions, then gestured for Squirrel to take Kai and me to our seats. We ended up side by side at a table directly in front of the stage.

What a strange setup. It would’ve made sense if we were a couple celebrating something. But we weren’t. I had accepted our breakup. Our distance. He wasn’t mine. I wasn’t his. Still, sitting beside Kai, so visible to everyone in the room, felt wrong.

Unlike the events I used to attend, there were hardly any women here. No wives in designer dresses. No polite small talk. No carefully rehearsed smiles.

Just men. Hard faces. Heavy watches. Scarred knuckles. Eyes that noticed everything.