Chapter 23: Chapter 22 The Princess Decree
"You don’t own me," I snapped.
My voice didn’t shake. I wasn’t going to cry, and I damn sure wasn’t going to beg him. I was just boiling angry.
Laziel didn’t even blink. "Legally? No." He flipped a page on his document. "Practically? That’s a different conversation."
"We’re leaving," I said, grabbing Anastelle’s small hand.
I turned around and marched toward the exit. I got halfway to the door before one of the massive bodyguards quietly stepped sideways. He didn’t touch me. He didn’t even raise a hand. He just placed his entire six-foot-tall frame directly in front of the door frame, completely blocking the exit.
I glared up at him. "Move."
The guard didn’t move an inch. He didn’t even look at me; his eyes were fixed straight ahead.
I whipped my head back around to look at Laziel. "Tell him to move."
With just a wave of his hand. The guard moved.
"See..... Nobody is stopping you."
I frowned. He was letting me go? Just like that?
"Unfortunately," Laziel continued, finally raising his icy eyes to meet mine, "you no longer have anywhere to go."
Reality started crashing down on me all at once. I didn’t have an apartment. I didn’t have a job. Giulia was currently staying with her aunt across town because she had been fired, too. Hotels required credit card deposits I couldn’t afford, and new landlords required references I no longer had.
I literally had nowhere to take a four-year-old child in the middle of the city.
Anastelle pulled on my hand, looking up at me with wide, innocent green eyes. "Mommy? Are we going home?"
That single question completely destroyed me. Because there wasn’t a home anymore. I didn’t have an answer for her.
Laziel stood up from his chair. He looked past me, his gaze landing entirely on my daughter.
"Where else can she sleep tonight?" he asked.
I bit the inside of my cheek. He knew he had me cornered, and he knew I couldn’t sacrifice my daughter’s safety just to protect my own pride.
"Come," Laziel said.
He simply walked out from behind his desk and strode toward the private side door of his office. He didn’t look back to see if I was following him. He didn’t need to. In his mind, the trap had already snapped shut. I had zero choices left.
"Let’s go, Mommy," Anastelle whispered.
Instead of staying by my side, she took three quick steps forward and reached out, wrapping her entire little hand around Laziel’s index finger.
I froze, my heart practically stopping in my chest.
L She didn’t do it because she loved him. She didn’t know he was a dangerous billionaire who had just systematically dismantled our entire lives in less than twenty-four hours. She was just four years old. She was curious, she saw a tall man walking, and she completely trusted the "Snack Man" who had just let her eat cookies on his floor.
I internally panicked, watching my daughter walk right beside him, trying to match his long strides. It was terrifying how comfortable she was around him.
The side door led back out into the main executive hallway. The moment we stepped out, the atmosphere shifted again.
Ugh!!! What’s with all the workers staring.
They all froze dead in their tracks.
"She’s walking beside him..." they whispered. "Not behind him. Beside him."
Nobody walked beside Laziel Monroe. His assistants walked four
steps behind. His security detailed followed at a distance. But right now, a broke secretary and a four-year-old girl holding his finger were walking right at his flank.
We reached the private elevator—the one only he had access to. Laziel pressed his thumb against the biometric fingerprint scanner. The scanner beeped, the light turned green, and the doors slid open.
I stopped at the threshold, my feet glued to the floor.
Laziel stepped inside, turning around to face me.
"Either enter," he said, his voice flat and completely devoid of emotion. "Or stay unemployed."
I swallowed the lump of humiliation in my throat, grabbed Anastelle’s hand away from his finger, and stepped inside the elevator. The doors immediately slid shut, cutting off the staring eyes of his staff.
The second the lift started moving, Anastelle let go of my hand and began spinning around in circles, her eyes wide as she caught her own reflection from every angle.
"Mommy!" she chirped, her laughter echoing in the small space. "Look! I look like four Anastelles!"
I tried to force a smile, but my face felt completely numb. I glanced up, expecting Laziel to look annoyed or snap at her for making noise.
Instead, he was just watching her. The corner of his mouth gave a tiny, almost imperceptible twitch. He didn’t smile, but the icy mask on his face cracked just enough for me to see it. He looked away the second he noticed me watching him.
Wait Laziel almost smiled?
Almost.
The elevator took us straight down to the private basement garage, where his matte-black Lamborghini was already waiting.
The drive through Milan was entirely silent. Anastelle eventually fell asleep against my thigh, exhausted from her prehistoric lecture with the bodyguards. I just stared out the window, watching the city lights blur together as we passed through the first security gate, and then the second gate, of his massive estate.
The car stopped, and the front doors of the mansion were already open before we even reached the steps.
An elderly housekeeper in a perfectly pressed uniform stood waiting at the entrance. The moment we walked inside, she looked straight at Anastelle who was
rub-your-eyes tired, leaning heavily against my side.
"Welcome home, little miss," the housekeeper said gently. "Your room is completely ready. I have warm milk and a fresh change of clothes waiting upstairs."
Anastelle’s sleepiness completely vanished. Her head tilting all the way back as she took in the high walls, the twin grand staircases sweeping upward, and the massive crystal chandelier hanging above us. In the corner, a grand piano sat.
Her jaw literally dropped. She looked at the stairs, then at the paintings, and finally at him.
"Mommy," Anastelle whispered loudly. "Snack Man lives in a palace. Is he a king?"
I opened my mouth to shush her, but she was already turning in a circle.
"So we’ll live here?" she asked, "Am I a princess now?"
I opened my mouth to tell her no—to explain that we were only here because we had been backed into a corner by a man who didn’t know the meaning of a fair fight.
"Yes," a deep voice cut in.
Laziel stood a few feet away, unbuttoning his suit jacket.
"You are," he said.
I slowly turned my head to look at him, my brain completely stalling. "...What?"
The housekeeper, who had been about to lead us upstairs, blinked twice, her hands freezing mid-air. Two servants holding trays near the corridor stopped walking entirely. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the stoic guards near the entrance glance briefly at his partner, his eyebrows twitching upward.
Laziel Monroe did not joke. He didn’t do playful banter, and he certainly didn’t do fairy tales. So when those words left his mouth, it didn’t sound like a sweet reassurance to a toddler. It sounded like a decree.
He calmly handed his jacket to the nearest servant. "From today onward, everyone addresses her as Princess."
My jaw dropped.
The servants didn’t look at each other this time. They didn’t question it, because nobody argued with Laziel unless they wanted to find themselves out of a job before midnight. The entire room shifted into standard operating protocol.
The house keeper bowed her head slightly. "Yes, Mr. Monroe."
She turned back toward my daughter, her smile warm. "Of course... Princess. Follow me, please."
Anastelle grabbed my hand, tugging it with all her strength. "Mommy! I’m really a princess!"
I stood there, completely paralyzed, watching the staff of this estate completely accept a four-year-old as royalty just because the man in charge said so.
He has completely lost his mind, I thought, staring at the back of his head as he walked away. The billionaire has officially gone insane.
