LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER ONE

      IT WAS RUMORED that Dante Fiori could condemn a man to any level of hell he chose with the mere lift of his brow.

      Powerful. Ruthless. Determined.

      Dante was not a man to be trifled with or tested. He’d raised himself up from the slums with the aid of his mentor, Robert King, but then not only had he gone on to exceed the man’s expectations, he’d increased his fortune, as well.

      Dante was a force in the world. A man all other men looked to—save his best friend, Maximus King, who found him overrated in the extreme and was the only person who had the nerve to say so. A man all women wanted to be with.

      A king in whichever kingdom he chose to rule, whether he was a King by blood or not.

      So it was shocking, then, when the world turned on its axis right in the middle of the King family’s grand living room.

      Dante was in town, and he’d been invited over, as he often was, to join the family for their rather loud and raucous get-togethers. They were celebrating the launch of their oldest daughter Violet’s new makeup line, in a live video being broadcast from a nearby San Diego beach, to millions of viewers on her various media platforms.

      Robert was lounging in his oversize chair, his wife, Elizabeth, sitting on the arm. Maximus was sitting back on the couch, one leg flung out in front of him, phone in one hand, a scotch in the other.

      There was one family member missing. Two, actually. Minerva King, the youngest daughter and constant irritant, and her baby.

      Dante had difficulty accepting the existence of the newest, smallest member of the King clan.

      Min was nothing like Maximus or Violet. Maximus was a brilliant PR mind. A handler to the most difficult clients in the world. He did everything with a smile that the untrained eye might not be able to see was shot through with steel.

      Violet was stunning. Keen and ambitious, she’d transformed her beauty into a multimillion-dollar enterprise. She was the driving force and face of her brand.

      Then there was Min.

      A little brown mouse who scurried about the grounds, always trailing about the place with animals dripping from her arms and a skinned knee. Her cheeks were always red, her hair always in a state.

      And she talked. Constantly. About nothing.

      She’d gone abroad to study nearly one year ago, and when she’d returned, it had been with a baby who was barely a month old. While initially shocked, over the past four months her family had accepted the existence of the little girl easily enough. The Kings weren’t old-fashioned.

      The shock hadn’t come from the fact their daughter had broken with tradition and had a child out of wedlock—presumably with a foreign stranger—but that it had been Minerva and not Violet.

      Dante did not feel accepting of it at all. He felt a strange burning in his chest when he looked at Min with the baby. This untamable, wild thing now tied down to earth by a child. By motherhood. She should be...out climbing trees. No matter that she was twenty-one, he couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that she was a woman now.

      A mother.

      The other urge he had was to find the man who had done it to her and send him back to dust.

      Send him straight down to the ninth level where he could sit next to Lucifer himself.

      It infuriated him perhaps because Minerva always seemed so hapless. Running around like a windmill, and falling down, often undented. Though she had been badly dented once at an event of her father’s, and he remembered it well.

      Some boy she liked publicly humiliating her on the dance floor.

      Robert King had nearly had a stroke, and his anger had only embarrassed Min all the more.

      She’d been seventeen or so. Dante had danced with her because she’d needed a partner.

       Don’t let them see you cry.

      He’d said it sternly. More than he’d meant, but it had done the trick.

      The idea that someone had harmed her now enraged him all over again.

      He wasn’t in the habit of questioning himself. He simply acted when he felt action needed to occur. And perhaps that was the issue here. There was no action to be taken.

      It didn’t matter. Minerva didn’t matter. Neither did her current situation.

      All eyes were on Violet and would be for the next fifteen minutes while she unveiled her next series of products. And then it would be time for Dante to speak to Robert about the joining of the two companies again.

      He had been trying to tell Robert it was the best thing for everyone. And, of course, some of it was that Dante felt entitled to King Industries as he had helped to build it. He had gone off and made his own fortune, but his ultimate goal was a merger between the two.

      Of course, Robert had feelings about keeping it all in the family.

      But Maximus had no interest at all. Maximus was a billionaire, and his business methods were unorthodox. He had no interest in manufacturing.

      Violet was much the same, and while she used King Industries to help make her products, she developed them on her own, and used her father’s business simply for the manufacturing end, containing development and distribution within her own brand.

      Only Minerva remained to take over the family business, and he knew that Minerva would have no interest in such a thing.

      She was not... Ambitious.

      Minerva was not brave.

      If she were here now, it would be as if she weren’t. She would simply be sitting in a corner, clutching her baby and looking around.

      Unless she began to chatter.

      But typically, she was quiet as her father commanded during times such as these.

      Violet’s beautiful, perfectly made-up face appeared on the screen, and the whole family paid heed. Dante looked up, sparing the screen only a glance before looking back down at his own phone.

      But then, a moment later it wasn’t Violet’s voice he heard.

      “I know you’re watching to hear about my sister’s products, and not to hear family gossip. But, as her new makeup line is called Rumors, I thought that I would put some rumors about me to rest.”

      He looked up and saw his brown mouse.

      There was Minerva, her dark hair hanging loose and unstyled past her shoulders, not straight, not curled, somewhere in between. She was holding the baby, gripped tightly against her body.

      “There has been much discussion in regards to the paternity of my baby girl. I’m used to being the King that no one has any interest in. And yet, the interest surrounding Isabella’s birth has been unprecedented for me. Well, it’s time for the secret come out.” Brilliant green eyes met the camera, Min’s only stunning feature. And they were glowing now. “The father of my baby is Dante Fiori.”

      Whatever else was happening on the screen, not a single person in the family was watching now.

      All eyes had turned to him.

      He

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