Chapter 1 - The Name
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The breath left my lungs in a slow, jagged exhale as Dante Caruso walked away, his three guards trailing him like shadows perfectly synced to his movements.
My supervisor, Brenda, stared at the retreating figures with wide, terrified eyes. The clipboard in her hands was shaking so violently that the metal clip rattled against the plastic.
“Emma,” she whispered, her voice barely carrying over the soft jazz playing in the ballroom. “Please tell me you did not just argue with Dante Caruso.”
“I didn’t argue with him,” I replied, staring down at the thick black card resting in my palm. The cardstock was heavy, matte, with only a phone number embossed in silver lettering. “He told my ex-husband to leave.”
“He is the head of the Caruso family,” Brenda hissed, pulling me behind the velvet curtain that separated the kitchen from the VIP section. “He owns the ports. He owns half the politicians in this city. Men who look at him wrong disappear before breakfast. And he just handed you his personal card.”
I looked at the silver numbers again. My mind was still reeling from the humiliation Marcus had dragged into the room, but beneath the sting of my ex-husband’s words, a strange, undeniable heat lingered. Dante had not looked at me with pity. He had looked at me with a quiet, terrifying recognition.
“I need to clock out,” I murmured, slipping the card into the pocket of my apron.
“Go,” Brenda said instantly, clearly eager to remove any association with the mafia boss from her floor. “Take the back exit.”
The walk home to my cramped apartment was a miserable blur of freezing rain and blistered feet. The cheap black flats I wore offered no protection from the puddles gathering on the uneven Chicago pavement. As I shivered under my thin coat, Marcus’s voice echoed in my ears. Couldn’t keep a husband, could you?
May you like
He had always known exactly where to slide the knife. But tonight, a stranger had caught the blade before it could sink deep.
When I finally reached my apartment, I locked the deadbolt and leaned against the peeling paint of the door. The silence of the empty room was usually a comfort. Tonight, it felt suffocating. I pulled the black card from my pocket and set it on the kitchen counter. It felt like a live grenade sitting next to my unpaid electric bill.
