ella

ter was the sweetest s

water swallowed his tailored suit. He gasped, choking on the very water that had stolen my Josie's f

. The memory of Don Damien Falcone's deep, rumbling voice echoed in the

aded my body and my dignity to the Devil of Chicago for a pathetic

remnants of the naive, obedient wife I had once been. "I swear it," I whispered to t

nto a searing, absolute white. The sound of splashing water vanished, replaced by a high-pitched ringing tha

reezing win

me, mingling with the heavy, expensive scent of aged whiskey and Cuban cigars. I blinke

ssive floor-to-ceiling window. Outside, the glittering skyl

d and bleeding from the stone fountain. They were perfectly manicured, t

9

ct winter night Hudson Higgins, a lowly Associate desperate for a seat at the table,

ed, growing heavy and charged with a dangerous, suffocating gravity.

mien F

dline. At thirty-two, he ruled the Cosa Nostra (Our Thing) with an iron fist and a heart of ice. He was a predator wrap

iating heat of his massive frame behind me before he even touche

I had suffered in my past life-shot down my spine. My body instinctively

, Isa

kin. It was the voice that had haunted my memories, laced

in his gilded cage. But the woman standing here now was a mother who had held

the bile rising in my throat and leaned ba

n wanted to use me to climb the ranks, I would use the Don's dark, twisted obsession with me

ng his pitch-black, predatory ey

keeping my voice perfectly steady, playing the

tion. Tomorrow, my treacherous husband would undoubtedly want to celebrate his sickening t

ying the perfectly tamed wife, while I carefully w