Chapter 1

I'd been with Vincent Maro for seven years. No title. No public acknowledgment.

Everyone in the Chicago mob knew the Maro family had a woman named Elena who could handle anything, carry anything. Nobody could say exactly what I was — not a wife, not a mistress, not a consigliere, not a hitter.

Vincent's definition was simpler than all of that: I fixed things for him.

In seven years I'd fixed his political rivals, fixed the manslaughter case his brother caught at a casino, fixed every woman who thought she could go to the press.

This time what he wanted me to fix was a man who was pestering his new girl, Sofia.

Sofia was the daughter of the Maro family's biggest creditor. Vincent had brought her in and set her up beside him. Stripped down, it was a transaction — a debt that couldn't be paid back in cash, so it got paid in a daughter, in affection.

Last month, at the Five Families' alliance dinner, the heir to the East Coast Caruso family asked Sofia, in front of everyone, if she'd like to step out for a walk. She said yes.

Vincent was standing right there, a whiskey in his hand. His eyes stayed on the glass. His thumb moved slowly against the rim.

A few minutes later Sofia came back wearing a ruby necklace that hadn't been there before.

I watched Vincent's fingers go still for exactly one second. Then he raised his glass to his friends.

After the dinner, I assumed he'd have me handle Sofia. Given his temper, his methods, the way the head of the Maro family had always done business — saying yes to another man in public, then walking back in wearing that man's necklace, anyone else would have been thrown out that night.

He didn't say a word about it. Sofia stayed in the house on Long Island. Vincent kept sending flowers every day, kept showing up every other day to see her.

Three days later, he called me.

The message was short: Handle it.

He couldn't go himself. If the Don of the Maro family bent his head to the Carusos over a woman, he'd lose face in front of all Five Families.

So he sent me.

Before I left, he added one more thing: "Sofia reminds me of you when you were younger."

I almost laughed.

I made an appointment with the Caruso heir and set the meeting on Caruso turf. The heir brought four men. I walked in alone, sat down across from him, slid a document across the table.

He glanced down, looked up. "What's this?"

"Ten years' exclusive operating rights to the northern stretch of the docks," I said. "You know what that necklace around Sofia's neck is worth. You figure out for yourself how much this deal is worth."

The Caruso heir studied me for a long moment, then started to smile.

"You're a total badass.."

He paused, rolling his lighter between his fingers.

"Shame. Vincent doesn't know what he's got."

I didn't answer. Didn't bother with niceties either. In this kind of room, any extra expression was a tell.

He pulled the necklace out of his pocket — he'd been carrying it, waiting for the Maros to come asking — set it on the table, pushed it across, picked up the agreement, and stood.

"Deal."

I got up, took the necklace, walked out, got in the car, drove back to the main house.

Vincent was waiting in the study.

"Done." I set the necklace on his desk.

He picked it up, glanced at it, dropped it into a drawer. "Good work."

Two words. The same way you'd praise a well-trained dog.

The second he said it his phone lit up. Sofia's name on the screen. He picked up, and his voice changed — softened into something gentle I had never once heard from him.

"It's over. I had it taken care of. Don't worry, stay put, I'll come by later."

He hung up. "Anything else?"

I slid a stack of documents in front of him.

These documents were real. Cleanup terms for the docks deal, wire transfer schedule on the Caruso side, the seating chart for next month's Commission meeting. Every one of them needed his signature. Every one of them, I'd prepared for him.

Like every other day for the last seven years.

Vincent picked up the pen, signed one after another, never once looking at what he was signing, his wrist moving fast.

He signed the last one, tossed the pen down, leaned back.

"Anything else?"

"No," I said. "It's all handled."

He made a small sound of acknowledgment and picked up his phone to text Sofia back.

I gathered the documents, turned, walked out of the study, pulled the door shut behind me.

The hallway was quiet. Only the sound of my heels on the marble.

I went to my room, locked the door, pulled one sheet out from the bottom of the stack.

His signature was still there, ink not yet dry.

It wasn't a cleanup clause. It wasn't a wire transfer agreement.

It was a termination authorization. Every internal identity I held inside the Maro family — accounts, access, contact systems, asset links — all of it, voided.

He had signed it himself.

He hadn't even looked.

I folded the sheet in half and slipped it into the inner pocket of my bag.

Today was the seventh anniversary of the day I joined the Maro family.

A day family members should have been celebrating with me. Except no one had remembered. No one but me.