Part 1: The Girl Chicago’s Mafia Boss Couldn’t Let Go

PART 1

She Whispered She’d Never Been Kissed — Then the Mafia Boss Who Owned Chicago Did the One Thing No One Expected

“I’ve never been kissed.”
The words slipped out of Emma Reynolds’s mouth before fear could drag them back.

One second earlier, Dante Moretti had been close enough for her to feel the heat of him, close enough for his hand to rest against her cheek, close enough for the entire city of Chicago to disappear behind the glass walls of his penthouse office. He was the kind of man people lowered their voices to talk about. The kind of man whose name could empty a room. The kind of man who did not ask twice.
And now he had gone completely still.
His hand froze against her jaw. His dark eyes, already dangerous, sharpened like a blade catching light.
Emma’s heart banged against her ribs.
She should not have come here at midnight. She should not have stepped off the elevator when the security desk was empty. She should not have walked into the private office of Dante Moretti, owner of restaurants, construction companies, shipping warehouses, and rumors

that followed him like smoke.
Most of all, she should not have told him the truth.
For one breathless second, she thought she had made the worst mistake of her life.
Then Dante’s thumb brushed her cheek so gently it nearly broke her.
His mouth curved, not into the cruel smile the tabloids whispered about, but into something slower, softer, almost sad.
“Then we take it easy,” he said.
Emma forgot how to breathe.
Because nothing about Dante Moretti looked easy.
There was blood on the collar of his white shirt. Not enough to look like an accident. Enough to make her understand why the empty hallway had felt wrong, why the elevator ride up had felt like a warning, why every sensible part of her had begged her to turn around.
But Emma Reynolds had spent twenty-six years ignoring warnings.
Warnings did not pay rent. Warnings did not cover

her mother’s overdue electric bill. Warnings did not keep a catering company from firing her when an invoice failed to reach the right desk.
So she had come.
With twelve dollars in her checking account, flour still under one fingernail, and an envelope clutched so tightly it had bent at the corners.
Dante looked down at her, and for the first time since she’d entered the room, Emma realized he was not touching her like a man claiming something.
He was touching her like a man afraid of breaking it.
“I should go,” she whispered.
“You should,” he said.
But he didn’t move away.
Neither did she.
The office around them was enormous, all black walnut, leather, and glass. Beyond the windows, Chicago glittered beneath the midnight sky, cold and beautiful, Lake Michigan a sheet of darkness in the distance. The room smelled faintly of whiskey, rain, and smoke.
Dante

Moretti smelled like danger dressed in expensive cologne.
“You came here alone?” he asked.
“I thought security would be downstairs.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I noticed.”
His eyes narrowed. “And you came up anyway.”