Chapter 1
She Collapsed at the Mafia Boss’s Wedding, and the Baby Bump Under Her Coat Stopped the Vows Cold
The cathedral doors slammed open three seconds before Arthur Romano was supposed to say, “I do.”
Every head turned.
The string quartet died in the middle of a note.
Rain blew through the doorway in a silver sheet, carrying the cold September wind across polished marble and beneath rows of thousand-dollar dresses.
And there she stood.
Chloe Henderson.
Soaked to the skin.
One hand gripping the doorframe.
The other pressed protectively over the unmistakable curve beneath her coat.
Arthur forgot how to breathe.
For seven weeks, he had forced himself not to say her name.
For seven weeks, he had told himself leaving her had been an act of mercy.
For seven weeks, he had stood beside lawyers, advisers, men with guns hidden beneath tailored jackets, and convinced himself that marrying Vivien Croft was the price he had to pay to stop a war that would swallow half of Chicago.
Then Chloe staggered into his wedding.
And collapsed.
Arthur moved before anyone else understood what was happening.
“Chloe!”
He left the altar.
Not walked.
Ran.
Vivien’s hand slipped from his arm as if she had never been there.
Arthur cleared the three steps beneath the altar and caught Chloe an instant before her head struck the marble.
Her wet coat fell open in his arms.
The entire cathedral went silent.
Arthur stared down.
At her face.
At her trembling lips.
At the rounded swell beneath her burgundy dress.
His child.
The calculation happened cruelly fast.
Seven months.
His hands began to shake.
“Arthur...” Chloe whispered.
He bent over her.
“I’m here.”
Her fingers found his lapel.
“No.”
Her eyes struggled to focus.
“You don’t understand.”
“Don’t talk.”
“The wine.”
A terrible pressure entered her voice.
“Don’t drink the wine.”
Arthur’s eyes lifted toward the silver ceremonial cup waiting beside the altar.
Chloe tried to breathe.
“The Crofts...”
Her fingers tightened once.
“It’s poisoned.”
Then she went limp in his arms.
Arthur Romano had watched men beg for their lives without blinking.
He had buried a brother.
He had stood beside his father’s grave at twenty-six and inherited a criminal organization before the dirt had settled.
Nothing had ever terrified him the way Chloe’s silence did.
“Call an ambulance,” he said.
No one moved.
Arthur raised his head.
“Now!”
His roar cracked through the cathedral.
Guests flinched.
Leo Barnes, Arthur’s oldest friend and chief of security, already had his phone in his hand.
At the altar, Vivien Croft stared at Chloe’s stomach.
Then at Arthur.
Her face had turned white.
“Arthur,” she said carefully, “come back up here.”
He looked at her.
The woman he had nearly married seemed suddenly very far away.
Vivien’s father, Malcolm Croft, rose from the front pew.
“This is absurd.”
Arthur looked at the ceremonial wine.
Then at Malcolm.
“Leo.”
Leo understood immediately.
“Don’t touch the cup.”
A Croft guard moved.
Romano men moved with him.
Jackets opened.
Hands disappeared beneath fabric.
The room changed in half a second.
A wedding became a standoff.
Chloe stirred weakly against Arthur’s chest.
He looked down and saw something that froze his anger beneath a layer of panic.
Blood.
Not much.
A small dark stain spreading along the lower edge of her dress.
“Leo.”
Arthur’s voice became frighteningly quiet.
“Forget the wedding.”
He gathered Chloe against him.
“Get me a doctor.”
Then Arthur Romano carried the woman he had abandoned and the child he never knew existed straight down the aisle while a thousand people watched his empire begin to crack behind him.
Seven months earlier, Chloe Henderson had believed dangerous men looked different from everyone else.
She had imagined a coldness in their eyes.
A stiffness in the way they walked.
Maybe a warning carried in the air around them.
Arthur Romano ruined that theory on a Tuesday night by stumbling through the back door of Henderson’s Diner and bleeding onto a crate of tomatoes.
Chloe had been doing inventory.
Her younger brother was upstairs repairing a leaking pipe.
The kitchen had been closed for thirty minutes.
She heard metal hit the floor.
Then a low curse.
Chloe grabbed a skillet.
When she pushed open the storeroom door, she found a six-foot-three stranger leaning against the wall with one hand clamped to his side.
Expensive suit.
Blood between his fingers.
Dark hair wet from the rain.
And an expression that suggested the bleeding was more inconvenient than frightening.
“Don’t scream,” he said.
Chloe raised the skillet.
“Don’t bleed on my tomatoes.”
He stared at her.
May you like
She stared back.
Then, impossibly, he laughed.
