Chapter 4 - Rules for Living with a Mafia Boss
Leo’s home was not a mansion.
Norah expected a mansion.
Something vulgar.
Gold railings.
Statues.
Maybe a fountain shaped like a lion because crime apparently made men allergic to subtlety.
Instead, his primary residence occupied the top three floors of a converted warehouse near the river.
Brick.
Steel.
Dark wood.
Large windows overlooking Chicago.
Minimal furniture.
No gold.
No lions.
Norah found this disappointing.
“This is where you live?”
“Yes.”
“It looks like an architect is afraid of color.”
Leo looked at his black sofa.
“I like gray.”
“That is not a personality.”
He almost smiled.
Thirty hours after surgery, he should have been in bed.
Instead, he stood beside the elevator while Matteo carried one suitcase Norah had collected from her apartment.
One suitcase.
Again.
The similarity bothered her.
Two years earlier, Norah left her old life with one suitcase and a fake name.
Now she entered a mafia boss’s home the same way.
Only this time she intended to leave by choice.
“Guest room,” Leo said.
“Lock?”
“Yes.”
“Inside?”
“Yes.”
“Does anyone else have a key?”
“Matteo.”
“No.”
Leo looked at Matteo.
Matteo handed Norah the key.
She waited.
Leo sighed.
“And mine.”
He gave her a second key.
“Better.”
Matteo muttered:
“Boss, she just disarmed the household.”
“Temporarily.”
Norah looked at him.
“Do not create a spare.”
Matteo looked deeply wounded.
She liked him more every hour.
Leo’s sister arrived at noon.
Francesca Castiglione.
Thirty-two.
Black hair.
Cream coat.
The kind of face fashion magazines used to sell expensive things.
She entered, saw Norah in borrowed sweatpants drinking coffee at the kitchen island, and stopped.
“So you’re the laundry wife.”
Norah looked at Leo.
“Laundry wife?”
He closed his eyes.
“Francesca.”
“What? That’s what Matteo called her.”
Matteo looked away.
Traitor.
Francesca came closer.
“You’re real.”
“Unfortunately.”
“And you stitched him with upholstery thread.”
“Yes.”
Francesca stared at Leo.
“I like her.”
“No one asked.”
“I’m family.”
“That has never stopped you before.”
Norah watched.
This was not the cold mafia dynasty she expected.
They sounded like siblings.
Actual siblings.
Annoying each other.
Interrupting.
Remembering old embarrassments.
That made Leo more difficult to reduce to monster.
She preferred simpler enemies.
Francesca sat beside her.
“Bianca turned herself in.”
“I heard.”
“She says Leo tried to have her killed.”
“I heard that too.”
“She’s lying.”
“You sound sure.”
Francesca looked at Leo.
“He would tell me.”
Norah almost laughed.
“Family confidence is not evidence.”
Francesca blinked.
Then smiled.
“Oh, I definitely like you.”
Leo took medication.
Norah watched.
He noticed.
“I took it.”
“I saw.”
“You don’t trust me with pills?”
“I don’t trust anyone who leaves major surgery after six hours.”
“I signed myself out.”
“Yes. That was stupid.”
“It was necessary.”
“Words men use before tearing stitches.”
He looked at Matteo.
“Why is everyone against me?”
Matteo said:
“She has medical authority.”
“She does not have a license.”
Norah raised one eyebrow.
Leo stopped.
Good.
At one, Damon Pierce arrived with the thirty-day agreement.
Norah insisted on independent counsel first.
Leo arranged three names.
She chose none.
Instead, she called a legal aid attorney she knew from her old hospital days.
Mara Greene.
Mara listened to the situation in silence.
Then:
“You married a mafia boss in a laundry room.”
“Yes.”
“After performing surgery with upholstery thread.”
“Yes.”
“And now you want me to review a cohabitation agreement tied to a nine-hundred-million-dollar dock penalty.”
“Yes.”
“You always did overachieve.”
Mara arrived two hours later.
No fear.
Red boots.
Large glasses.
She looked at Leo.
“I bill triple for criminal organizations.”
“Fine.”
“And quadruple if anyone threatens me.”
Leo looked at Norah.
“She is your friend.”
“Yes.”
“That explains it.”
Mara reviewed everything.
Marriage certificate.
DeLuca agreement.
Draft protections.
She found three problems.
First:
The marriage was fully legal.
Second:
The DeLuca penalty could attach if either spouse initiated dissolution before ninety days.
Third:
If Norah disappeared, Leo could not claim abandonment for thirty days, meaning the truce would remain uncertain and violence could still begin.
Norah leaned back.
“So I am legally inconvenient.”
Mara nodded.
“Extremely.”
“Can I sign something waiving the docks?”
Leo said:
“No.”
She looked at him.
“Why?”
“They are not yours to waive.”
“They become relevant because I leave.”
“Yes.”
“So let me agree the docks transfer if I leave.”
“No.”
“Leo.”
“No.”
His tone sharpened.
Norah’s did too.
“Remember the rules.”
He stopped.
Then:
“I will not let Carlo DeLuca use you as the mechanism to take my docks.”
“That sounds like pride.”
“It is.”
“Wonderful.”
“It is also strategy.”
“Less wonderful.”
Mara raised one hand.
“Children.”
Both stopped.
She looked at Leo.
“If Norah leaves on day thirty, do you intend to honor your promise not to stop her?”
“Yes.”
“Even if it costs the docks?”
“Yes.”
Norah stared at him.
He did not look at her.
Mara continued.
“Then put it in writing.”
Damon Pierce looked horrified.
Leo said:
“Do it.”
Norah’s chest tightened.
Mara wrote the clause.
NORAH COLLINS MAY TERMINATE COHABITATION AND LEAVE AT ANY TIME. NO AGENT OF LEONARDO CASTIGLIONE MAY DETAIN, FOLLOW, THREATEN, COERCE, OR FINANCIALLY PENALIZE HER FOR DOING SO. ANY THIRD-PARTY CONSEQUENCE SHALL BE BORNE SOLELY BY CASTIGLIONE.
Norah read it twice.
Then looked at Leo.
“You’d lose nine hundred million.”
“Maybe.”
“Why?”
“Because a contract I signed before meeting you is my problem.”
That was the first thing he had said all day she could not argue with.
She signed.
Leo signed.
Mara took an original copy.
“Mine,” she said.
Damon started to object.
Mara looked at him.
“Try me.”
Damon did not.
At five, Norah returned to St. Vincent’s with Elias.
Not through the front entrance.
Through medical administration.
Her old ID no longer worked.
That hurt more than expected.
Elias took her to a private office.
One sealed envelope waited.
The safe-deposit bullet had arrived by courier with legal documentation.
Mara came too.
Independent witness.
The bullet sat inside a small evidence tube.
Norah stared.
Tiny.
Deformed.
Metal.
Two years of ruin.
Elias whispered:
“I should have done this then.”
“Yes.”
No forgiveness.
Not yet.
A ballistics expert selected by Mara examined it.
Preliminary rifling marks.
Old database comparison.
Forty minutes.
Then he looked up.
“This does not match Marco Castiglione’s registered handgun.”
Norah stared.
Leo had sent records for comparison.
“Then Elias was wrong.”
“Not exactly.”
The expert turned the monitor.
“The bullet matches a backup weapon registered to Castiglione Security.”
Leo’s family anyway.
“Assigned to who?”
The expert checked.
Norah’s stomach tightened.
“Leonardo Castiglione.”
Silence.
Leo’s personal gun.
Norah looked at him.
He had insisted on coming despite her objection.
He stood near the back wall.
His face had gone cold.
“That weapon was stolen.”
“When?”
“Two years and four months ago.”
“The night Mahoney was shot?”
“Yes.”
“By who?”
Leo’s voice became quiet.
“Marco.”
Everything stopped.
His cousin stole Leo’s gun.
Shot Mahoney.
Then disappeared.
Rayburn framed the shooting as police crossfire and destroyed Norah to cover the evidence.
“Why?” she whispered.
Leo looked at the bullet.
“Because Marco was not undercover for me.”
Matteo, beside him, went still.
Francesca, who had insisted on coming, whispered:
“Leo.”
Norah stared.
“You lied.”
His face tightened.
“I was wrong.”
“No.”
She stepped closer.
“You told me Marco was inside Vescari’s organization for your family.”
“That is what I believed then.”
“When did you learn otherwise?”
Leo hesitated.
Wrong.
The rule.
No lying about Marco.
“When?”
“Six months ago.”
Norah felt cold.
“You knew before the hotel.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“I did not know you were connected.”
“That isn’t the point.”
“It is relevant.”
“No.”
She looked at the bullet.
“What was Marco doing?”
Leo said nothing.
Norah’s voice hardened.
“Rule number seven.”
His eyes met hers.
Then he answered.
“Marco was working for federal investigators.”
Silence.
Not Castiglione.
Not Vescari.
Federal.
“Informant?”
“More than that.”
“What?”
Leo looked at the ballistics report.
“He was trying to bring down both families.”
Norah stared.
“Yours too.”
“Yes.”
“And you found out six months ago.”
“Yes.”
“What happened to him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Dead?”
“We assumed.”
“Body?”
“No.”
Of course.
Norah laughed once.
“No body.”
“No.”
“And Bianca?”
Leo’s expression changed.
Norah caught it.
“What about her?”
He looked toward Francesca.
Then back.
“Marco and Bianca were in contact.”
“When?”
“Until last week.”
Norah’s heart accelerated.
“Marco is alive.”
“I don’t know.”
“Someone used his channel.”
“Maybe.”
“Bianca ran from your wedding because of Marco.”
Leo looked away.
That was enough.
Norah stepped back.
The fake marriage was not simply tied to Rayburn and Vescari.
Bianca’s disappearance may have been connected to a man everyone thought dead.
A man carrying Leo’s gun.
A man who tried to expose both criminal families.
And Leo had known there was a chance before asking Norah for thirty days of honesty.
She stared at him.
“You said no lying.”
“I know.”
“You lasted less than one day.”
“I did not lie.”
“You curated.”
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
“That is what powerful men call lying when they want to keep respect.”
Francesca looked at the floor.
Matteo said nothing.
Norah picked up her coat.
Leo stepped forward.
“Where are you going?”
“Your house.”
He looked surprised.
“To pack.”
His face changed.
“Norah.”
“You wrote that I can leave.”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s test whether your signature means more than your promises.”
She walked out.
Leo did not stop her.
That mattered.
It did not make her less angry.
By the time Norah reached the elevator, her phone rang.
Unknown number.
She almost ignored it.
Then a text arrived.
DO NOT LEAVE CASTIGLIONE.
RAYBURN IS WAITING FOR YOU TO RUN.
Attached photograph.
Taken five minutes earlier.
Her old apartment building.
Rayburn standing across the street.
And beside him:
Bianca DeLuca.
Not in police custody.
Free.
Smiling.
Norah stopped walking.
May you like
A second message appeared.
ASK LEO WHY HIS FIRST BRIDE IS WORKING WITH THE COP WHO KILLED YOUR CAREER.
