Chapter 1 - THE THREAT
“Because someone has already tried to kill you.”
For a second, I thought I had misunderstood him.
My father stood behind his enormous desk, Manhattan spread out behind him in a wall of glass, and looked at me with an expression I had never seen on James Hart’s face before.
Fear.
Not irritation. Not disappointment. Not the cold impatience he reserved for employees who wasted his time.
Fear.
I slowly lowered my bag.
“What did you say?”
He reached for the untouched coffee beside him, then seemed to realize his hand was shaking and left it where it was.
“Tuesday night,” he said. “A man entered your building using a stolen maintenance badge.”
My skin went cold.
Tuesday night I had been at the library until almost midnight.
“He was caught on a security camera.”
“Doing what?”
My father’s mouth tightened.
“Waiting outside your apartment.”
I stared at him.
“How long?”
“Forty-three minutes.”
The number was too precise. That made it worse.
“What happened to him?”
“He left before you came home.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know, or you’re not telling me?”
His silence told me which one.
I stood so quickly the chair rolled backward.
“This is insane. Call the police.”
“I did.”
That surprised me.
“And?”
“And the badge was stolen, the face was mostly hidden, and the man was gone before anyone could identify him.”
“So your solution is marriage?”
“My solution is keeping you alive.”
I laughed once, but there was nothing funny in it.
“To a Caruso.”
“Yes.”
“You’re protecting me from a dangerous man by handing me to another dangerous man.”
“Nicholas Caruso is dangerous to people who give him a reason to be.”
“That might be the least comforting sentence you’ve ever spoken.”
My father came around the desk.
“Evie, listen to me. This isn’t a game. The people involved here don’t care that you’re twenty-two or that you have exams or that you’ve never had anything to do with my business.”
“Your business.”
I looked at him.
“There it is again. What did you do?”
He looked toward the windows.
“My company was involved in a land acquisition in Brooklyn.”
I waited.
“A competing group wanted the property.”
“A group?”
He ignored the question.
“They believed I had something belonging to them.”
“Did you?”
He looked at me.
That was enough.
I pressed my palms against the edge of his desk.
“What?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“You keep saying that like it makes you sound mysterious instead of guilty.”
“It’s information you’re safer not knowing.”
“I’m apparently marrying a mafia boss on Saturday. I think we’re past safer.”
He closed his eyes for a moment.
Then he said, “Nicholas’s father and I had an arrangement before he died.”
I knew enough about the Caruso family to know his father, Vittorio Caruso, had died two years earlier. Officially, a heart attack. Unofficially, the gossip columns had managed to suggest everything from poisoning to a rival family without printing anything that could get them sued.
“What kind of arrangement?”
“One that kept certain people out of our development projects.”
“And now?”
“Now those people believe the old agreement died with Vittorio.”
“But Nicholas doesn’t.”
“No.”
“So you’re marrying me to him as a business contract.”
“I’m giving them a reason not to touch you.”
My anger faltered.
I hated that it did.
I hated even more that my father could see it.
He moved closer.
“Nico has the resources to keep you safe. More than I do.”
“If he’s so powerful, why does he need to marry me?”
My father’s gaze shifted.
There.
Another secret.
I pointed at him.
“That. That face. What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nicholas has his reasons.”
“Which are?”
“You can ask him tonight.”
I blinked.
“Tonight?”
“You’re having dinner with him.”
“Of course I am.”
“At eight.”
“I have plans.”
“Cancel them.”
“I have a study group.”
His expression almost cracked.
“You’re worried about a study group?”
“I’m worried about the exam you told me I’m not taking.”
He exhaled sharply.
“You can finish school after the wedding.”
“After the wedding? I’m not being deployed.”
“Evelyn.”
“No. I’m taking my exam, and I’m finishing my semester. If Nicholas Caruso wants a decorative wife who sits in a mansion and smiles when he enters the room, he picked the wrong woman.”
For the first time that morning, something almost like pride flashed in my father’s face.
It disappeared fast.
“I suspect he already knows that.”
I did take my exam.
I also spent the entire two hours thinking about the stranger outside my apartment.
Every time someone opened the classroom door, my shoulders tightened.
Every time my phone buzzed afterward, my pulse jumped.
By seven-thirty, I was standing in front of my closet wearing a black dress I had bought for a university fundraiser and wondering what exactly one wore to meet the mafia boss one was supposed to marry.
Something virginal seemed dishonest.
Something red seemed suicidal.
I settled on black.
My father’s driver collected me at seven-forty.
This time there were two other men in the SUV.
Neither introduced himself.
“Security?” I asked.
The older one nodded.
That made my stomach tighten.
We drove north instead of downtown.
“Where are we going?”
“Mr. Caruso’s residence.”
“Which one?”
The man beside the driver looked back at me.
“You know he has more than one?”
“I can use Google.”
He almost smiled.
The house was in Riverdale, on a quiet street overlooking the Hudson. It wasn’t what I expected. No giant gates. No stone lions. No men with rifles walking the roofline.
Just an old brick mansion with warm lights behind tall windows and several expensive cars parked discreetly along the drive.
That should have reassured me.
It didn’t.
A man in a charcoal suit opened the door before I knocked.
“Miss Hart.”
“Still, yes.”
His mouth twitched.
“This way.”
The dining room could have seated twenty, but the table had been set for two.
Nicholas Caruso stood near the windows, one hand in his pocket.
I had seen photographs of him.
Photographs were useless.
He was taller than I expected, broad shouldered without looking like he spent his life in a gym, and dressed in a dark suit with no tie. His hair was almost black. So were his eyes.
He didn’t look like a monster.
That would have been easier.
He looked controlled.
“Evelyn.”
“Nicholas.”
“Nico.”
“We’re not friends.”
Something moved at the corner of his mouth.
“Noted.”
He gestured to the table.
I sat.
He took the chair across from me, not the one at the head.
That surprised me enough that I noticed.
A woman appeared, poured water, and left.
No wine.
“Am I being tested?” I asked.
“For what?”
“You didn’t give me alcohol.”
“Do you want alcohol?”
“No.”
“Then apparently I passed.”
I narrowed my eyes.
He looked amused.
I had expected arrogant. Maybe cruel.
Amused was irritatingly worse.
“Why are you marrying me?”
He leaned back.
“No small talk?”
“I have a constitutional law reading due tomorrow.”
“You’ll miss it if I waste your time?”
“Yes.”
“I heard you took your exam today.”
“Did my father complain?”
“He mentioned it.”
“He probably used the word stubborn.”
“Several times.”
“You should know he only uses that word when a woman refuses to obey him.”
Nico’s gaze sharpened.
“Useful information.”
“Now answer my question.”
He studied me for a long moment.
“Your father needs my protection.”
“That explains why he wants this marriage. Not why you do.”
“I need a public alliance with Hart Meridian.”
“Why?”
“Business.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the answer I’m giving you.”
I leaned forward.
“If you’re expecting me to marry you while knowing nothing, cancel Saturday.”
He didn’t blink.
“You think you can cancel it?”
“I can say no.”
“Your father told you what happens if you do.”
“He threatened me financially.”
“He also told you someone followed you.”
I went still.
“How do you know that?”
“Because my men found him.”
Every sound in the room disappeared.
“What?”
“Tuesday night. The man outside your apartment.”
“You found him?”
“Yes.”
“Where is he?”
Nico’s face became very still.
“Not a problem anymore.”
My stomach turned.
“What does that mean?”
“It means he won’t come near you again.”
“Nicholas.”
“You wanted honesty.”
“I want an answer.”
“That is the answer.”
I pushed my chair back an inch.
“You killed him?”
“No.”
The speed of the reply made me believe it.
“Then what happened?”
“We identified him. He was paid to photograph your movements and confirm when you were alone.”
My fingers tightened around the edge of the table.
“By whom?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Convenient.”
“If I knew, this conversation would be different.”
“How?”
His eyes held mine.
“You wouldn’t be getting married Saturday.”
A chill moved over my arms.
“Because the threat would be gone?”
“Because the person responsible would be.”
I believed him then too.
I wished I didn’t.
Dinner arrived. Neither of us touched it.
“What exactly happens after Saturday?” I asked.
“You move into my house.”
“No.”
His brows lifted.
“No?”
“I have an apartment.”
“You had an apartment.”
I stared at him.
He continued calmly.
“It is not secure.”
“You don’t get to decide where I live.”
“For as long as someone is putting men outside your door, I do.”
“We’ve known each other twelve minutes.”
“Fourteen.”
“That doesn’t help.”
“You’re right.”
He reached for his water.
“It’s been a difficult fourteen minutes.”
I almost laughed.
I refused to give him the satisfaction.
“Separate rooms,” I said.
“Obviously.”
That offended me.
I didn’t know why.
“Obviously?”
“You don’t know me.”
“You’re not exactly my childhood sweetheart either.”
“Then we agree.”
“And I finish school.”
“Yes.”
I blinked.
“Yes?”
“Yes.”
“No argument?”
“Why would I stop you?”
“My father would.”
“I’m not your father.”
The words were quiet, but something about them landed.
I sat back.
“Do you expect children?”
Nico nearly choked on his water.
It was the first human thing he had done.
I enjoyed it immensely.
“Eventually,” he said.
“No.”
He wiped his mouth with a napkin.
“Evelyn—”
“If you’re marrying me because you need heirs, choose someone else.”
“I’m not.”
“Good.”
“Good.”
We stared at each other.
“This may be the strangest negotiation of my life,” I said.
“Mine too.”
“I doubt that.”
He smiled then.
A real smile.
It changed his face enough that I understood exactly why photographers followed him.
Dangerous men should not have dimples.
It felt like fraud.
His phone buzzed.
The smile vanished.
He looked at the screen.
Something in his posture changed.
“What?”
He stood.
“We’re leaving.”
“Excuse me?”
“Now.”
The dining room doors opened before I could ask another question. Two men entered quickly.
Nico came around the table and held out his hand.
I stared at it.
“What happened?”
“Someone followed your car from Manhattan.”
My pulse jumped.
“The security car?”
“They lost him two blocks from here.”
I looked toward the windows.
A curtain moved slightly in the night air from a vent.
Nothing outside looked different.
That was the worst part.
Nico held out his hand again.
“Evelyn.”
I took it.
His fingers closed around mine.
Warm. Firm. Steady.
He moved me through the house without running, but everyone around us was suddenly moving fast.
We went through a kitchen, then down a short hall toward a rear garage.
“What is happening?”
“You’re going back to Manhattan in another car.”
“With who?”
“Me.”
“I thought dinner was over.”
“It is.”
“So why are you coming?”
He looked at me as a man opened the rear door of a black SUV.
“Because until Saturday, you’re still technically your father’s responsibility.”
“And after Saturday?”
His gaze moved over my face.
“After Saturday, anyone who wants to reach James Hart through you has to come through me first.”
There was nothing romantic in the sentence.
Nothing gentle.
And yet, as I slid into the car and Nico followed, I realized my father had been right about one thing.
May you like
Nicholas Caruso was dangerous.
The frightening part was that, for the first time all day, I was relieved he was sitting beside me.
