Chapter 1: Shadows in the Kitchen

The kitchen of the Rossi estate was the size of a commercial restaurant, all brushed steel and white marble. At 2:00 in the morning, it felt like a morgue.

Sadi leaned her weight against the edge of the deep farmhouse sink, letting the cold stone press through her damp apron and into her stomach. Her feet throbbed. A dull, rhythmic ache traveled from her heels all the way up her calves, the price of spending fourteen hours on her feet catering to men who treated her like part of the furniture.

She scrubbed a cast-iron skillet with a wire brush.

The scraping echoed beneath the high ceiling.

It was the only sound in the house.

Down in the basement, the security detail played poker in silence. Upstairs, the boss slept—or did not. No one really knew what Roman Rossi did when the lights went out.

Sadi preferred not to think about it.

Her job was to clean the messes. She did not ask how blood got onto the cuffs of shirts she took to the dry cleaner, and she did not ask why the heavy oak doors to the east wing were locked from the outside.

Her phone buzzed sharply in her apron pocket.

Sadi ignored it and dug the wire brush harder into the grease.

It buzzed again.

Then again.

Three rapid vibrations.

She sighed, dried her raw pink hands on a towel, and pulled out the phone.

The screen glared at her in the dim kitchen.

Her mother.

The messages had come in one after another.

“Are you still bringing a plus one tomorrow? I need to tell the caterer. It’s $150 a plate, Sadi.”

Then:

“Chloe is stressed enough. Please don’t make a scene by showing up alone and moping.”

And finally:

“Derek and his new fiancée will be at table 4. I put you at table 12 near the kitchen so you don’t feel awkward.”

Near the kitchen.

Of course.

So she would not feel awkward.

Or, more accurately, so she would not ruin the aesthetics of her younger sister’s perfect wedding photographs.

Sadi locked the phone and placed it facedown on the marble island.

A hot, thick lump formed in her throat. She swallowed hard, refusing to let it reach her eyes.

She was twenty-eight years old. She paid her own rent. She worked grueling hours without complaint. Yet a few messages from her mother could still reduce her to a pathetic, insecure teenager.

Derek.

Table 4.

She had not seen him in two years.

Not since the afternoon he had packed his things into his Honda Civic and told her, with a look of suffocating pity, that he needed someone who took care of themselves.

Three months later, he had become engaged to a Pilates instructor who weighed one hundred pounds soaking wet.

Sadi looked at her reflection in the dark, uncurtained window above the sink.

She saw the familiar curves, the soft jawline, broad shoulders, and thick thighs hidden beneath the drab uniform.

She had spent a lifetime trying to shrink herself, trying to occupy less space in a world that seemed to demand women be small and delicate.

It had never worked.

She was loud.

She was soft.

She was large.

And tomorrow, she was walking directly into the lion’s den.

Sadi turned on the faucet and let hot water run over her hands, simply to feel something other than the crushing weight of humiliation.

“I can’t do it,” she whispered.

Her own voice cracked through the empty kitchen.

It sounded small.

Weak.

“I can’t walk in there alone.”

She gripped the edge of the sink until her knuckles turned white.

The tears came then, hot and fast, spilling over her eyelashes and dropping onto the stainless steel.

Sadi wiped roughly at her face with the back of her wrist.

“I just… I need a boyfriend by tomorrow.”

It was a pathetic plea to a universe that did not care.

A wish thrown into a void.

Then a voice broke the silence.

Low, gravelly, and entirely too close.

“What time is the event?”

Sadi froze.

The blood drained from her face.

Slowly, she turned.

Roman Rossi sat at the far end of the island, half swallowed by shadow.

He was not wearing one of his usual tailored suits. He had on dark gray sweatpants and a black T-shirt stretched tightly across his chest. A glass of amber liquor rested in one hand.

In that light, he did not look like a mob boss.

He looked tired.

But his eyes—dark, calculating, entirely without warmth—were fixed on her.

“Mr. Rossi.”

Sadi gasped and pressed a hand to her chest.

“I—I didn’t know you were down here. I’m sorry. I’ll finish up and leave.”

“I asked you a question, Sadi.”

His voice barely rose above a murmur, yet it commanded the room.

Roman took a slow drink. Ice clicked against crystal.

“What time is the event tomorrow?”

Sadi stared at him, her thoughts stalling.

She wiped her hands frantically on her apron.

“It’s nothing, sir. Just a family thing. My sister’s wedding rehearsal dinner. I was just talking to myself. I apologize.”

She reached for her phone, desperate to escape.

“Table 12, near the kitchen,” Roman said.

Sadi’s stomach dropped.

He had seen the messages.

The phone had been faceup earlier, notifications glowing across the lock screen before she turned it over.

Humiliation burned through her veins.

“That’s private.”

The words escaped before she remembered whom she was speaking to.

You did not snap at Roman Rossi.

Men ended up at the bottom of the Chicago River for less.

Roman did not blink.

He merely studied her outburst with mild curiosity before setting his glass down.

The heavy thud sounded like a judge’s gavel.

“You make my coffee at 5:30 every morning,” he said. “You remember I take it black with a pinch of salt. When the feds raided this house last month, you didn’t panic. You kept sweeping the floor while they tore apart the drywall.”

“It’s my job.”

“You’re loyal. You’re quiet. You don’t ask questions.”

Roman stood.

At six-foot-three, he was massive, built like a heavyweight fighter disguised as a businessman.

He walked around the island, bare feet making almost no sound against the tile.

He stopped several feet from Sadi.

The smell of cedar, expensive soap, and something faintly metallic hovered around him.

“You need a boyfriend by tomorrow,” Roman said.

It was not a question.

“Someone to show up, sit at table 12, and make the ex-boyfriend at table 4 regret his life choices.”

Sadi crossed her arms over her chest.

She became painfully aware of herself.

Messy bun. No makeup. Exhausted eyes. A body that always seemed to take up too much room.

“Please don’t make fun of me, Mr. Rossi. I’ve had a really long day.”

“I don’t make fun of people, Sadi. I don’t have the sense of humor for it.”

His expression remained completely deadpan.

“What I have is a problem of my own. Tomorrow night, there is a sit-down with the Moretti family on the South Side. If I go, I have to kill two men. It’s going to be a messy, loud affair, and the police will be crawling all over my businesses by Sunday morning.”

Sadi stared at him with her mouth slightly open.

He was discussing murder with the same casual inflection another person might use to discuss the weather.

“However,” Roman continued, stepping closer, “if I am at a suburban rehearsal dinner in Naperville, surrounded by fifty civilian witnesses, eating dry chicken and making small talk with your mother, I have an ironclad alibi. My lieutenants can handle the Morettis quietly, and I remain completely untouchable.”

Sadi could barely breathe.

“You want…”

She swallowed.

“You want to come to my sister’s wedding dinner. As my date?”

“As your boyfriend,” Roman corrected. “A date implies we’re testing the waters. A boyfriend implies history. It implies I’m invested.”

“You don’t even know my last name.”

“Sadi Miller. Born in Oak Park. Twenty-eight. No criminal record. Awful credit score. And you owe twelve thousand dollars in student loans for an art history degree you don’t use.”

Roman recited the information without hesitation.

“I run background checks on everyone who works in my house. I know more about you than the idiot at table 4.”

Anger cut briefly through Sadi’s fear.

“You can’t just step into my life like it’s a business transaction.”

“Everything is a transaction, Sadi.”

Roman reached out.

She flinched.

He merely picked up her phone, wiped a smudge from its screen with his thumb, and handed it back.

“You want to walk into that room and watch them pity you? You want to sit near the kitchen and eat alone while they whisper about your weight and your failed relationship?”

His dark eyes held hers.

“Or you can walk in with me.”

Sadi looked at the phone and then at Roman.

He was not doing this to be kind.

Kindness did not exist in his world.

He needed leverage.

An alibi.

It was clinical.

But when she imagined Derek’s smug face and her mother’s condescending smile, something dark and reckless flared inside her.

“If you come, you have to play the part.”

Roman waited.

“No guns. No threatening the caterers. You have to pretend you actually like me.”

Roman’s gaze dropped briefly to her mouth before returning to her eyes.

A muscle moved in his jaw.

“I know how to play a part, Sadi.”

His voice was quieter now.

“What time do I pick you up?”

“6:00.”

“Be ready at 5:45.”

Roman turned and started toward the dark hallway.

“And Sadi.”

She looked at him.

“Tell your mother to move us to table 4.”