Instead, she felt a sudden, gentle warmth brush against her shoulder. When she opened her eyes, Dante Moretti was kneeling down on one knee right beside her. He had transferred Ellie—who was still deeply, blissfully asleep—into Clara’s shaking arms.
Clara clutched her baby to her chest like a lifeline, burying her face in Ellie’s sweet-smelling curls, sobbing quietly into the soft cotton of her onesie.
“Listen to me carefully, Clara,” Dante said, his voice returning to its cool, professional authority. “I don't run a charity. But I also don't make a habit of terrorizing mothers who are simply trying to feed their children.”
Clara looked up, wiping a stray tear from her cheek, her eyes wide with confusion. “What... what are you saying?”
Dante picked up the crimson-edged ledger from the desk and held it out toward her. “Your husband stole three hundred thousand dollars from my organization before he wrapped his car around a telephone pole. The men he stole it from are still looking for it. They think you have it.”
“I don't!” Clara protested frantically. “I swear to you, I don't have any money! If I did, I wouldn't be scrubbing floors upstairs for minimum wage!”
“I know you don't have it,” Dante repeated calmly. “Because Marcus gambled it away at an underground baccarat club in Cicero forty-eight hours before he died. But the vultures don't believe that. They are going to come looking for you and Ellie very soon.”
The blood drained from Clara’s face, leaving her looking ghostly white. The restaurant upstairs, the rent notices, the eviction threats—suddenly, all of those paled in comparison to the terrifying reality that her husband’s syndicate enemies were closing in.
“Then... where can we go?” Clara choked out, clutching Ellie tighter. “How do we hide from them?”
“You don't hide,” Dante said simply, standing back up and towering over her. “You come under my protection.”
Clara blinked, stunned. “Protection? From you?”
“From me,” Dante confirmed without a trace of arrogance. “Starting tonight, you and Ellie are moving out of that drafty tenement apartment on the south side. You will be relocated to a secure estate in the Gold Coast district. You will have round-the-clock security, a private nursery, and a legitimate salary that will clear every debt Marcus left behind.”
Clara stared at him as if he were speaking a foreign language. “And... and what’s the catch? What do you want in return? My soul? My labor?”
A faint, grim smile touched the corner of Dante’s mouth—a rare expression that made him look human for a split second.
“My executive assistant is stepping down to care for an ailing parent,” Dante explained, walking back to his desk and picking up a gold fountain pen. “You have a degree in business administration from Northwestern that you never got to use because Marcus knocked you up and dropped you into poverty. You will work as my chief administrative secretary during the day, managing my legitimate real estate portfolios. And in exchange, I ensure that nobody—not creditors, not rogue syndicate captains, and not ghosts from Marcus’s past—ever lays a finger on you or your daughter again.”
Clara looked down at Ellie, who stirred softly, letting out a tiny yawn and blinking her wide, innocent eyes open. The baby looked up at Dante, who had walked back over, and let out a happy, toothless grin, reaching out her tiny hand to grab at the gold lapel pin on Dante’s suit jacket.
Dante actually hesitated for a fraction of a second, before allowing the baby’s tiny fingers to wrap around the metal pin.
Clara looked back up at the most feared man in Chicago, realizing with a chilling, overwhelming wave of clarity that she had no choice. The devil had just offered her salvation disguised as a contract, and she was going to sign it in blood if she had to.
“Deal,” Clara whispered.