Chapter 1 - THE PRICE OF PROTECTION
“Just Be My Husband for One Night,” She Begged—The Mafia Boss Smirked, “How About Forever?”
Norah Hastings had until Friday to produce $400,000.
The money was not hers to repay. It belonged to her younger brother, Liam, who had borrowed it from the Tarasov syndicate before disappearing without explanation 3 days earlier. But the men who came to Norah's apartment that morning made it clear that the distinction did not matter to them.
They took her passport.
Then they told her what would happen if she failed to produce the money. She would be put aboard a cargo ship leaving the port and forced to work until her brother's debt had been repaid.
Norah understood what that threat meant. She had no realistic means of raising the money, no knowledge of her brother's whereabouts, and no reason to believe the men would release her once they had taken her.
By the time she arrived at Ilosto, a restaurant connected to one of the city's most powerful criminal figures, she had exhausted every alternative she could think of.
She had considered going to the police, but she believed the Tarasovs had influence within the local precinct. She had considered leaving the city, but her checking account contained only $30, and the men pursuing her had confiscated her passport.
At 26, she was an emergency-room nurse who had spent years building an independent life. She had no criminal record, no connections to organized crime, and no experience negotiating with the people who now controlled her future.
Yet she had come to ask a crime boss for a favor.
The man she needed was Dominic Russo.
He was 35 years old and controlled a criminal organization whose influence extended through the city's businesses, streets, and institutions. His holdings included the hospital where Norah worked double shifts in the emergency department.
She knew his reputation.
He was not a man who offered protection without receiving something in return.
But the Tarasovs feared him.
And Norah believed that fear might be the only thing capable of keeping her alive.
The private back room of Ilosto smelled of roasted garlic, expensive leather, and the lingering metallic trace of blood.
Norah stood on a Persian rug in the center of the room. October rain had soaked through her inexpensive trench coat, and water dripped from its hem onto the intricate patterns beneath her feet.
She clasped her hands tightly in front of herself, trying to keep them from shaking.
Across the room, Dominic sat behind a mahogany desk.
He did not resemble the ostentatious criminals Norah had seen portrayed in films. He wore a dark charcoal sweater rather than a pinstriped suit, and there were no large rings on his fingers. His closely cut dark hair was beginning to turn silver at the temples.
His broad shoulders and muscular build made him physically imposing, but it was his composure that unsettled her most.
He had not looked up since 2 guards escorted her through the double doors.
Instead, he continued writing in a leather-bound ledger with a fountain pen.
The silence stretched.
Norah waited, increasingly aware of the armed men near the entrance.
Finally, Dominic spoke.
"You have 3 minutes."
He did not lift his eyes.
He warned that when those 3 minutes expired, his associates would take her into the alley and break her legs for interrupting his dinner.
Norah swallowed.
"My brother owes the Tarasov syndicate $400,000. He disappeared 3 days ago. They came to my apartment this morning."
Dominic turned a page.
"Tragic. Sounds like a personal problem. The door is behind you."
"They took my passport."
Norah stepped forward.
One of the guards moved his hand toward the inside of his jacket.
Dominic raised a single finger.
The guard stopped.
Norah continued.
The Tarasovs had given her until Friday to pay the debt. Otherwise, they intended to put her on a cargo ship and force her to work for them.
She told Dominic that they both understood the implications.
His pen stopped moving.
He placed the cap on it, leaned back in his chair, and finally looked at her.
His eyes were dark and expressionless.
He wanted to know why she had come to him.
He did not operate a charity, he explained, and he had no intention of lending money to a desperate stranger or starting a war with the Russians over a gambler's sister.
Norah noticed that he already knew her name.
That should not have surprised her. Dominic's business interests reached into the hospital where she worked, and he possessed the resources to investigate almost anyone in the city.
Still, hearing him address her directly made the situation feel even more dangerous.
"Because they fear you," she answered.
The Tarasovs would not dare attack someone recognized as part of the Russo family.
Dominic studied her.
A faint smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.
"Property. Is that what you were offering to become?"
Norah pressed her fingernails into her palms.
She had spent much of the previous day considering the proposal she was about to make.
It was extreme, but every ordinary solution had failed.
She needed a way to place herself beyond the reach of the Tarasovs. Dominic needed something she believed she could provide.
"I have a proposal."
She straightened.
Norah had read the news about the federal investigation into Russo's real estate holdings.
Investigators were examining allegations that some of his construction and property companies served as fronts for illicit funds.
His businesses were under scrutiny, and federal prosecutors were attempting to connect him to racketeering activity.
Norah believed that a marriage to someone with her background could improve his public image.
She had a spotless criminal record, a legitimate medical career, and a history of community service.
If Dominic married an ordinary emergency-room nurse, he could present himself as a stable businessman with a conventional domestic life.
Their marriage could be photographed, reported in the society pages, and used to support the appearance that he was moving away from criminal activity.
She needed protection.
He needed a respectable public image.
The arrangement, she argued, could benefit both of them.
"I'll sign whatever prenup you want. I'll smile for the cameras. I'll be the perfect quiet wife."
Then she asked the question she had come to ask.
"Can you pretend to be my husband?"
She explained that the marriage would exist primarily on paper.
Once she had saved enough money to disappear, or once the danger from the Tarasovs had subsided, they could end the arrangement.
She would fulfill whatever public obligations he required in the meantime.
In exchange, she would be permitted to use his name as protection.
When she finished, the room became silent again.
Dominic remained seated for several moments.
He watched her without revealing whether he was offended, amused, or interested.
Then he stood.
He walked around the desk and stopped directly in front of her.
Norah had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes.
"A pretend husband," he repeated.
"Yes."
"Just a piece of paper. Just a shield."
"Yes."
Dominic reached toward her face.
His knuckles were rough and scarred.
He touched the line of her jaw, then rested his thumb briefly near her pulse.
Norah remained still.
He could feel how rapidly her heart was beating.
She waited for him to reject the proposal.
Instead, he gave her an answer she had not anticipated.
"Forever."
Norah stared at him.
For a moment, she could not speak.
Then she instinctively stepped backward.
"No."
That had not been her proposal.
She had imagined an arrangement lasting perhaps 1 year, possibly 2. She needed enough time for the Tarasov threat to disappear, not a lifelong commitment.
Dominic interrupted before she could finish explaining.
"You don't dictate terms in my house."
He reminded her that she had come seeking the protection attached to his family name.
The Russo name, he said, was not something she could borrow temporarily and surrender when it became convenient.
He turned toward a side table and poured a small measure of amber liquor into a crystal glass.
Then he explained his reasoning.
The Tarasovs would not be deterred permanently by a marriage certificate.
If Norah became his wife for 1 year and then divorced him, the syndicate could simply wait until she no longer had his protection.
Once the divorce was finalized, they would find her again.
And they would demand the debt with interest.
Dominic believed the only durable protection was a permanent association with his family.
If Norah became his wife indefinitely, anyone threatening her would be challenging him directly.
She would become untouchable, at least in the criminal hierarchy over which he exercised influence.
Norah looked at him.
"I don't want to be owned."
Dominic did not reassure her.
He told her that Liam's debt had already placed her under the control of dangerous men.
The choice, as he presented it, was between the Tarasovs and the Russo family.
The Russians had threatened to force her into labor, sell her, and discard her when they were finished.
Dominic offered a ring, a secure home, and the promise that no one in the city would be permitted to threaten her without facing consequences.
But his offer came with conditions.
She would move into his residence.
She would appear publicly at his side.
She would fulfill the social and legal responsibilities of his wife.
He would not accept a marriage that could be abandoned whenever she felt safe enough to leave.
And he warned her that attempting to run away or betray him would have serious consequences.
Norah lowered her eyes.
She had gone to Ilosto hoping to negotiate a temporary business arrangement.
Instead, Dominic was demanding permanent control over her life.
She was 26, liked inexpensive coffee and old paperback books, and preferred quiet mornings when she was not working at the hospital.
Until Liam disappeared, her concerns had been ordinary ones: rent, long shifts, difficult patients, and the exhaustion of an emergency department.
Now she was deciding whether to commit herself indefinitely to a man whose organization used violence as a routine instrument of control.
"Do we have a deal?" Dominic asked.
Norah remembered the man who had cornered her earlier that day.
She remembered the knife he had pressed flat against her cheek and the stale smell of alcohol on his breath.
She remembered the cargo ship.
And she knew she still had only $30.
She closed her eyes.
"Yes."
Her voice broke.
But she repeated the answer.
"Yes."
Dominic did not give her time to reconsider.
"Victor."
The door opened almost immediately.
A tall, thin man in a sharply tailored gray suit entered.
His expression was polite but cold.
"Boss?"
Dominic instructed him to contact Alexi Tarasov.
The debt owed by Liam Hastings was to be treated as canceled.
Norah Hastings was now under the protection of the Russo family.
If Alexi objected, Victor was to deliver another message.
If any member of the Tarasov organization came within 1 mile of Dominic's fiancée, Dominic would burn the organization's clubs with their operators still inside.
Victor accepted the instruction without appearing surprised.
"Understood."
He left and closed the door.
Norah remained standing before Dominic.
The word fiancée had startled her.
Only minutes earlier, she had been an unmarried nurse attempting to avoid being trafficked by loan sharks.
Now the most feared criminal figure she knew was publicly claiming her as his future wife.
Dominic called her closer.
She obeyed.
He reached into his pocket and removed a small velvet box.
Before opening it, he looked at her soaked trench coat.
"Take off the coat."
Norah hesitated.
Then she unfastened the buttons and let the wet garment slide from her shoulders.
Underneath, she still wore her faded blue hospital scrubs.
She was shivering.
Dominic opened the box.
Inside was a substantial diamond ring, old-fashioned in design and clearly expensive.
It was not the kind of jewelry Norah would ever have considered buying for herself.
Dominic took her left hand.
He slipped the ring onto her fourth finger.
It fit perfectly.
"It was my grandmother's," he told her.
His grandmother had worn it for 50 years.
Norah was never to remove it.
She looked down at the diamond.
The stone caught the room's light, throwing small reflections across Dominic's sweater.
The ring was beautiful.
But it represented an obligation she had accepted under the threat of violence from 2 different directions.
"What happens now?" she asked.
Dominic stepped back.
She was to go home and pack whatever personal belongings she needed.
She should not bring furniture or other large possessions.
His men would drive her to her apartment, remain there while she packed, and escort her to his estate that night.
"Tonight?"
Norah had a shift scheduled at the hospital the following day.
She could not simply disappear from work.
Dominic told her to cancel the shift and report a family emergency.
Then he added something worse.
She would no longer work in the emergency department.
Norah's fear gave way to anger.
She had worked for 6 years to obtain her nursing qualifications.
Her career mattered to her.
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