Chapter 1 - THE BRIDE WHO WAS BLEEDING
By the time Clara Higgins reached the cathedral doors, blood had already soaked through the satin lining of her wedding shoe.
Every step hurt.
Beneath twelve thousand dollars of ivory silk, a crude metal brace cut into the back of her injured knee.
Her older brother, Tommy, kept glancing at the hem of her dress.
“Smile,” he whispered.
Clara stared at him.
Two hundred guests waited inside St. Jude’s Cathedral.
Many carried weapons beneath expensive clothes.
At the altar stood Dominic Castiglione.
Thirty-four.
Feared across Chicago.
A man whose name made judges return calls and grown men lower their voices.
And in ten minutes, Clara was supposed to become his wife.
Not because they loved each other.
Because Tommy owed Dominic’s organization $450,000.
Three weeks earlier, Clara had nearly bled to death in a motel room.
Tommy had borrowed the money to save her.
Now she was the repayment.
The cathedral doors opened.
Clara lifted her chin.
“Just walk.”
She stepped inside.
Halfway down the aisle, her injured knee buckled.
Gasps filled the cathedral.
Someone whispered:
“Boss got sold damaged merchandise.”
Clara heard it.
So did Dominic.
She straightened.
Smiled through the pain.
And kept walking.
Then Dominic stepped down from the altar.
The organ stopped.
He walked directly toward her.
Clara’s pulse spiked.
“I can make it,” she said.
Dominic looked at her shoe.
“You’re bleeding.”
Before she could stop him, Chicago’s most feared man went down on one knee in front of her.
Two hundred people stopped breathing.
Dominic reached toward the hem of her dress.
Clara grabbed the silk.
“No.”
His hand stopped instantly.
He looked up.
“May I?”
That surprised her more than anything.
After a moment, Clara nodded.
Dominic lifted the fabric just enough to see the brace.
Bent aluminum.
Canvas straps.
Bruises.
Blood.
And behind her knee—
a fresh gunshot scar.
His expression changed.
“Who shot you?”
Clara froze.
Then Dominic noticed something tied around the bottom of the brace.
A small strip of midnight-blue silk.
His hand began to shake.
“Where did you get this?”
“A child gave it to me.”
Dominic went pale.
“What child?”
Clara stepped backward.
“A little boy.”
“How old?”
“Six.”
Dominic reached inside his jacket.
Clara expected a weapon.
Instead, he pulled out a photograph.
A woman smiling at the camera.
A little boy sitting on her lap.
Clara stopped breathing.
She knew that boy.
Leo.
The terrified child who had appeared at the motel soaked in river water.
The child she had hidden beneath her bed while an armed stranger searched the building.
May you like
The child whose life she had been shot protecting.
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