Chapter 7 - The Queen of the SyndicateSix months later, the underground world of Chicago had a new power dynamic—and a new rumor that terrified old-school mobsters even more than Adrian Vale’s ruthless efficiency.
They whispered about the ghost nurse.
They said that Adrian Vale had fallen for a civilian woman, a trauma nurse he had pulled out of an alley, and that she now walked the halls of the Lincoln Park estate as an equal. They said she could sew up a bullet wound with one hand and stare down a syndicate captain with the other.
Mara stood on the sprawling balcony of the estate, sipping a glass of wine as the summer sun set over Lake Michigan.
She wore an emerald-green silk dress that cost more than her old apartment building, her hair pinned back in an elegant twist. The scars of her old life—the overdue bills, the broken locks, the constant terror of poverty—felt like a lifetime away.
Heavy footsteps approached behind her, followed by the familiar warmth of Adrian’s arms wrapping around her waist, his chin resting softly on her shoulder.
“You’re quiet tonight,” Adrian murmured, kissing the side of her neck.
“I was just thinking about my brother, Owen,” Mara said softly, her gaze fixed on the horizon. “Eight years ago, he bled to death in an alley because nobody stopped. If I hadn’t stopped for you that night... none of this would have happened.”
Adrian tightened his grip, turning her around so she was facing him. His dark eyes were fierce, filled with an absolute, possessive devotion that belonged to no one else on earth.
“If you hadn’t stopped for me that night, Mara, I would have died in the slush,” Adrian said, his voice dropping to a rough whisper. “And I would have died a lonely, hollow monster. You didn’t just save my life, Mara. You gave me a soul. And I will burn this entire city to ash before I ever let anyone take you from me.”
“You’re dramatic when you’re romantic, you know that?” she teased, a genuine smile breaking across her face.
May you like
“Only for you,” he replied, before leaning down to kiss her deeply.
Down in the subterranean garage, black SUVs idled in the shadows, ready to move at a moment’s notice. But up here, high above the city streets, the most feared crime boss in America was completely, irrevocably at the mercy of the woman who had once threatened to tear his stitches out.
