Chapter 1 - The Lie That Cost Seventeen Sleepless Nights
The silence in Berto Castellano’s office did not just hang in the air; it suffocated.
He stood less than a foot from me. The scent of dark espresso, expensive leather, and the faint, biting sting of gunpowder clung to him like a second skin. His white button-down shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, his sleeves rolled up to reveal the thick, corded muscles of his forearms, mapped with faint silver scars.
He looked undone. Berto Castellano, a man who negotiated million-dollar turf wars without a single hair falling out of place, looked like a hurricane had swept through his soul.
“I lied, Anna,” he repeated, his voice dropping an octave, vibrating through the floorboards.
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. “About what? About Saturday? About David?”
“About everything.” He took a step closer, crowding me against the edge of his massive mahogany desk. The mahogany coldness bit through the thin fabric of my dress, but the heat radiating from him was blistering. “I lied when I told you that your life outside this office is your own. I lied when I said I didn’t care who you smiled at. And I lied to myself for four years, pretending that having you sit five feet outside my door was enough.”
I swallowed hard, my throat dry. “Berto, I’m your secretary. I order your stationary. I make sure your safehouses have the correct brand of sparkling water. I’m not—”
“You think this is about administrative work?” He let out a low, humorless laugh that sounded more like a growl. He reached out, his large, warm hand hovering just inches from my cheek before his fingers curled into a fist, dropping back to his side. “You think I kept a clumsy, outspoken girl who drops my classified financial ledgers on the floor because she’s good at filing?”
I blinked. “I’m very organized.”
“You are a hazard to my sanity,” he whispered, his dark eyes burning into mine. “Every time you look at me with those stubborn, completely unafraid eyes, you remind me that there is a world outside of blood and concrete. But Saturday night? When you laughed at that man? When you let him touch your shoulder at the bar?” His jaw clenched so hard I heard the bone click. “I wanted to burn the restaurant to the ground just to make him let go of you.”
The sheer possessiveness in his words should have terrified me. It should have sent me running out of the Castellano Imports building and straight to the nearest police precinct. But instead, a strange, electric thrill shot down my spine.
“You called me seventeen times,” I said, my voice barely a whisper. “Before sunrise. Why?”
Berto’s expression shifted. The raw, vulnerable emotion hardened back into the ruthless mask of the Don. He turned toward his desk, picking up a sleek black tablet, tapping the screen, and turning it toward me.
“Because,” he said coldly, “the man you were laughing with isn’t named David. And he doesn’t work in shipping.”
I looked down at the screen. It was a mugshot.
But it wasn’t the soft, sandy-haired, nervous man I had met by the bathroom. Or rather, it was him, but the eyes in the photo were cold, calculating, and devoid of the easygoing charm he had projected. Underneath the photo was a name: David Marcone.
“Marcone,” I whispered, the name tasting like ash on my tongue. Even as a secretary, I knew the name. The Marcone syndicate was Berto’s fiercest rival, a brutal faction currently fighting for control of the Brooklyn docks.
“He is the youngest nephew of Emilio Marcone,” Berto said, his voice flat and deadly. “He didn’t get lost, Anna. He was sent to find you.”
My breath hitched. My mind raced back to the conversation. “I’m David. I’m here with my uncle. He does something with shipping…”
“He was using me,” I said, the realization hitting me like a physical blow. “To get to you.”
“No,” Berto corrected, his eyes locking onto mine with terrifying intensity. “He was using you to destroy me. They know you are my only weakness. And now, because you smiled at him, they think they have found a way in.”
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The phone on Berto’s desk began to ring. The red light flashed.
It was the secure line. The one that only rang when blood was about to be spilled.
