He's her enemy. Her obsession. And the only man who has the power to destroy her.
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My name is Frank Monroe, and I am the most dangerous woman in Chicago. Not because I kill, but because I make it legal. I'm the lawyer the Irish mob calls when...
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The phone buzzed against the nightstand and I reached for it blindly, expecting Sawyer or one of the men with an update I didn't want to hear. Instead the screen lit up with a Kansas City area code and a name that made me sit up against the headboard: Rosa Nera.
I answered on the second ring. "Rosa."
"Frankie." Her voice carried none of the cool composure I remembered from our meeting in her office. That woman had spoken in measured, deliberate strokes, every word placed like a chess piece. This woman sounded like she'd been pacing. "I just hung up with Don Alessandro. He told me what happened at your home last night. Are you alright?"
The question threw me. Alessandro had already called hours ago, checking in the way he always did, all warmth and brotherly concern with a demand for details. But I hadn't expected Rosa to follow. We were allies of convenience, two women holding territory in a world that belonged to men, and convenience didn't usually come with follow-up calls.
"I'm fine," I said. "Nobody was hurt. We contained it."
"Contained." She repeated the word like she was testing its weight. "That's a polite way of saying someone put bullets in your house."
"Someone did. And then someone else put bullets in them."
A short breath came through the line. Not quite a laugh, but close enough that I could tell she appreciated the answer. "Who was it?"
"Sergei Ivanov. He's been testing the fence for weeks, and last night he decided to kick it down."
She was quiet for a moment. I could hear her thinking, sorting through whatever she knew about Sergei and his operation, filing it against the map in her head. "Is Vasiliy Yuri backing him?"
"No." I didn't have to think about that one. "Vasiliy's too careful to throw in with a man like Sergei. He knows the Irish and the Camorra would both come down on anyone standing next to that kind of recklessness, and Vasiliy didn't survive this long by standing in the wrong place."
"Agreed." Her tone shifted, businesslike now. "Do you need bodies? I can have six men on a plane tonight. They'd land before dawn, and they're the kind who know how to disappear into a crowd. No one would look twice at them."
The offer landed differently than I expected. I knew it wasn't a favor she'd hold over my head later. It was an alliance move, plain and simple, one you make when you've decided the person on the other end of the line is worth keeping alive. That was the language we both spoke, and I respected her for not dressing it up in anything softer.
"I appreciate that, Rosa. I mean it. But my house is handled for now. Papa's already doubled the detail, and I've got men on every corner of the property."
