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...
"Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule."
- Charles Dickens
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I sat slouched in my office chair, staring at the mess of reports and contracts on my desk, pretending for the hundredth time that any of it deserved my focus.
Numbers and projections meant nothing tonight. Frankie had wormed her way into my head again, and no amount of paperwork could drown her out.
Her laugh, her mouth, that kiss that had branded itself into me, it all circled back, relentless, like I owed her every breath I took. My chest ached with it, a hunger I had no business carrying.
I had women in my bed whenever I wanted, women who chased me, worshipped me, begged me, but none of that shit mattered. None of them touched me the way she did.
Only Frankie. Always Frankie.
Why her?
Why was she the one I couldn't shut out?
Was it the way her eyes cut through every wall I built, like she saw every truth I never let anyone touch?
Or maybe the tone of her voice, that mix of softness and bite that made something in me come alive no matter how much I tried to bury it.
I wanted to pretend I didn't know, but I did. I knew exactly why she consumed me, why she had me restless, pacing the edges of myself like I had no control.
Because she was danger and salvation wrapped into one, and the thought of needing her left me chained, stripped, powerless. I should have hated it. Instead, I wanted more.
That truth unsettled me more than any secret I had ever buried. To know was to surrender, to acknowledge that she had power over me I never intended to give, and the worst of it was that I didn't hate it. Some part of me, the part that I despised the most, leaned into the pull.
It was weakness disguised as pleasure, and I hated myself for not fighting harder against it.
A knock at the door cut through the noise in my head, and I dragged a hand across my face, trying to shake off the madness.
"Boss, Theodore is here," Marqus said from the doorway.
"Let him in," I ordered, straightening in my chair, forcing my attention back into the present.
Theodore walked in with that steady stride he always carried, like nothing in the world could shake him.
He slid into the chair across from me, the same one he had claimed a hundred times before. Just seeing him there steadied me, enough to shove Frankie into the shadows for the moment.
"You've been a stranger," I said, allowing a half-smile to touch my mouth. "What's brought you out of hiding?"
He looked stronger than he had the last time, sharper around the edges, like he had pulled himself out of the storm. The fallout from Daniel being dragged off in cuffs had nearly crushed him, but tonight, I saw the old Theodore again.
