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 city outside was putting on its Christmas Eve costume.
A million little lights trying to punch through the gloom, families huddled together trading lies about how perfect everything was.
Back at the house, my mother would be orchestrating the symphony of a twelve-course dinner, my sister fretting over the polish on the silver. A picture of domestic bliss, a fucking Norman Rockwell painting dipped in old money and older resentment.
And here I was. In a dim room that smelled of stale smoke and her shampoo, with a woman whose dreams were battlegrounds.
Looking down at her, asleep in the circle of my arms, finally still... the noise of the world just faded to a distant hum. None of it mattered. The holiday, the expectations, the whole goddamn performance. It was all static.
This was the only sacrament I gave a damn about. This right here. The weight of her head on my chest, the slow, steady pull of her breath. I wanted to surgically remove every dark thing that lived inside her head. I wanted to go on a ghost hunt through the catacombs of her past with a flamethrower and a smile.
Frankie stirred. A soft, unconscious sound. Then her eyes fluttered open, and that familiar guard slammed back down, even through the haze of sleep. She looked up at me, a question etched in the faint line between her brows.
"What are you still doing here?" she murmured, her voice sandpaper-rough from sleep and spent tears.
I didn't answer with words. I pushed a wild strand of hair from her face, my thumb tracing the arc of her cheekbone. Then I leaned down and captured her mouth with mine. It wasn't a gentle kiss. It never was. It was slow, deep, a claiming. A reminder. A promise written in a language older than words.
I pulled back just enough to let my lips brush against hers as I spoke. "Didn't I tell you?" The whisper was a low vibration against her skin. "I'm not going anywhere."
She let out a half-hearted huff, a sound that was equal parts amusement and a lifetime of expecting to be disappointed. "But you have work," she argued, her voice gaining a sliver of its usual edge. "Meetings. Important places to be." A beat of hesitation, then the real vulnerability peeked through, soft and unsure. "It's Christmas Eve. Your family's expecting you."
A dark chuckle escaped me. It was the sound of all those obligations burning to ash.
"I have nothing more important than this. Nothing more important than you." My arms tightened around her, pulling her flush against me, leaving no space for doubt, for cold, for anything but me. "So, too bad for you, because I'm staying. The world can fucking wait."
And then it happened. A smile. Small. Fragile at the edges, like a crack in ancient porcelain. But it was real. And it hit me right in the center of my chest, a feeling so sharp and profound it stole the air from my lungs.
