She Whispered “Pretend You Know Me” to the Most Dangerous Man in Chicago—His Answer Made Her Forget Her Ex Forever
Part 1
The crystal chandeliers of the Waldorf Astoria Chicago cast a warm golden glow over the evening crowd, but Beatrice Gallagher felt entirely frozen. She stood near the edge of the mahogany bar, her fingers gripping the stem of her martini glass so tightly her knuckles were white. The silk of her custom sapphire-blue wrap dress whispered against her thighs with every shallow breath. It had cost more than she should have spent. It had been meant to make her feel powerful again.
Exactly one month ago, Derek Mitchell—junior VP at Goldman Sachs, boyfriend of three years—had packed his designer bags and walked out of their shared apartment. His parting words were burned into her brain.
“You’re just not the image I need, Bea. You’re brilliant, but I need someone who fits the corporate aesthetic. Someone lighter on her feet. You’ve let yourself go, and it’s dragging my brand down.”
It had been a sterile, corporate way of calling her fat. Beatrice was a size eighteen, proudly carrying deep curves she had spent years learning to love, only for the man she intended to marry to tear her down in a matter of seconds. She was a senior forensic auditor for Deloitte. Her entire professional life was built on uncovering hidden truths and balancing complicated ledgers. In her personal life, the math had failed her miserably.
Tonight was supposed to be her reclamation. Thick dark hair styled in loose waves. Makeup that made her dark eyes look larger. A dress that hugged every curve she had been taught to hide. She had come to this high-end charity gala to prove to herself that she existed outside of Derek’s shallow shadow.
Then the elevator doors chimed open.
Derek stepped into the lounge in his signature Tom Ford suit, laughing that manufactured networking laugh she used to find charming. Clinging to his arm was a woman who looked like she subsisted entirely on celery and spite—size two, slip dress that left nothing to the imagination, blonde hair flawlessly straightened. Beatrice felt the air leave her lungs. The panic was instantaneous and deeply physical. The thought of Derek seeing her standing alone at the bar, giving him the satisfaction of a pitying glance, was unbearable.
She scanned the room frantically for an exit. The crowd was too dense. Derek was turning his head. He was going to spot her in five seconds. Four. Three.
Desperation hijacked her brain. Beatrice spun around blindly, reaching for the closest solid object to block Derek’s line of sight.
That object happened to be a man.
He was incredibly tall, radiating a kind of quiet, terrifying stillness that made the busy space around him feel completely empty. He wore a bespoke charcoal suit that screamed old money, but there was a raw predatory edge to the way he stood. Before her rational mind could stop her, Beatrice stepped directly into his personal space, pressing her chest against the solid wall of his chest, and grabbed the lapels of his jacket. She looked up into a pair of eyes so dark they were nearly pitch black.
Her voice trembled as she forced the words out. “Please pretend you know me.”
The man didn’t flinch. He didn’t pull away. For a fraction of a second, his dark eyes scanned her face, dropping to the frantic rise and fall of her chest, noting the sapphire silk clinging to her waist and full hips. The corner of his mouth twitched, just barely.
Footsteps approached from behind her.
“Bea? Is that you?” Derek’s voice cut through the jazz music, dripping with that unbearable, condescending surprise.
Beatrice squeezed her eyes shut, preparing for the humiliation. But before she could turn, the stranger’s hands moved. Large, warm palms slid down her back, settling heavily and possessively on the curve of her hips. He pulled her flush against him, completely shielding her from Derek’s view.
“I was wondering when you’d finally make it back to me,” the stranger said. His voice was a low, rough baritone that sent a sudden, shocking shiver straight down Beatrice’s spine. He leaned down and pressed his lips against her temple, the scent of expensive bergamot and something sharply masculine wrapping around her senses. “Mia dolce.”
Then, still keeping her securely tucked against his side, he turned his head slowly to look at Derek. “Can I help you?”
The tone wasn’t polite. It was ice cold.
Derek stopped dead in his tracks. The smug smile vanished from his face, replaced by sudden stark confusion, and then inexplicably pale terror. Beatrice watched, stunned, as Derek’s eyes darted from the stranger’s face to the heavy gold Rolex on his wrist, and finally to the two massive men in dark suits who had subtly stepped forward from the shadows of the nearest pillar.
“I—I’m sorry,” Derek stammered, actually taking a step backward. His new girlfriend looked utterly confused. “I was just—Bea, I didn’t know you were here with Mr. Costello.”
Mr. Costello?
Beatrice’s brain misfired. Living in Chicago, you heard whispers of certain names. Names that belonged to families who owned the concrete, the ports, and the politicians. Roman Costello was a ghost story for the city’s elite—the ruthless, untouchable head of the Costello syndicate, a man who supposedly ran a multi-billion-dollar empire built on blood, extortion, and pristine corporate fronts.
“Beatrice is with me tonight,” Roman Costello said smoothly, his thumb lightly tracing the silk at her waist, sending sparks of heat through her skin. “And from the look on your face, I’m guessing you’re the mistake she was telling me about.”
Derek swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “We—we used to date. I just wanted to say hello.”
“You’ve said it,” Roman replied, his voice dropping an octave. “Now turn around and walk away. Before I decide to look into your portfolio, Mitchell.”
Derek didn’t hesitate. He practically dragged the blonde woman away, disappearing into the crowd without a backward glance.
Beatrice stood frozen, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She had just used the head of the Chicago mafia as a human shield. Slowly, Roman Costello looked back down at her. He didn’t release his grip on her hips. In fact, he pulled her a fraction of an inch closer.
“Well, Beatrice,” Roman murmured, his dark eyes glittering with dangerous amusement. “That was quite the introduction.”
“I am so sorry,” Beatrice gasped immediately, trying to step back. “I just panicked. He’s my ex and he—I just needed a distraction. I had no idea who you were.”
Roman didn’t let her step away entirely. His grip loosened just enough to give her breathing room, but his hand remained anchored to the small of her back. “If you didn’t know who I was, why did you pick me?”
“You were the tallest thing in the room,” she blurted out, her cheeks burning with intense heat. “And you looked like someone who wouldn’t be easily intimidated, which apparently makes a lot of sense now.”
Roman chuckled, a low, dark sound that vibrated in his chest. “You have terrible survival instincts, Beatrice Gallagher.”
Her eyes widened. “How do you know my last name?”
“I know a lot of things,” Roman said, signaling to the two men in the shadows with a nearly imperceptible nod of his chin. “For instance, I know that your dress is stunning, but you are shaking like a leaf. I also know that this party just lost its appeal. We’re leaving.”
“We?” Beatrice asked, panic flaring again. “Mr. Costello, I appreciate the save. I truly do, but I’m going to get my coat and take a cab back to Wicker Park. Thank you again.”
She turned to leave, but one of the large men in suits seamlessly blocked her path. He didn’t touch her, but he stood like a brick wall.
“You misunderstand, Beatrice,” Roman said, stepping up close behind her. She could feel the heat radiating from him. “You asked me to pretend I knew you. But the truth is, I do know you. And you and I have some business to discuss. My car is waiting downstairs.”
Beatrice wanted to scream, to make a scene, but the absolute control Roman exerted over the space around him suffocated the impulse. She was a forensic auditor. Her brain was trained to assess risk. Making a scene in front of the Costello family was a high-risk gamble. Taking the ride was terrifying, but it offered information.
She walked stiffly beside him to the private elevator. The descent to the ground floor was agonizingly silent. Outside the Waldorf, a sleek black Maybach waited, engine idling quietly against the chill of the Chicago night. A driver—an older man with a scarred cheek—held the door open. Roman motioned for her to slide in first. The interior smelled of rich leather and expensive scotch.
Roman slid in beside her, filling the massive back seat with his broad shoulders and commanding presence. The tinted privacy divider was already up.
“Speak,” Beatrice said, her voice surprisingly steady. “Why do you know who I am? I’m an accountant. I balance spreadsheets. I have nothing to do with whatever it is you do.”
Roman poured two fingers of amber liquid from a crystal decanter into a glass and offered it to her. She shook her head. He took a slow sip, his dark eyes studying her in the dim streetlights that filtered through the tinted windows.
“Three weeks ago, Deloitte was contracted to run a comprehensive audit on Lexington Holdings,” Roman began, his tone entirely business-like. “Specifically the acquisition of several commercial real estate properties in the South Loop.”
Beatrice felt a cold dread settle in her stomach. Lexington Holdings was her current project. It was a massive, tangled web of shell companies and offshore accounts that had been giving her migraines for a month.
“Lexington Holdings is a legitimate venture capital firm.”
“Lexington Holdings is owned by my family,” Roman corrected her softly. “And right now there is a discrepancy in the ledgers. A large one. Someone inside my organization is skimming, and they are using the audit to cover their tracks, hoping the feds will notice the manufactured errors and shut down the accounts before I can find the missing capital.”
Beatrice stared at him. “You want me to commit fraud? You want me to bury it?”
“No,” Roman said sharply, leaning closer. “I want you to find it. I have my own accountants, of course, but the thief knows how to hide from them. You are an outsider. A forensic specialist with a reputation for being completely obsessed with numbers. I’ve had a file on you for two weeks, trying to figure out how to approach you without raising red flags at your firm.”
He reached out and gently tucked a stray curl behind her ear. His touch was alarmingly gentle, a stark contrast to the danger he represented. “And then, by some absolute miracle, you threw yourself into my arms in front of half the city’s financial elite. Now we have the perfect cover.”
“Cover?”
“Derek Mitchell is a loudmouth and a gossip,” Roman explained, a cruel smirk playing on his lips. “By tomorrow morning, everyone in the financial district will know that Deloitte’s senior auditor is sharing a bed with Roman Costello. Your firm won’t dare pull you off the Lexington account out of fear of insulting me. And my thief won’t suspect you’re looking for the skim because they’ll think you’re just on my payroll to push the audit through.”
Beatrice felt her blood pressure spiking. “You want to use me as a prop? And you think I’m just going to agree to this? What if I go to the police?”
“To tell them what? That I asked you to do your job accurately?” Roman asked, his eyes gleaming. “Besides, you owe me, Beatrice. I saved you from your ex.”
“That was a social favor. This is organized crime.”
“Let me sweeten the deal,” Roman said, his voice dropping into that hypnotic rough purr. “Derek Mitchell owes my associates five hundred thousand dollars in underground gambling debts. He’s been betting against margins he doesn’t have. He dumped you because you didn’t fit his aesthetic. But the truth is he was trying to clean up his public image to beg for a loan from his bank.”
Beatrice froze. Derek—the man who had made her feel utterly worthless, who had scrutinized her diet and mocked her weight—was secretly drowning in criminal debt. A twisted, dark sense of vindication flared in her chest.
“Help me find my thief, Beatrice,” Roman murmured, his gaze dropping to her mouth before slowly rising back to her eyes. “Find the discrepancy in the Lexington files. In exchange, I will make sure Derek Mitchell experiences exactly the kind of financial and social ruin he deserves. And I will pay you a consulting fee that will allow you to retire tomorrow.”
Beatrice looked at the man beside her. He was lethal, manipulative, and entirely outside the bounds of a normal life. But as she looked at him, she realized something strange. He wasn’t looking at her the way Derek did, like she was a problem to be fixed, a project to be whittled down. Roman was looking at her curves, her fierce glare, her trembling defiance, as if she were a masterpiece he had just discovered in a dark room.
“I need access to the raw data files,” Beatrice said, her voice barely a whisper. “Unredacted.”
Roman smiled. It was a terrifying, beautiful thing. “Whatever you want, mia dolce.”
The Maybach pulled away from the curb, carrying them into the Chicago night, and Beatrice felt the last threads of her ordinary life snap.
Part 2
The transformation of Beatrice Gallagher’s life happened with terrifying speed. By Monday morning, the atmosphere at the Deloitte offices in downtown Chicago had shifted dramatically. When Beatrice stepped off the elevator, the usual morning chatter died instantly. Her colleagues stared at her with a mixture of awe and sheer terror. Sitting on her desk was an arrangement of black Baccara roses so massive it practically eclipsed her computer monitor. Tucked inside the dark velvety petals was a thick cream-colored envelope bearing the Costello family crest in wax. Inside was a black titanium flash drive containing the unredacted Lexington Holdings ledgers and a handwritten note in sharp, elegant script: For your brilliant mind.
Her managing partner, a usually overbearing man named Richard, practically tiptoed into her cubicle. “Beatrice,” he stammered, sweating slightly through his collar. “We, uh, we heard about your new social connections over the weekend. I just want to assure you that the Lexington audit is entirely yours. No interference. Take all the time you need.”
She had become untouchable overnight.
For the next four days, Beatrice buried herself in the numbers. She worked late into the night, her mind unraveling the complex, genius-level laundering scheme hidden within the real estate acquisitions. Whoever was stealing from Roman was brilliant, hiding fractional percentages inside inflated contractor invoices across dozens of properties. But as the numbers started making sense, the reality of her situation grew increasingly complicated.
Roman wasn’t just a distant benefactor. He had seamlessly invaded her routine. Every evening at exactly seven p.m., the black Maybach appeared outside her office building. Leo, the driver, would patiently wait to escort her home. When she worked late, Roman would send food. Not salads or dry chicken breasts like Derek used to force on her, but rich, indulgent meals from the city’s finest private kitchens. Truffle risotto from Cipriani. Thick cuts of prime rib. Decadent chocolate tortes. Roman was feeding her. It was an intensely intimate, aggressively possessive gesture that made her stomach flutter and her cheeks flush. He was making a point. He revered her exactly as she was.
On Thursday night, the fragile bubble burst. Beatrice was leaving the office, walking toward the idling Maybach, when a figure stepped out from the shadows of the parking garage.
“Bea. Wait.”
It was Derek. He looked terrible. The polished Goldman Sachs veneer was cracked. His designer suit looked slept in. His eyes were bloodshot. And he was trembling.
Beatrice stopped, her heart doing a painful stutter before settling into a cold, hard rhythm. “What do you want, Derek?”
“Bea. You have to help me,” he pleaded, closing the distance between them. He completely ignored the Maybach waiting twenty feet away. “I heard the rumors. Everyone is talking about it. You’re with Costello. You’re actually with him.”
“That is none of your business.”
“It is my business when his collectors are threatening to break my legs.” Derek hissed, panic making his voice pitch high. “I owe them money. Bea, a lot of money. You have his ear. You have to tell him to back off. Tell him I’ll get the money. I just need another month.”
Beatrice stared at the man she had cried over for weeks. He looked so small, so utterly pathetic. “You dumped me because I was a liability to your image, Derek. Now you want me to leverage my supposed relationship with a mafia boss to save your life?”
“I was stupid.” Derek reached out, grabbing her upper arm. His grip was entirely too tight. A desperate, bruising hold. “Come on, Bea. You know you still love me. You’re just doing this mobster thing to make me jealous. It worked. Okay? I’m sorry, but you have to fix this.”
Before Beatrice could process the absolute audacity of his words, a heavy synchronized thud echoed through the concrete garage. The doors of the Maybach had opened. Roman Costello stepped out, followed instantly by two of his men. The air in the garage seemed to drop ten degrees.
Roman didn’t run. He walked with a predatory, lethal calmness. His dark eyes locked entirely on the hand Derek had wrapped around Beatrice’s arm. Derek dropped his hand as if her skin had caught fire. He stumbled backward, his face draining of all color.
“Mr. Costello!” Derek choked out. “I didn’t—I was just talking to her.”
Roman stopped beside Beatrice. He didn’t look at Derek. He looked down at Beatrice, his gaze sweeping over her face, checking for fear before his eyes dropped to the red marks already forming on her bare upper arm. When Roman finally looked at Derek, it was like watching a shark circle a drowning man.
“I have a strict policy about the things that belong to me, Mitchell,” Roman said softly. The quietness of his voice was far more terrifying than a shout. “I don’t like it when other people touch them. I especially don’t like it when they leave a mark.”
“She’s not a thing,” Derek stammered weakly, trying to play the righteous ex. “She’s—we have a history.”
“Your history is irrelevant,” Roman replied. He stepped forward, bridging the gap between him and Derek in a single fluid motion. He didn’t raise his hands, but Derek flinched violently anyway. “Your future, however, is entirely in my hands. The five hundred thousand you owe my associates is due tomorrow at noon.”
“I don’t have it. I told your guys I need—”
“I don’t care what you need,” Roman interrupted smoothly. “If you do not have the money by noon, my men will not be visiting you to talk. Now get out of my sight before I decide to collect your debt in pounds of flesh right here.”
Derek didn’t need to be told twice. He turned and practically sprinted out of the parking garage, his dress shoes echoing wildly against the concrete.
Beatrice stood trembling, the adrenaline crashing through her system. Roman turned back to her, his hard expression softening just a fraction. He reached out, his large, warm hand gently cupping her cheek, his thumb brushing over her cheekbone.
“Did he hurt you?” Roman asked, his eyes darkening as he looked at the red marks on her arm.
“No.” Beatrice breathed, looking up into his face. The danger radiating from him was intoxicating. She knew she was standing on the edge of a cliff, staring down into the abyss of a criminal underworld. She had no business touching it, but the abyss was wrapping her in silk and defending her honor. “I found it,” she whispered, changing the subject, needing to ground herself in the facts. “The discrepancy. I know who is skimming your accounts.”
Roman’s hand slid from her cheek down to the nape of her neck, his fingers tangling in her dark hair. A slow, dangerous smile curved his lips. “I knew you were brilliant, mia dolce,” he murmured, stepping closer until her curves were pressed flush against his solid frame. Just like that first night at the Waldorf. “Come home with me. Tell me everything.”
He didn’t mean her apartment in Wicker Park. He meant his world. And as Beatrice let him lead her into the back of the Maybach, she realized with terrifying clarity that she had no intention of ever going back to her old life.
The private elevator to the top of the St. Regis Chicago did not have buttons. It required a biometric scan. When the polished steel doors finally slid open, Beatrice stepped into a penthouse that was a fortress of floor-to-ceiling glass, black marble, and quiet, dangerous wealth. The sprawling view of the Chicago River and Lake Michigan was breathtaking, but the atmosphere inside the room was heavy with impending violence.
Roman stripped off his suit jacket, tossing it over a custom leather sofa. He rolled up the sleeves of his crisp white dress shirt, revealing forearms corded with muscle and intricate dark ink. “Show me,” he commanded softly, gesturing to the massive dining table.
Beatrice didn’t hesitate. She pulled her company-issued laptop from her leather tote and booted it up. For the first time in weeks, she felt entirely in her element. She pulled up the raw data files, projecting them onto the massive smart screen mounted on the far wall. The screen filled with highlighted rows, cascading numbers, and red-flagged discrepancies.
“The thief is smart. I’ll give them that,” Beatrice began, her voice steadying as she fell into the familiar rhythm of a financial autopsy. “They didn’t just transfer bulk sums. That would trigger an immediate internal audit. Instead, they used a micro-skimming technique hidden within the supply chain of your commercial real estate acquisitions. Concrete, steel, architectural consulting fees. Every invoice was inflated by a fraction of a percent.”
She clicked a button, bringing up a complex flowchart she had built. “Those fractional overages were funneled into a subsidiary shell company listed as an environmental consulting firm in the Cayman Islands. But it’s a ghost entity. The money sits there for exactly thirty days before being wired to a private offshore trust.”
Roman stood perfectly still, his eyes tracking the red lines on the screen. “And who is the primary signatory on the Cayman trust?”
Beatrice swallowed hard. She pressed a key, bringing up the heavily encrypted incorporation document she had spent three sleepless nights cracking. “The trust is registered to MC Global Ventures. The authorized signature belongs to Mateo Costello.”
The silence in the penthouse was absolute. It was the kind of silence that precedes an explosion. Mateo was Roman’s cousin, his second in command, and the man who publicly handled the legitimate face of the Costello family’s union contracts.
Roman didn’t shout. He didn’t throw a glass or punch a wall. Instead, a terrifying absolute calm washed over his features. The dark void in his eyes seemed to swallow all the light in the room.
“Mateo,” Roman whispered. The name sounded like a death sentence. “He’s been bleeding the family to fund his own private war chest. He’s preparing to make a move against me.”
Beatrice stepped back from the table, suddenly hyper-aware of the fact that she had just handed a mafia boss the blueprint for a family execution. “I can print the hard copies. You have the proof.”
Roman turned to look at her. The lethal coldness in his eyes melted the second his gaze landed on her face. He crossed the room slowly, stopping mere inches from her. The adrenaline of the presentation was fading, and Beatrice suddenly felt the exhausting weight of the week crashing down on her. She crossed her arms over her chest, a defensive posture, suddenly hyperconscious of how her body filled out her tailored pencil skirt and silk blouse.
Derek’s ghost whispered in her ear. You take up too much space, Bea. It’s embarrassing.
Roman noticed the shift. He reached out, his large hands gently but firmly grasping her wrists, uncrossing her arms. “Do not hide yourself from me,” Roman murmured, his thumbs smoothing over her racing pulse points. “Never from me.”
“I’m just tired,” Beatrice lied, looking down at the marble floor. “And I know I don’t exactly fit into a place like this. A man like you. A place like this. You usually have women who look like they belong on a runway, not women who look like they eat.”
Roman released her wrists, only to slide his hands up her arms, over her shoulders, and into her thick, dark hair. He tilted her head up, forcing her to meet his intense, burning gaze.
“Derek Mitchell was a weak, terrified little man who wanted a woman he could break and control,” Roman said, his voice a fierce, guttural growl. “He wanted a skeleton because he lacked the strength to handle a goddess. Look at me, Beatrice.”
She blinked back the sudden hot sting of tears.
“You are brilliant. You are fearless. You walked into a room full of wolves, grabbed the biggest one, and commanded him to protect you,” Roman whispered fiercely, his hands sliding down to cup her full, soft hips, gripping her with a possessive, heavy heat. “Your mind brought down my greatest enemy tonight. And your body—your body is a masterpiece. You take up space, Beatrice. I demand that you take up space. I want you overflowing in my life.”
He didn’t give her a chance to process the overwhelming validation. Roman leaned down and captured her mouth. The kiss was devastating. It wasn’t gentle. It was a brand. He tasted of expensive scotch and raw, unbridled power. Beatrice gasped, her hands instinctively flying up to grip the broad, solid muscle of his chest as he pulled her flush against him, letting her feel exactly how much he desired her.
For the first time in her life, Beatrice didn’t feel heavy. She felt anchored. She felt dangerous.
The illusion of safety shattered forty-eight hours later.
Beatrice was sitting at her desk in the Deloitte offices finalizing the encrypted backup files for the Lexington audit. The official narrative was that the audit was clean—a ruse Roman had insisted on to keep Mateo comfortable while Roman quietly moved his chess pieces into place. At four p.m., the glass door of Beatrice’s private office swung shut, the blinds snapping closed with a sharp clack.
Beatrice looked up. Standing in front of her desk was Mateo Costello. He was as handsome as his cousin, but where Roman radiated a quiet, regal danger, Mateo smelled of reckless ambition and expensive cologne.
“Beatrice Gallagher,” Mateo said smoothly, taking a seat in the leather chair opposite her desk without being asked. “The woman of the hour. I hear my cousin is quite taken with you.”
Beatrice’s blood ran cold, but her face remained entirely impassive. She subtly moved her hand over her keyboard, her thumb hovering over the shortcut key that would instantly wipe the screen and lock the hard drive.
“Mr. Costello,” she replied formally. “I wasn’t expecting you. The Lexington audit is still in its final review phases.”
“I know.” Mateo smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “That’s why I’m here. I wanted to check in on the environmental consulting expenditures, specifically the Cayman subsidiaries. I know auditors love to dig, but sometimes digging just causes unnecessary dirt to fly around.”
He reached inside his custom Brioni suit jacket and pulled out a thick legal-sized envelope, tossing it onto her desk. It landed with a heavy, substantial thud.
“There’s two million dollars in untraceable bearer bonds in that envelope, Beatrice,” Mateo said softly, leaning forward. “Consider it a consulting bonus. All you have to do is sign off on the Lexington accounts as they are right now. No more digging.”
Beatrice stared at the envelope. It was a fortune. It was also a test. If she took it, Mateo owned her, and he would eventually kill her to cover his tracks. If she refused, he would know she had found the discrepancy.
“I can’t accept that,” Beatrice said, pushing the envelope back across the desk with a single manicured finger. “Deloitte has very strict ethical guidelines.”
Mateo’s smile vanished. The smooth facade cracked, revealing the violent, desperate animal underneath. He stood up suddenly, slamming both hands down on her desk, leaning directly into her personal space.
“You don’t understand, you fat little pencil pusher,” Mateo hissed, his eyes wide and manic. “This isn’t a negotiation. You are going to authorize the ledger. If you don’t, I will have my men pay a visit to your sister in Evanston. I know where she lives. I know where her kids go to school.”
The air evaporated from Beatrice’s lungs. Her sister. He was threatening her family. Panic, cold and sharp, threatened to paralyze her. But it was quickly swallowed by a sudden towering rage.
Before Beatrice could react, a subtle ping echoed from Mateo’s breast pocket—his burner phone. Mateo glared at her, pulling the phone out and holding it to his ear. “What?” he snapped.
Beatrice watched as all the blood drained from Mateo’s face. His hand began to shake. “That’s impossible.” Mateo choked out into the phone. “The port authority is supposed to clear those shipments tomorrow. Who intercepted them?”
Mateo listened for another five seconds before dropping the phone onto her desk. He looked at Beatrice, stark terror completely replacing his previous arrogance. “Roman,” Mateo whispered.
“Yes,” a voice said from the doorway.
The glass door to Beatrice’s office had opened silently. Roman Costello stood in the doorway, dressed in a black suit, looking like the grim reaper. Flanking him were four massive men, their hands resting noticeably inside their jackets.
“You always were impatient, Mateo,” Roman said, stepping into the office and locking the door behind him. “You couldn’t just wait for the audit. You had to come here and threaten the woman under my protection. You made it incredibly easy to justify what happens next.”
“Roman, listen to me,” Mateo stammered, backing away from the desk, his hands raised in surrender. “She’s lying. Whatever she showed you, she manipulated the data. She’s trying to tear the family apart.”
Roman didn’t even look at his cousin. His dark, obsessive gaze bypassed Mateo entirely, locking onto Beatrice. He walked around the desk, placing himself deliberately between Beatrice and Mateo, forming an impenetrable human shield.
“Did he touch you?” Roman asked her, his voice a dangerously soft purr.
“No,” Beatrice said, her voice shaking slightly with residual adrenaline. “But he threatened my sister. He threatened my nieces.”
The temperature in the room plummeted. Roman slowly turned his head to look at Mateo. The look on Roman’s face was no longer human. It was an apex predator looking at its next meal.
“Take him down to the meatpacking district,” Roman ordered the men at the door without raising his voice. “Empty the Cayman accounts, then handle the problem.”
“Roman, please! We’re blood!” Mateo screamed as two men grabbed him by the arms, dragging him toward the service elevator at the back of the floor. “Roman!”
The door clicked shut, cutting off his screams.
Roman turned back to Beatrice. The violence in his eyes instantly melted into an overwhelming possessive warmth. He leaned down, bracing his hands on the arms of her chair, trapping her gently in place.
“The trap worked perfectly, mia dolce,” Roman murmured, pressing a hot, lingering kiss to her forehead. “You played him exactly as we planned.”
But even as the words left his mouth, Beatrice felt a cold thread of unease coil in her stomach. Mateo had been too confident. Too prepared. And somewhere in the city, a dead man’s switch was already ticking.
Part 3
The drive back to the St. Regis Chicago was wrapped in a suffocating heavy silence broken only by the rhythmic hum of the Maybach’s tires against the damp asphalt of Michigan Avenue. Beatrice sat rigidly against the plush leather seat, her mind desperately trying to categorize the events of the last hour into neat, logical columns. But there was no spreadsheet for what she had just witnessed. A man’s life had been ended, or at least permanently altered, because he had threatened her. She was a senior auditor, a woman who calculated risk for a living, and she had just crossed the Rubicon into a world where the currency was blood, loyalty, and absolute power.
Roman sat beside her, his massive frame radiating a steady, grounding heat. He didn’t speak, giving her mind the space it needed to catch up with her reality. When they reached the penthouse, the sprawling view of the Chicago skyline seemed to glitter with a new dangerous edge. Roman poured a measure of Macallan 25 into a crystal tumbler and pressed it gently into her trembling hands.
“Drink,” he commanded softly, his dark eyes anchored to hers.
Beatrice took a sip, the liquid fire burning down her throat, settling the icy shock in her stomach. She looked at the man standing before her. He had shed his suit jacket, the holstered SIG Sauer 9mm resting starkly against the crisp white cotton of his tailored shirt. He was a monster to the world, a predator who commanded an army of ghosts in the city’s shadows. But as he reached out and brushed a stray curl from her cheek, his touch was impossibly tender.
“Are you afraid of me, Beatrice?” Roman asked, his voice dropping into a low, rumbling register. It wasn’t a threat. It was a genuine question laced with a vulnerability she had never expected to hear from the head of the Costello syndicate.
“I should be,” Beatrice whispered, her fingers tightening around the glass. “Everything in my rational brain is screaming at me that I am standing in the middle of a burning building. Mateo is gone. You are exactly who the rumors say you are.”
“I am,” Roman agreed without a trace of remorse. “I will not lie to you, mia dolce. The things I do to protect what is mine are not pretty. But I need you to know that the violence you saw today will never, ever be turned toward you. You are the safest woman in this city.”
He stepped closer, taking the glass from her hands and setting it on the black marble counter. His large palms spanned her waist, pulling her flush against him. “You belong here with me.”
Before Beatrice could answer, Roman’s encrypted phone buzzed violently on the counter. The spell was broken. Roman’s jaw tightened as he glanced at the caller ID. He answered it, putting it on speaker.
“Boss!” A gruff voice echoed through the penthouse. It was Leo, his head of security. “We have a massive problem. The feds just swarmed the Deloitte offices. Financial crimes division, led by Special Agent Harrison Burke. They have a federal warrant for the Lexington Holdings hard drives.”
Beatrice’s blood turned to ice. “Mateo’s dead man’s switch,” she breathed.
Roman’s eyes darkened with instant realization. Mateo, knowing he was walking into a dangerous game, had programmed an automated anonymous tip to the FBI to trigger if he failed to check in. If the FBI seized the raw data before Beatrice had replaced it with the sanitized files, the Costello family’s entire legitimate front would collapse, triggering RICO charges that would bury Roman forever.
“They have the building locked down,” Leo continued. “Our guys at the law firm, Kirkland & Ellis, are on the way, but Burke is demanding access to Beatrice Gallagher’s private server immediately. They are looking for her.”
Roman looked at Beatrice. The protective fury in his eyes was absolute. “Get the jet ready at Midway,” Roman ordered Leo coldly. “We’re leaving for Sicily tonight. They won’t touch her.”
“No,” Beatrice said sharply.
Roman paused, his thumb hovering over the end call button. He stared at her, stunned by the absolute authority in her tone.
Beatrice stepped out of his hold, her mind snapping back into the razor-sharp focus that had made her the youngest senior auditor at her firm. The fear was gone, replaced by a cold, calculating brilliance. “If you run, you confirm guilt. The FBI will freeze every asset Lexington Holdings possesses. The syndicate’s cash flow will die in forty-eight hours.”
“If you stay, Burke will interrogate you,” Roman growled, closing the distance between them, his hands gripping her upper arms. “He will threaten you with obstruction, with accessory to fraud. I will not let them put you in a cage, Beatrice.”
“They won’t,” she said, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across her lips. It was a smile she had learned from him. “Because the hard drive on my desk doesn’t have the original files anymore. I finished compiling the sanitized audit an hour before Mateo walked into my office. The real unredacted ledger is on a partitioned invisible drive uploaded to a decentralized cloud server. What the FBI is about to seize is a perfectly balanced, mathematically flawless, and completely legitimate set of books.”
Roman stared at her, his dark eyes wide with a mixture of shock and profound, overwhelming awe.
“Call Kirkland & Ellis,” Beatrice commanded, her voice steady and ringing with absolute confidence. “Tell your lawyers to meet me at the Deloitte building. I’m going to go down there and I am going to politely hand Special Agent Burke a legally binding audit that proves Lexington Holdings is the most compliant corporation in the state of Illinois.”
Roman didn’t speak for a long moment. He just looked at her, his chest rising and falling heavily. Then a dark, devastating smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth. He picked up his phone.
“Leo,” Roman said, his eyes never leaving Beatrice’s face. “Cancel the jet. Have the Maybach ready downstairs. My queen is going to work.”
The scene at Deloitte was chaotic. Agents in windbreakers were confiscating boxes while Richard, Beatrice’s managing partner, sweated profusely in the lobby. When the black Maybach pulled up to the front doors, flanked by two black Escalades, the street went silent. Beatrice stepped out, wearing a sharply tailored crimson trench coat that cinched at her waist, her dark hair falling in perfect waves over her shoulders. She looked like old money, untouchable and utterly composed. Roman walked right beside her, an imposing lethal shadow with a team of four five-thousand-dollar-an-hour corporate defense attorneys trailing behind them.
Special Agent Burke met them in the lobby. He was a hard-faced man who looked like he hadn’t slept in a decade. “Miss Gallagher. Roman Costello. Bold of you to show up.”
“I heard you were looking for my work, Agent Burke,” Beatrice said smoothly, holding out a silver flash drive. “This contains the finalized, locked, and digitally signed audit of Lexington Holdings. I’ve also brought hard copies stamped and verified by Deloitte’s internal compliance board. You are welcome to review them.”
Burke narrowed his eyes. “We received intel that there were massive discrepancies in the Cayman subsidiaries.”
“Your intel was faulty,” Beatrice replied, her voice cool and professional. Not a single tremor betrayed the pounding of her heart. “Lexington Holdings operates with perfect transparency. In fact, if you look at line item forty-two on page eighty, you’ll see a slight overpayment in federal taxes for the previous fiscal quarter. Mr. Costello’s firm is actually owed a refund.”
Roman stood behind her, his hands clasped casually in front of him. But the pride radiating from him was palpable. The lead attorney from Kirkland & Ellis stepped forward, handing Burke a stack of cease and desist warnings regarding the unlawful seizure of proprietary financial documents without probable cause, pointing out that the audit legally cleared the company of the anonymous allegations.
Burke knew he was beaten. He stared at Beatrice, realizing the brilliant, full-figured woman in front of him wasn’t a hostage or a prop. She was the architect of the fortress.
“Have a good evening, Agent,” Beatrice said, turning on her heel. Roman placed his heavy hand on the small of her back, guiding her back to the Maybach.
As the doors closed, sealing them in the quiet luxury of the car, Roman pulled her violently into his lap. His mouth crashed down on hers, fierce and desperately possessive, tasting of pure adrenaline and absolute worship.
Six months later, the modern wing of the Art Institute of Chicago was closed to the public, transformed into a sprawling, glittering venue for the city’s most exclusive charity gala. Waiters in white tuxedos circulated with trays of Dom Pérignon, and the elite of Chicago’s financial and political spheres mingled under the massive glass canopy.
Beatrice stood near the soaring windows overlooking Millennium Park. She was no longer a Deloitte auditor. She was the newly instated Chief Financial Officer of Costello Enterprises, the legitimate umbrella corporation that Roman had built entirely around her brilliance. She looked magnificent. She wore a custom-designed deep emerald green Oscar de la Renta gown that celebrated every single curve of her size eighteen body. The silk draped flawlessly over her full hips and cinched tightly at her waist, the deep V-neckline highlighting her soft, glowing skin. Around her neck rested a string of diamonds that cost more than most of the real estate in the South Loop. She was no longer hiding. She was holding court.
“You’re not drinking, Mrs. Costello.”
Beatrice turned to see Roman approaching, holding two glasses of sparkling water garnished with lime. He looked devastating in a bespoke black tuxedo, his dark hair slicked back, his eyes fixed on her with that same unwavering obsession he had shown on the very first night they met.
She smiled, taking the glass. “I need my wits about me. The mayor is trying to corner me into funding his new transit initiative.”
“Tell him the Costello family will fund it, provided he routes the new lines away from our commercial developments in the West Loop,” Roman murmured, pressing a kiss to her bare shoulder. His presence instantly caused a subtle ripple in the crowd. People instinctively gave them a wide berth, a mixture of profound respect and deeply ingrained fear.
As Roman stepped away for a moment to speak with a state senator, Beatrice turned toward the bar to set her glass down. The bartender turned around to collect her glass, and both of them froze.
It was Derek Mitchell. He was wearing a slightly ill-fitting white catering jacket, his face pale, gaunt, and lined with deep exhaustion. The polished Goldman Sachs aesthetic was entirely gone, replaced by the hollow, broken look of a man who had lost absolutely everything. When Roman had called in his underground debts six months ago, Derek had been forced to liquidate his assets, declare total bankruptcy, and surrender his corporate licenses to avoid a gruesome fate.
Derek stared at Beatrice. He looked at the emerald silk hugging her heavy, beautiful curves. He looked at the diamonds dripping from her neck. He looked at the confident, terrifyingly powerful woman she had become.
“Bea,” Derek whispered, his voice cracking. He looked like he was staring at an apparition. “My God, look at you.”
Beatrice didn’t flinch. She didn’t feel the old familiar sting of inadequacy or the desperate need for his approval. She felt absolutely nothing but mild pity. “Hello, Derek,” she said smoothly.
“I—I lost everything,” Derek stammered, stepping closer to the edge of the bar, his hands trembling as he gripped a bar towel. “They took my condo, my accounts. I’m serving drinks to people I used to play golf with. Bea, please. You have his ear. You run his money now. Everyone knows it. Please tell him to lift the blacklist on my name. I just want a normal job again.”
He reached a hand out across the polished wood of the bar, a desperate, pathetic gesture. But before his fingers could even brush the fabric of her gown, a massive warm hand wrapped around Beatrice’s waist from behind, pulling her flush against a wall of solid muscle.
Roman didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t even look angry. He just looked at Derek the way one might look at an insect on the sidewalk. “I believe the lady’s glass is empty, Mitchell,” Roman said, his rough baritone echoing with lethal calm. “Refill it. And if you ever speak to my wife again without being spoken to first, I will ensure that pouring drinks is a physical impossibility for you.”
Derek went completely white, his hands shaking so violently he nearly dropped the bottle of sparkling water as he refilled her glass. He bowed his head, utterly defeated, and backed away down the length of the bar.
Beatrice looked up at Roman. “Wife,” she whispered, a slow smile spreading across her lips. “I believe we skipped a few steps, Mr. Costello.”
Roman turned her around in his arms, completely ignoring the room full of Chicago’s elite watching them from the periphery. He looked down at her, his dark eyes blazing with a heat that made her breath catch in her throat.
“We haven’t skipped anything, mia dolce,” Roman murmured, reaching into the pocket of his tuxedo. He pulled out a small black velvet box and snapped it open. Resting inside on a bed of white silk was a massive flawless yellow diamond, pear cut in a brilliant emerald shape and flanked by two heavy platinum bands. It was loud, heavy, and breathtakingly arrogant, exactly like the man holding it.
“You walked up to me and demanded that I pretend to know you,” Roman said softly, his thumbs brushing over her cheekbones. “But the truth is, my soul recognized yours the second you touched me. You are my brilliant, beautiful, perfect queen. You take up every inch of space in my mind, and I will spend the rest of my life worshiping the ground you walk on.”
He didn’t drop to one knee. Roman Costello bowed to no one. But he took her left hand, kissing her knuckles before sliding the heavy, cool weight of the diamond onto her ring finger. It fit perfectly.
“Marry me, Beatrice. Rule this city with me.”
Beatrice looked at the ring, then up into the dark, obsessive eyes of the mafia boss who had rewritten her entire universe. She felt the heavy, lush curves of her body pressed against him, entirely loved, entirely weaponized, and entirely his.
“Yes,” she whispered, pulling his face down to hers.
As their lips met, sealing the vow in front of the glittering, silent crowd, Beatrice knew she would never have to ask anyone to pretend to know her again. She was exactly where she belonged.
