I Was Forced to Wed a Ruthless Mafia Boss

I Was Forced to Wed a Ruthless Mafia Boss. I Never Expected Him to Lower Himself for Me…

“If your brother is dead, then you’ll pay his debt.”

Nine months after my brother died in a suspicious crash, two men walked into my Boston flower shop and informed me that his $612,000 mafia debt now belonged to me; four days later, the only man powerful enough to keep me alive offered one solution—marry him, become untouchable, and never ask what happened after dark on the waterfront—but I never expected Nicholas DeMarco, the ruthless man half of Boston feared, to honor every boundary I gave him, kneel in another man’s bathroom to wash broken glass from my bleeding feet, or stand silently beside me when I discovered the person who murdered my brother had been eating dinner at our own table.

PART 1 — My brother’s deadly debt forced me into a stranger’s marriage.

“If your brother is dead, then you’ll pay his debt.”

The gray-haired man said it while standing between a bucket of white roses and the cash register in my flower shop.

Like he was discussing an overdue electric bill.

Not murder.

Not $612,000.

Not the fact that my brother Sam had been in the ground for nine months.

I kept my hand under the worktable, wrapped around my mother’s old florist shears.

“You have the wrong woman.”

The second man laughed.

He was younger. Heavy shoulders. Expensive black coat. No wedding ring.

“No, Miss Whitaker. We have exactly the right woman.”

Outside, Beacon Hill looked painfully normal.

A UPS truck double-parked beneath my window.

A woman in yoga pants dragged a golden retriever past the shop.

Somebody leaned on a horn on Charles Street.

Inside Whitaker Flowers, my dead brother had just reached out of his grave and wrapped both hands around my throat.

The gray-haired man placed a white card beside the register.

One phone number.

One word.

WEDNESDAY.

“Anthony Corsetti wants what Samuel stole,” he said. “Money and a ledger.”

“I don’t have either.”

“He thinks you do.”

“I don’t care what he thinks.”

That made him smile.

Cold.

Almost bored.

“You will.”

Then he leaned closer.

“Women with no husband, no parents, and no brothers should be careful about pretending they have choices.”

That one landed.

My mother had been dead three years.

My father longer.

Sam had wrapped his car around a maple tree on Route 2 outside Concord nine months earlier.

The state trooper called it speed.

I called it strange.

Because Sam hated driving fast.

Because he had no business being near Concord that Tuesday night.

And because two days before he died, he had called me from a payphone outside Worcester.

Not his cell.

A payphone.

“Clara,” he’d said, his voice low under diner noise, “if something happens to me, Mom’s green ledger is yours.”

I had laughed nervously.

“What are you talking about?”

“Just remember.”

Then the line went dead.

The little bell above my shop door jingled as Corsetti’s men left.

Bright.

Cheerful.

Stupid.

I locked the door.

Turned the sign to CLOSED.

Then I sat on the kitchen-style tile behind the register with my back against the old cabinet my mother had used for thirty years.

For maybe sixty seconds, I let myself shake.

Then I stopped.

Crying wasn’t going to make Wednesday disappear.

So I made coffee.

Bad coffee.

The pot had been sitting since six that morning, and there was a brown ring inside my mug where the cream had dried.

I drank it anyway.

Then I pulled the green ledger from beneath a stack of old tax folders.

And I read.

All night.

Sam had worked bookkeeping for a shipping company near the harbor.

According to the ledger, he had also been adjusting cargo manifests.

Container numbers.

Trucking invoices.

Cash drops.

Tiny changes at first.

Then larger ones.

He had been stealing.

Not from one criminal organization.

From two.

Anthony Corsetti.

And someone coded only as D.

By three in the morning, the amount missing was enough to explain why men in black coats had come looking for me.

By four, I found one telephone number circled three times in blue ink.

At 4:17 a.m., I called it.

A man answered on the second ring.

No hello.

“Who is this?”

“Clara Whitaker.”

Silence.

Then the voice changed.

Not softer.

Sharper.

“Where are you?”

“My flower shop.”

“Are the doors locked?”

I looked toward the dark window.

“Yes.”

“Go upstairs. Stay away from the glass.”

“Who are you?”

“Nicholas DeMarco.”

My stomach tightened.

I knew the name.

Everybody in Boston who paid attention to the waterfront knew the name.

“Why did my brother have your number?”

“Because your brother made a mistake.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“No.”

He paused.

“It is the answer that keeps you alive until morning.”

I almost hung up.

Then he said, “Corsetti gave you until Wednesday, didn’t he?”

Every hair on my arms lifted.

“How do you know that?”

“Because Anthony is getting impatient.”

A car slowed outside.

I stood so fast my knee hit the cabinet.

“Come to Hanover Street at eight,” Nicholas said. “Above Bellini’s Bakery. Use the side entrance.”

“Why would I trust you?”

“You shouldn’t.”

That was the first thing he ever said to me that I believed.

“At eight,” he continued, “you can decide whether you would rather be afraid of me or dead because of Corsetti.”

Click.

At 7:58, I climbed two narrow flights above a North End bakery carrying my mother’s ledger in my purse and her shears inside my coat pocket.

The hallway smelled like espresso, hot bread, and old plaster.

Two men searched my bag.

They missed the shears.

Nicholas DeMarco sat behind a dark wooden desk.

He was younger than I expected.

Maybe thirty-seven.

Dark hair.

White shirt.

No tie.

No gold chains.

No cigar.

Nothing theatrical.

That somehow made him worse.

“Sit.”

“I’d rather stand.”

“Then stand.”