“You’re Sleeping Beside Me Tonight ”—Then the Mafia Boss Kissed Her Before Everyone…
“You’re Sleeping Beside Me Tonight ”—Then the Mafi…
“You’re Sleeping Beside Me Tonight ”—Then the Mafia Boss Kissed Her Before Everyone…
“You’re sleeping beside me tonight.” The most feared man in Manhattan said it while police rifles were pointed at his chest—then kissed me in front of everyone before I could answer. Ten minutes earlier, I had watched his closest lieutenant secretly help assassins attack him. What Mateo Visconti didn’t know was that I wasn’t really an event coordinator. I was an undercover federal agent tracing forty million dollars in dirty money. What I didn’t know was that my own handler had already sold me out. By sunrise, the mafia wanted me dead, the FBI wanted me silent, and the only man keeping me alive was the criminal I had spent eight months trying to destroy.
PART 1 — A public kiss turns a federal witness into mafia property.
Blood looked almost black against white marble.
That was the first stupid thing I noticed.
Not the four men on the ballroom floor.
Not the shattered champagne glasses.
Not the screaming billionaire crouched behind a table covered in white roses.
Just the blood.
Dark. Shiny. Spreading toward my left heel.
“Don’t move,” someone yelled.
I moved anyway.
My name is Genevieve Sinclair, and until that night, everyone at the Bellmont Hotel believed I was a senior event coordinator who worried about seating charts, allergies, and whether rich people had enough tiny crab cakes.
That cover had taken eight months to build.
It died in eight seconds.
Ten minutes earlier, the Aster Foundation gala had been running exactly on schedule.
String quartet near the staircase.
Champagne at 7:15.
Dinner at 8:00.
Silent auction closing at 9:30.
I had a headset in one ear and a cold Starbucks in my hand with a brown coffee ring staining the cardboard sleeve.
Normal Manhattan nonsense.
Then four men dressed like private security came through the service entrance.
I knew they weren’t security because none of them checked the room.
They checked Mateo Visconti.
And Arthur Pendleton checked them.
That was the part that mattered.
Arthur was Mateo’s oldest friend, chief lieutenant, and the kind of man who smiled without ever letting warmth reach his eyes.
I watched him step backward during the first burst of shouting.
A Glock had fallen beside a banquet table.
Arthur glanced around.
Then he quietly kicked it across the marble toward one of the attackers.
Not away.
Toward him.
My stomach dropped.
Inside job.
Before I could reach my emergency transmitter, the first shot cracked through the ballroom.
People screamed.
A waiter dropped an entire tray of champagne.
The quartet scattered.
I ducked behind the service alcove and watched everything through a narrow opening.
Mateo moved fast.
Terrifyingly fast.
He didn’t look like some movie gangster throwing bullets around.
He looked controlled.
Cold.
Like violence was simply another problem he had already calculated.
By the time the room went silent, four attackers were down and Arthur was standing beside Mateo pretending he had almost died protecting him.
I had seen enough to destroy that lie.
Unfortunately, somebody had seen me.
A hand closed over my shoulder.
“Found one.”
Enzo Bellini dragged me from the alcove.
He was six-foot-four, built like a refrigerator, and looked at me as if deciding whether I would fit inside one.
My heel caught a rug.
I nearly went down.
I caught myself.
Arthur’s eyes found mine.
That tiny flicker of panic told me everything.
“She was hiding,” Enzo said.
Mateo turned.
He wore a charcoal tuxedo with blood on one cuff.
His eyes landed on me.
No surprise.
No confusion.
Just attention.
“You saw something,” he said.
“I saw rich people ruin a perfectly good fundraiser.”
Enzo almost smiled.
Arthur didn’t.
Mateo walked closer.
“You’re funny.”
“I’m terrified.”
“I know.”
That irritated me more than it should have.
Police sirens screamed outside.
Blue and red light began flashing through the ballroom windows.
Arthur stepped toward Mateo.
“Cops are here. Give her to me.”
Too fast.
Way too fast.
Mateo noticed.
“So eager?” he asked.
Arthur shrugged.
“She’s a liability.”
There it was.
My death sentence, delivered like a catering note.
Then the ballroom doors burst open.
“NYPD! HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM!”
Captain Daniel H came through first with tactical officers behind him.
Guests started crying again.
I actually felt relieved.
For approximately three seconds.
H looked at Mateo.
Then Arthur.
Then me.
“And who the hell is she?”
“A witness,” Arthur said.
“A hostage,” H guessed.
Mateo’s gaze stayed on Arthur.
Something passed across his face.
Calculation.
Then he walked straight toward me.
I stepped back.
His hand settled behind my neck.
“Do not make a scene,” he whispered.
“I will break your fingers.”
“I believe you.”
“Good.”
Then he raised his voice.
“She’s neither.”
H frowned.
“Then who is she?”
Mateo looked directly into my eyes.
That was when he detonated my life.
“She’s with me.”
His arm moved around my waist.
I stiffened.
“Mateo,” I whispered.
“Arthur wants you dead.”
“I noticed.”
“He has cops.”
That got my attention.
“And now?”
“Now he has a problem.”
Mateo turned toward H.
“My fiancée has had a difficult evening.”
Fiancée.
I almost laughed.
Then he leaned close enough that his breath warmed my ear.
“You’re sleeping beside me tonight.”
“What?”
He kissed me.
Brief.
Hard.
Public.
Completely unauthorized.
For half a second, shock froze me.
Then anger hit.
My palm flattened against his chest and shoved.
He barely moved.
When he pulled away, I stared at him with enough hatred to peel paint.
“Do that again,” I whispered, “and I’ll rearrange your expensive face.”
His mouth twitched.
“Excellent. You look convincing.”
Captain H looked disgusted.
Arthur looked terrified.
That was the point.
By claiming me in front of twenty witnesses and half the NYPD, Mateo had made my disappearance inconvenient.
Arthur couldn’t quietly kill the event planner anymore.
Not without explaining why Mateo Visconti’s newly announced fiancée vanished hours after witnessing an assassination attempt.
I hated that it was smart.
I hated him slightly more for knowing it.
