SHE WAS PAID $10,000 TO KISS THE CITY'S MOST FEARED MAFIA BOSS—BUT WHEN HE LEARNED WHY SHE NEEDED THE MONEY, HE UNCOVERED THE BETRAYAL THAT COULD DESTROY THEM BOTH

The moment Diane Harper kissed the stranger in the black tuxedo, the ballroom stopped breathing.

She felt it before she saw it: the abrupt silence, the little gasp somewhere behind her, the way a hundred people seemed to turn toward the same point in space. His lips had been warm. His expression, when she pulled away, was not.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered. “I really have to go.”

His hand closed around her wrist. Not hard enough to hurt, but firmly enough to stop her. He looked down at the place where their skin touched, as though he disliked his own reflex, and released her.

“Who gave you permission to touch me?”

Diane's stomach dropped. She had known it was a terrible idea. She had known it when Catherine Voss pressed five thousand dollars into her hand, when the woman in the sparkling red gown pointed toward the windows, when Diane thought of the eviction notice taped to her apartment door. She had known it and done it anyway.

“It was a dare,” she said. “A woman paid me. I didn't know who you were.”

The stranger followed her frightened glance across the ballroom. Catherine's smile vanished.

“Your name?” he asked.

“Diane Harper.”

“And why would you accept a dare like that?”

She wanted to lie. She wanted to invent a reckless friend, a drunken bet, anything that did not make her sound as desperate as she was.

“My sister needs a dentist,” she said. “We're three months behind on rent. I know I was wrong.”

His face became unreadable. “You made a serious mistake, Diane Harper.”

Two security guards approached. “Escort her out,” he ordered. “And Miss Voss as well.”

“But she owes me another five thousand.”

One of the guards gave a short, humorless laugh. “Forget the money, sweetheart.”

Diane held her head up until they reached the service elevator. Only then did her hands begin to shake.

“Who is he?” she asked.

“Ravi Greedy,” the guard replied. “The man half this city is afraid to disappoint.”

She knew the name. Every waitress in Chicago knew the name. Greedy owned hotels, shipping interests, restaurants, and, according to the rumors, people. He was the man who appeared in newspaper photographs beside mayors and in whispered stories beside bodies that were never found.

She had kissed him in front of two hundred witnesses.

The elevator doors opened onto a narrow corridor behind the kitchen. A woman in a gray suit was waiting beside a utility cart.

“Diane Harper?”

Diane nodded cautiously.

“I'm Mara Ellis, Mr. Greedy's legal counsel. Before you leave, I need to ask whether Catherine Voss gave you cash.”

“Five thousand dollars. She promised another five.”

“Do you still have it?”

Diane reached into the hidden pocket of her apron. The envelope was there. She had checked six times since Catherine handed it over.

Mara did not touch it. “Keep it sealed. There may be a reason to preserve it.”

“Am I going to be arrested?”

“No. You shouldn't have kissed a stranger without permission. But someone deliberately placed you in that situation, and I need you to understand that those are two separate things.”

Diane stared at her. It was the first sensible sentence anyone had spoken to her all evening.

“I just want to go home.”

“Then go home. Take a cab, not the train. I'll cover the fare.”

“I don't want his money.”

“It's my account,” Mara said dryly. “And I can afford a cab.”

Diane almost smiled. Almost.

She emerged into the cold Chicago night carrying her worn coat and a paper bag of leftovers from the catering kitchen. The wind off the river found the holes in her gloves. Across the street, a black sedan idled at the curb, but she was too tired to care whether it belonged to Ravi Greedy.

Her phone buzzed. A message from Sadi.

Did you remember the strawberry yogurt? Also Mrs. Alvarez says the landlord came again. I'm not scared. Just telling you.

Diane swallowed hard.

Her sister was ten years old and had already learned to say she was not scared when she absolutely was. Diane typed, I remembered. Be home soon. Love you more than all the stars.

She had been twenty-two when their parents died on a wet stretch of highway outside Milwaukee. The state had wanted to place Sadi with relatives neither girl knew. Diane had fought for guardianship, taken a second job, then a third, and made a promise over a hospital bed that she had not yet figured out how to keep.

The cab dropped her outside a brick building in Pilsen. A pink eviction notice fluttered beside the front entrance. Diane pulled it down before Sadi could see another one.

Mrs. Alvarez opened her door on the second floor before Diane reached the landing. The older woman had watched Sadi after school for nearly two years, accepting grocery money when Diane had it and refusing it when she didn't.

“Your sister fell asleep on the couch,” she whispered. “She had another hard day.”

“Thank you.”

“There's something else.” Mrs. Alvarez lowered her voice. “A man came by asking about your parents. He said he was from an insurance company.”

Diane stopped. “What man?”

“Tall. Brown coat. He wouldn't leave a card.”

“The insurance case closed two years ago.”

“I know.”

Diane thanked her and went inside. Sadi was curled under a yellow blanket, one cheek pressed against a library book about planets. Her crooked front teeth showed slightly as she slept. Diane sat beside her, smoothed back her hair, and let herself breathe.

The apartment smelled of tomato soup and laundry detergent. It was the smallest place Diane had ever lived, and the only place that had felt like home since the funeral.

She set the envelope on the kitchen table and counted the money twice. Five thousand dollars. Enough to delay disaster, not enough to fix it.

There was a knock.

At nearly midnight, it was the last sound she wanted to hear.

“Who is it?”

“Delivery for Diane Harper.”

She looked through the peephole. A young courier held a white envelope and a small plastic bag. She opened the door only as far as the chain allowed.

“Who sent you?”

“An attorney. Ellis. She said you were expecting documents.”

“I wasn't.”

He slid the envelope through the gap and left.

Inside was a note written on heavy cream paper.

Ms. Harper: Please do not spend the cash until its source has been checked. You are not accused of wrongdoing. If anyone contacts you about tonight, call me directly. —Mara Ellis.

A business card was clipped to the note. Beneath it was a photograph printed on ordinary office paper: Catherine Voss speaking to a man in a brown coat outside the charity gala. On the back, someone had written, Do you recognize him?

Diane's mouth went dry.

The man in the photograph was the same man Mrs. Alvarez had described.

She reached for her phone, then stopped. Calling a mafia boss's lawyer at midnight felt like stepping farther into a world she wanted to escape. But the stranger had come to her building. He had asked about her dead parents.

She dialed.

Mara answered on the second ring. “Diane?”

“How did you know about the man in the brown coat?”

A pause. “Because he was photographed entering Catherine Voss's car three times this month.”

“He came to my building. He asked about my parents.”

Mara's voice changed. “Is your sister with you?”

“Yes.”

“Lock the door. I'm coming over.”

“No. Tell me what's happening.”

“I don't know yet. But the cash Catherine gave you may be connected to a missing account at one of Mr. Greedy's companies. We found an identifying mark on the envelope in the ballroom footage.”

Diane looked at the money. A thin blue line ran across the corner of the outer wrapper, almost invisible in the dim kitchen light.

“Are you saying it's stolen?”

“I'm saying it may have been used to make you look like someone else.”

“Someone else?”

“An employee who disappeared eighteen months ago.”

Diane gripped the counter. “I don't know anything about that.”

“I believe you.”

“Does Ravi Greedy?”

Another pause. “He told me to find out why Catherine chose you.”

Diane's fear sharpened into anger. “She chose me because I was wearing a cheap uniform and looked desperate.”

“Maybe,” Mara said. “But Catherine asked for you by name.”

Diane stared at the kitchen wall.

She had never met Catherine Voss before tonight. She was certain of it.

Then Sadi spoke from the doorway.

“Di?”

Diane turned. Her sister stood barefoot in her oversized astronomy pajamas, clutching the library book against her chest.

“Why are you awake, bug?”

Sadi looked past her at the photograph on the table. The color drained from the little girl's face.

“That man,” she whispered.

Diane followed her gaze. “What about him?”

“He was at Mom and Dad's funeral.”

Diane felt the apartment tilt.

Sadi moved closer, her voice trembling. “He told me not to tell you he was there. He said it would make you sad.”

For two years Diane had believed the accident was the one tragedy in their lives that did not hide a choice. A truck had skidded. A guardrail had failed. Her parents had died.

She looked again at the photograph of Catherine Voss and the man in the brown coat.

“Why would he say that?” Diane asked.

Sadi shook her head. “I don't know. But he gave me something.”

“What?”

Sadi walked to the bookshelf and pulled down her favorite book about Saturn. She opened the back cover, where a strip of transparent tape held a small brass key.

“I thought it was for when I was older,” she said.

Diane stared at the key. On its head, beneath two scratches, was a tiny engraved symbol: a crown inside a circle.

The same symbol she had noticed that evening on Ravi Greedy's cuff links.