Bring Her to Me!” He Ordered—The Mafia Boss Broke Down

Cold.

It was the kind of cold that lived inside iron pipes and wet concrete—a freezing dampness that sank through denim, wool, and skin until the marrow of the bone felt brittle.

Nora Mitchell blinked against the darkness. Her head throbbed with a sickening, rhythmic pulse. Every heartbeat sent a wave of nausea rolling through her stomach. She tried to lift a hand to touch the temple where the butt of a gun had struck her outside the studio, but her wrists wouldn't move.

Rough hemp rope bit brutally into her skin, binding her hands behind the back of a rusted metal chair. Her ankles were tied tightly to the legs.

"She's awake," a voice grunted from the shadows.

Nora stiffened. She forced her breathing to slow, fighting the blind panic rising in her chest. She had spent five years restoring Renaissance oil paintings, teaching herself the absolute discipline of stillness—how to steady a hand so that a brush with three hairs could trace a hairline fracture without ruining centuries of canvas.

*Breathe,* she told herself, the voice in her head shaking. *Look around. Don't show them you're breaking.*

The room was vast, damp, and cavernous. Overhead, rusted hooks hung from an iron track bolted to the ceiling. The faint smell of ammonia and rotten fat lingered in the air.

An abandoned meatpacking plant.

Footsteps sloshed through shallow puddles on the concrete. A man stepped into the yellow pool of light cast by a single halogen work lamp hanging from a frayed cord.

He was broad-shouldered, wearing a grease-stained leather jacket and heavy boots. His nose had been broken more than once, healed crooked across a square, pockmarked face. He held a folding knife in his right hand, casually cleaning the dirt from beneath his fingernails with the tip of the blade.

"You took quite a hit outside," the man said. His accent was thick, outer-borough New York, harsh and gravelly. "Most girls your size stay out for hours."

"Who are you?" Nora's voice was hoarse, her throat dry as sand.

The man smirked. "Nobody you know, sweetheart. Just a guy doing a favor for an old boss who misses the good old days."

Nora pulled at the ropes. The coarse fibers scraped against her flesh, drawing a sharp sting. "If you want money, my bank account has about four thousand dollars in it. Take my cards. Take the paintings in my studio."

The man barked a harsh laugh that echoed against the damp walls. "Four grand? Honey, the man you’re sleeping with spends four grand on lunch tips. You really don't know, do you?"

Nora went still. "What does Adrian have to do with this?"

The man walked toward her, stopping just two feet away. He leaned down, placing his dirty hands on his knees, staring into her face. "Adrian Vale plays the gentleman these days. Suits from Milan. Charity galas at the Met. Shaking hands with the mayor. But underneath all that cashmere, he’s a butcher's son. His old man ran the docks with an iron pipe, and Adrian buried anyone who didn't kiss his ring."

"You're lying," Nora whispered, though her chest tightened with a horrible, cold realization.

She had known Adrian Vale was powerful. She had known the air around him always carried an invisible gravity, that waiters bowed too low, that doormen stiffened when his black Maybach rolled up to the curb. She had seen the hard lines of his jaw when he answered late-night calls, the subtle way his body shielded hers whenever they stepped out into a crowd.

She had asked him once, months ago, while tracing the scar on his wrist in the early morning light of his penthouse: *What did you have to give up to become this successful?*

Adrian had looked down at her with eyes filled with a melancholy so vast it had frightened her. *Parts of my humanity,* he had answered softly. *Parts I pray you will never have to see.*

"He's a criminal, little girl," the man spat, leaning closer. "And he stole everything from the people who made him. My father died in a federal penitentiary because Adrian Vale handed a ledger to the U.S. Attorney to clear his own corporate slate."

The man straightened and slapped his knife shut with a sharp *clack*.

"My name is Leo Cassian," he said. "And tonight, Adrian Vale is going to give it all back. Or he’s going to watch you bleed out through this concrete floor."

Nora raised her chin, though tears burned behind her eyelids. "He won't give you anything. He isn't weak."

Leo's eyes narrowed. In a flash of sudden, vicious motion, his hand whipped out.

*Crack.*

The back of his ringed hand caught Nora across the cheekbone.

The force of the blow snapped her head sideways. Pain exploded across her face, bright and blinding. She tasted copper on her tongue. Her lip split against her teeth, blood dripping warm down her chin, staining the collar of her camel coat and the soft wool of the red scarf Adrian had wrapped around her neck only that morning.

A whimper escaped her before she could swallow it.

"He'll give me whatever I ask for," Leo hissed, grabbing a fistful of her dark hair and wrenching her head back so she was forced to look at the ceiling. "Because for the last three months, Adrian Vale hasn't looked at his balance sheets. He’s been looking at you."

He released her hair with a shove. Nora gasped, her vision swimming through a haze of tears and agony.

In the corner of the room, a metal door creaked open. Another thug stepped in, holding a tactical radio.

"Leo," the second man said nervously. "Motion sensors on Borden Avenue just tripped. Someone cut the power to the gate."

Leo’s sneer faded, replaced by an ugly, predatory grin.