He Let His Mistress Strip Me

ds in front of Chicago'

tle of wine at my feet-and ordered h

They called me a u

im in the shadows. No idea that I wasn

urner phone an

ng me. They had thirty minutes t

pte

ena

on the silver tray, the restaurant manager's sn

glia, hadn't just frozen my accounts; he had set

r, his men would deliver me to those proprietors of Chicago's shadow-ledger economy-

aurant was a known neutral gr

ionists, and thieves, all of them b

ped a gold-nibbed fountain pen

rough the doors. Now, his eyes

om last month, a minor disagreement I ha

ightened deep

essica. Grant's secret

rs at the front of the

dining room died, the silence sprea

ldwell w

orn of terror-a top-tier mob boss who had recently

violence, a palpable thing that c

rfection over a body built

wasn'

d confidence, wearing a dress I recognized from a boutique on Oak

Capos and Associates, Gra

e masks of undi

a few feet f

I were something scraped

t so that every word would carr

t room like a hammer blow. He needed me to understand this particular brand of we

plintered glass, eru

hared wine not a fortnight ago

ut my supposedly

he idea that a civilian canary like me had only cli

linen tablecloth,

threatening to break, but I would not gra

to the head tabl

hair with a flouris

o feel like a brand against my ear, that he would

s lips as she leaned up

ed her g

as she branded me a useless trophy wife

intage claret, dark and h

ught the bottle down at my

and the delicate hem of my white silk dres

exactly

and fleeting arrogance, and declared that with the

ms, a gesture of fi

d I settle

me to draw upon funds

rowd of mobsters

ife finally fall. They did not know-none of them knew-that the woman they were mocking had b