Chapter 1 - The Proposition
The walk from the kitchen to the master study felt like a slow march to an execution.
Norah kept her terrified eyes glued to Enzo’s expensive leather shoes.
Her heart hammered so violently against her ribs that it made her physically dizzy.
She had accidentally served garbage to the most dangerous man on the Eastern Seaboard.
They finally reached a heavy mahogany door at the end of a long hallway.
Enzo pushed it open without bothering to knock.
The massive room was completely shrouded in cold shadows.
A single green banker’s lamp illuminated a heavy wooden desk covered in ledgers.
Vincent Rossy sat perfectly still in a high-backed leather chair.
He looked like a tragic, beautiful ghost.
His sharp cheekbones cast harsh shadows across his incredibly pale skin.
Norah trembled violently as she stood before the infamous mafia king.
She fully expected him to pull a gun and end her miserable life right then and there.
Instead, Vincent stared at her with hollow, exhausted dark eyes.
He pointed a long, bony finger at the completely empty white bowl sitting on his desk.
He asked her in a raspy voice exactly what she had put in the broth.
Norah stuttered helplessly as she listed the pathetic ingredients.
She mentioned the bruised onions, the leftover rice, and the discarded chicken bones.
She squeezed her eyes shut tightly and waited for the fatal bullet to pierce her skull.
Vincent remained perfectly silent for a terrifyingly long time.
He slowly leaned forward and rested his chin on his clasped hands.
He quietly confessed that he had not kept a single meal down in six agonizing months.
He explained that her cheap peasant broth was the only thing that did not taste like battery acid.
Norah opened her eyes in pure, unadulterated shock.
Vincent offered her a brand new position in his household.
She would immediately become his personal and exclusive chef.
She would move into the heavily guarded master wing of the estate tonight.
Her fifty thousand dollar debt to the loan shark would be wiped completely clean by morning.
Norah gasped loudly and felt hot tears of profound relief prick her eyes.
She nodded frantically and thanked him profusely for his incredible mercy.
Vincent stood up slowly from his chair.
He walked around the heavy desk until he was standing merely inches away from her.
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His cold fingers gently reached out and tilted her chin upward to meet his gaze.
He whispered that if he ever threw up a single meal she prepared, Enzo would bury her alive in the woods.
