Chapter 1 - The Midnight Call
At 3:04 in the morning, my phone rang, and a police officer told me my secretary had nearly killed a man with a coffee mug. In twenty years of running a criminal empire, I'd heard plenty of terrifying news, but nothing prepared me for what came next. The woman who had never once lost her composure was sitting in jail, refusing a lawyer—and the man she'd attacked belonged to my enemies.
“Mr. Kinsley? This is Sergeant Miller from the Twelfth Precinct. We've got a woman named Natalie Flores in custody.”
My blood turned cold. I sat upright, staring through the floor-to-ceiling windows of my Manhattan penthouse as rain shimmered across the streets thirty floors below.
“What's happened to her?”
“Twenty-nine years old. Arrested after an incident at a downtown diner. Says she works for you.”
Natalie had been my secretary for three years. She managed my dangerous world with flawless schedules, razor-sharp intelligence, and nerves steadier than those of my most ruthless men.
I'd watched her calmly correct powerful executives who could destroy careers with a phone call. She'd even rearranged a multimillion-dollar negotiation around my dentist appointment because, as she put it, “Unnecessary suffering is terrible time management.”
“What did she do?” I demanded.
“Apparently, she struck a man with a coffee mug. He left in an ambulance.”
For several seconds, I couldn't speak. Natalie wasn't violent, and she certainly wasn't reckless.
“Who was the man?”
“Mickey Wallace.”
My stomach tightened.
Mickey collected debts for men connected to the Moretti crime family. He enjoyed terrifying people, especially when he had two oversized bodyguards standing behind him.
“Is Natalie hurt?”
“Bruised hands. Nothing serious, apparently. She refused medical attention.”
Of course she had. Even in handcuffs, Natalie would rather suffer quietly than let anyone see her vulnerable.
“She used her one phone call to contact you,” the sergeant continued. “But there's something strange. She specifically told us not to contact your company's legal department.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
“Did she explain why?”
The officer hesitated. “She said if we called your lawyers before you arrived, someone would find out where she was.”
A cold sensation crawled down my spine.
“Don't contact anyone else about her. I'm arranging independent legal representation, and I'll be there shortly.”
I immediately called Daniel Hart, my personal attorney.
“This better be an indictment,” he muttered sleepily.
“Natalie's in custody. Twelfth Precinct. Mickey Wallace is involved.”
His breathing changed. “I'll contact criminal counsel.”
“Someone independent, Daniel. Nobody from Kinsley Holdings.”
A long silence followed.
“Roman, what aren't you telling me?”
“I wish I knew.”
Ten minutes later, I climbed into my black SUV wearing jeans, boots, and a cashmere sweater. Calvin drove through Manhattan's rain-soaked streets while I stared at my phone, fighting an unfamiliar feeling of dread.
I didn't notify my security chief. I didn't contact Donovan Pierce, who controlled my waterfront operations, or any of the men who normally tracked my every move.
Natalie had trusted me enough to make me her only call. But she'd also gone out of her way to keep my own people from knowing she'd been arrested.
And suddenly, one terrifying possibility became impossible to ignore.
Someone inside my organization was involved.
I'd trusted Natalie with my secrets for three years, and she'd never given me a reason to question her judgment. If she'd attacked a Moretti enforcer and deliberately avoided my lawyers, she wasn't simply trying to escape jail.
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She was trying to warn me.
And as the police station came into view, one question made my blood run cold: Who inside my own empire was Natalie so terrified of that she would rather spend the night behind bars than let them know where she was?
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