Chapter 1 - Three Minutes to Survive
Dominic Castellano had spent most of his adult life watching men become afraid of him. Clara Hayes needed less than three seconds to make him wonder whether he should be afraid of her.
The thought was so ridiculous that Dominic almost laughed.
Almost.
At exactly midnight, beneath the hard white lights of his private boxing gym overlooking Lake Michigan, Clara stood across the ring with her red-wrapped hands raised and her dark eyes fixed calmly on his chest. Nothing about her expression resembled the quiet waitress who had carried bourbon to his table the night before.
Dominic rolled his shoulders beneath his fitted gray training shirt. Black gloves covered his fists. Tattoos disappeared beneath his sleeves and reappeared along his forearms. Outside the ropes stood Leo Moretti, Dominic’s longtime trainer, along with two of the Castellano family’s most trusted enforcers.
On a leather bench sat a black duffel bag.
Inside was fifty thousand dollars.
Three minutes.
That had been Dominic’s challenge.
Survive three minutes in the ring with him, and Clara could take the money.
Fail to appear, and Dominic would make certain she never worked in Chicago again.
Clara had appeared.
And now Dominic was beginning to wish she looked more frightened.
“You still have time to change your mind,” he said.
Clara adjusted her mouthguard.
“You invited me.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No,” she replied. “It was your first mistake.”
One of the enforcers chuckled.
Dominic looked toward him.
The laughter stopped instantly.
Then Dominic turned back to Clara.
There was something about the way she stood that bothered him. She wasn’t bouncing nervously. She wasn’t throwing meaningless practice punches. Her breathing was slow. Her elbows remained close. Her chin was protected.
Leo noticed it too.
Dominic could tell because his trainer had stopped smiling.
Leo stepped toward the ropes.
“Dom.”
“What?”
“Maybe wear the headgear.”
Dominic stared at him.
Against a waitress?
“No.”
Clara’s expression didn’t change.
“Put it on,” she said.
Dominic laughed.
“I don’t wear headgear against waitresses.”
For the first time, Clara’s mouth moved into the faintest smile.
“You should.”
The bell rang.
Dominic moved immediately.
He had trained for more than a decade. Boxing was not a costume he wore to impress women or intimidate businessmen. He knew how to fight.
He expected Clara to discover that quickly.
Dominic stepped in and fired a sharp jab.
Clara moved her head less than two inches.
His glove missed.
He followed with another jab and a right hand.
Clara slipped outside.
No panic.
No wasted motion.
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
He attacked again.
Clara pivoted.
His punch met empty air.
Then he saw her shoulder turn.
Her right glove shot forward.
Dominic froze.
The glove stopped an inch from his nose.
No contact.
Clara could have hit him.
She had deliberately chosen not to.
The entire gym became silent.
Dominic stared at the glove.
Clara slowly lowered it.
“Still think I’m just a waitress?”
Nobody laughed now.
Leo whispered something under his breath.
Dominic took a step backward.
It was small.
Almost invisible.
But Clara noticed.
And Dominic hated that she noticed.
His pride immediately demanded retaliation.
He stepped forward harder this time and threw a combination designed to drive her toward the ropes.
Clara blocked the first punch.
Slipped the second.
Rolled beneath the third.
Her footwork changed.
Suddenly Dominic understood something much worse than the fact that she had training.
She was reading him.
Not surviving him.
Reading him.
She watched his shoulders. His hips. His weight distribution. Every movement gave her information, and she seemed to process it before he finished making it.
Dominic threw a left hook.
Clara ducked beneath it.
Her glove tapped his ribs.
Not hard.
Just enough.
A message.
I could have hurt you there.
Dominic turned.
Clara was already outside his range.
“Who trained you?” he demanded.
She said nothing.
He advanced.
She circled.
“Philadelphia?” Leo suddenly asked from outside the ring.
Something changed in Clara’s eyes.
It lasted less than a second.
But Dominic saw it.
So did Leo.
Dominic stopped.
“What did you say?”
Leo stared at Clara.
“I’ve seen that movement before.”
Clara’s jaw tightened.
The bell rang.
Three minutes.
Finished.
Nobody moved.
Dominic looked at the clock.
Then at Clara.
Then at the duffel bag.
His pride screamed at him to demand another round.
But the wager had been clear.
Three minutes.
She had survived.
More accurately, Dominic realized bitterly, she had controlled almost every second of them.
He pulled off one glove with his teeth.
“Give her the money.”
One enforcer hesitated.
“Boss?”
“You heard me.”
The man picked up the black duffel and carried it toward Clara.
She stepped through the ropes.
Dominic watched her unzip it.
Stacks of cash.
Fifty thousand dollars.
She closed the bag immediately.
No celebration.
No smile.
Nothing.
That confused him almost as much as her fighting.
Most people who desperately needed fifty thousand dollars looked relieved when they received it.
Clara looked like someone completing an unpleasant transaction.
“What do you need it for?” Dominic asked.
She lifted the bag.
“That wasn’t part of the wager.”
She walked toward the steel doors.
“Clara.”
She stopped.
Dominic stepped out of the ring.
“You’re not a waitress.”
She looked over her shoulder.
“I carry food and drinks for money. That makes me a waitress.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes.”
“Who are you?”
Her eyes became cold again.
“Someone who survived three minutes.”
Then she left.
The steel doors closed behind her.
Dominic remained silent.
Leo slowly approached.
“You want my opinion?”
“No.”
“I’m giving it anyway.”
Dominic began removing the tape from his gloves.
“That woman has fought professionally.”
“I figured that out.”
“No.” Leo shook his head. “I mean seriously. Not a few amateur tournaments. She has ring instincts you don’t learn unless somebody has tried to hurt you hundreds of times.”
Dominic looked toward the closed doors.
“Philadelphia?”
Leo rubbed his jaw.
“Years ago I worked a corner at an underground event there. Illegal fights. No commissions. No records. Huge gambling money.”
“And?”
“There was a girl.”
Dominic turned.
Leo continued carefully.
“She was younger. Maybe nineteen or twenty. Different hair. Different name. But she moved like Clara.”
“What name?”
Leo hesitated.
“Scarlet.”
Dominic’s expression hardened.
“Scarlet what?”
“Nobody used last names.”
“What happened to her?”
Leo looked uncomfortable.
“She disappeared.”
“Why?”
“Because she embarrassed people who didn’t like being embarrassed.”
Dominic almost smiled at the irony.
“Sounds familiar.”
“I’m serious, Dom.”
“So am I.”
Leo lowered his voice.
“The organization running those fights wasn’t some neighborhood gambling crew. They moved money through clubs, casinos, construction companies. Fighters were property to them. Scarlet became one of their biggest attractions.”
Dominic glanced toward the door again.
“And then?”
“She refused to throw a fight.”
That caught his attention.
Leo continued.
“A lot of money was riding on her losing. She won instead.”
“How much?”
“Millions.”
Dominic went still.
“What happened afterward?”
“One promoter ended up in the hospital. Another vanished. Scarlet disappeared the same night.”
“And you think Clara is her?”
“I think you should leave that woman alone.”
Dominic laughed quietly.
Leo didn’t.
“I mean it.”
Dominic walked toward the windows.
Chicago glittered below him.
He had built his reputation on understanding people. Everyone wanted something. Money. Safety. Respect. Revenge. Power.
Once Dominic discovered what someone wanted, he discovered how to control them.
Clara was different.
She had taken his money, yes.
But she had not behaved like someone motivated by greed.
Fifty thousand dollars meant something specific.
He wanted to know what.
“Find out where she went,” Dominic said.
Leo sighed.
“Of course.”
Across the city, Clara sat inside a twenty-four-hour hospital billing office.
The black duffel rested beside her feet.
A tired administrator typed on a keyboard.
“Your brother’s outstanding balance is forty-seven thousand, eight hundred and sixteen dollars.”
Clara placed the money on the desk.
“Pay all of it.”
The woman stared.
“Ms. Hayes—”
“All of it.”
Twenty minutes later, Clara entered a hospital room.
Her younger brother, Ethan, was sleeping.
At twenty-one, he looked younger beneath the pale blankets. Months of treatment had thinned his face, but color was finally returning.
Clara sat beside him.
Ethan opened his eyes.
“You’re late.”
“Go back to sleep.”
“Where were you?”
“Working.”
He noticed her swollen knuckles beneath the wraps.
“Clara.”
She hid her hands.
“It’s nothing.”
“You promised.”
“I know.”
“You promised you were done fighting.”
She looked toward the window.
“I am.”
“That doesn’t look done.”
Clara forced a smile.
“The debt is paid.”
Ethan stared at her.
“What?”
“All of it.”
“How?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
She leaned forward and squeezed his hand.
“What matters is that when you walk out of here, nobody owns anything from us.”
Ethan’s eyes filled.
“Clara…”
She looked away before he could see her own tears.
For four years, she had worked under false names, moved between cheap apartments, and taken jobs where nobody asked questions.
She had done everything possible to become invisible.
Tonight, for her brother, she had stepped into a ring again.
And she had allowed Dominic Castellano to see what she could do.
Clara knew powerful men.
Their curiosity could be more dangerous than their anger.
Her phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
She stared at the screen.
A message appeared.
YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED DEAD, SCARLET.
Clara stopped breathing.
Another message arrived.
CHICAGO ISN’T FAR ENOUGH.
She stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
Ethan startled.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Clara?”
She looked toward the hospital doorway.
Nobody.
But suddenly every shadow seemed familiar.
Every footstep outside the room sounded deliberate.
The past had found her.
And she knew exactly why.
She had fought again.
Somewhere, someone had recognized her.
Clara picked up her coat.
“Ethan, listen to me.”
Her brother saw the fear she had hidden from everyone else.
“What?”
“If anyone comes here asking for me, you don’t know where I am.”
“Why?”
“Promise me.”
“Clara—”
“Promise.”
He swallowed.
“I promise.”
She kissed his forehead and walked into the corridor.
Her phone vibrated a third time.
This message contained only a photograph.
Clara opened it.
Her blood turned cold.
It was a picture of her entering Dominic Castellano’s private gym less than an hour earlier.
Someone had been watching.
And beneath the photograph were five words.
THE DEBT ISN’T YOUR BROTHER’S.
Clara stared at them.
May you like
Then came another message.
IT’S YOURS.
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