Merry Christmas Cara

The snow fell heavy outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse, blanketing Chicago in a deceptive white hush.

Christmas lights twinkled from the skyline below, but up here, in Angelo Rossi’s domain, the holiday felt like just another layer of tension, red velvet ropes hanging from the four poster beds like twisted garlands, a crystal decanter of spiked eggnog on the nightstand.

I stood in the center of the room, heart pounding, dressed in the black lace lingerie he’d sent to my apartment that morning with a note, “Wear this. 8 PM. No panties.”

Angelo Don Rossi to the world, my forbidden obsession for months, circled me slowly, his tailored suit jacket discarded, sleeves rolled up to reveal inked forearms corded with muscle.

The Mafia kingpin who’d pulled me from a shitty waitressing job into his shadow world, not with threats, but with that dark, magnetic pull I couldn’t resist.

We’d danced around this for weeks, stolen kisses in his limo, hi