Chương 1 - THE BOY BEHIND THE FLOUR SACKS
The first man who offered to marry me was six years old. The second was the last man in New York I should have trusted. And the only reason either of them found me was that my stepmother had decided my life was worth fifty thousand dollars.
I was hiding behind a stack of flour at Bellarosa, a narrow Italian restaurant in Brooklyn, when someone tried the storage-room door for the third time. I pressed my back against the metal shelving and tightened my grip on a frying pan. It was dented, heavy, and the closest thing to a weapon I could find between the tomato cans and the restaurant's industrial mixer.
"Aurora!" Regina shouted through the door. "You're embarrassing yourself. Come out and we can settle this like adults."
Adults. The woman who had forged my signature on two credit applications and followed me from three temporary apartments wanted to discuss maturity.
My phone had died twenty minutes earlier. The restaurant manager had slipped me inside when Regina arrived with two men built like refrigerators, then vanished to call the police. I hoped. I had been on the run long enough to understand that people sometimes promised help because they wanted you to leave them alone.
"Tell Tony's friends I don't owe them anything," I called.
"They don't care whose name is on the debt. They're taking you tonight."
That sentence took the strength out of my knees. Three months of cheap motels, changed phone numbers, and cash-only jobs had ended at a locked door. My father had died two years earlier, leaving me nothing I could access except a box of recipe cards and memories of Sunday pancakes. Regina inherited his house, sold nearly everything inside it, and started gambling with an enthusiasm that would've impressed a professional athlete.
When the money ran out, she started using me as collateral. I had seen the messages on her unlocked tablet. Tony's men had been promised a young woman who would work off the money at one of his private establishments. Regina had written, She is stubborn but manageable.
I was not going to be managed.
Something shifted behind the flour sacks. I spun with the frying pan raised.
"Please don't hit me," a small voice said. "I'm not a bad guy."
A little boy emerged from the shadows. He wore a miniature dark wool coat over blue superhero pajamas, as though he had planned to attend a wedding and fight aliens on the same evening. Brown hair tumbled over his forehead. In his arms he carried a stuffed bear with one crooked ear.
"What are you doing in here?" I whispered.
"Hiding. What are you doing?"
"Same thing." I lowered the pan. "Does somebody know where you are?"
"My dad does. Probably." He glanced toward the door. "Are those your enemies?"
"Something like that."
"Mine is Dr. Feld." He said the name with the reverence other children reserved for monsters beneath their beds. "I have an appointment tomorrow. There might be needles. I told my dad I'm moving to Canada."
Even frightened, I nearly laughed. "You picked the restaurant storage room as Canada?"
"The door was open. Also, there are crackers."
He produced a packet from his pocket as evidence and offered me one. My stomach clenched. I hadn't eaten since sunrise, but the sound of Regina's shoes approaching the door made swallowing impossible.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Aurora."
"Like the princess?"
"Like my grandmother."
"I'm Zayn. My dad says I'm named after nobody because I should be my own person. That's kind of a lot of pressure."
The door handle rattled. I pushed the boy gently behind me.
"Don't be ridiculous, Aurora," Regina announced. "You can't hide in there forever."
Zayn stared at my wrists. The bruise circling my left arm had turned an ugly purple where Regina had grabbed me outside the restaurant. I tucked my hands behind the frying pan, but he had already seen it.
"Did she do that?" he whispered.
I nodded once.
His mouth formed a tight line. "My dad says nobody gets to hurt somebody just because they're bigger."
"Your dad sounds smart."
"He's scary to everyone except me." Zayn considered this, then added, "And maybe Mrs. Alvarez, because she makes his favorite soup."
Beyond the door, I heard a man's voice tell Regina to stop talking. Something scraped against the lock. Zayn's bear dropped from his arms. I caught it before it hit the floor.
"Listen," I said, crouching to his height. "There's a shelf behind those boxes. Stay there and don't come out until I say so."
He looked offended. "I can help."
"Helping means staying safe."
"In fairy tales, knights protect princesses." His eyes lit up with the bright confidence of a child who had never had a reason to question a happy ending. "What if we get married?"
For one absurd second, the world was simply a little boy, a stuffed bear, and a question too sweet for the room we were trapped in.
"What?"
"If you marry me, you'll be family. Nobody messes with my family. My dad has lots of people who listen to him. He can tell the bad guys to stop."
"That's not how marriage works, sweetheart."
"I know. You need cake. We can get that later."
A laugh escaped me. It broke halfway into a sob. Zayn stepped closer, suddenly serious.
"Will you marry me, Miss Aurora? Just pretend until you're safe?"
I set the frying pan on the shelf and held out my little finger. "A pretend marriage. Only until the bad guys are gone."
"Pinky promise?"
"Pinky promise."
His tiny finger hooked around mine. "Then you're not alone anymore."
The lock clicked. My entire body went cold. I snatched up the pan and stood in front of him as the door swung inward.
A man filled the doorway, tall and broad-shouldered, dressed in a black tailored suit with the collar of his white shirt open. Two other men stopped behind him. His dark hair was brushed back carelessly, and there was a fading scar near his jaw. His eyes took in the pan, my trembling hands, and Zayn's bear pressed against my hip.
He wasn't one of Tony's collectors. I'd seen his photograph often enough on newsstands to know that.
Kian Moretti. A businessman to the newspapers, a king to the city's criminal underworld, and a warning parents gave their sons when they started asking the wrong questions.
"Zayn," he said. Quietly. That was somehow worse than shouting. "You disappeared from a restaurant full of security."
Zayn popped out from behind me, beaming as if the men hadn't walked into a nightmare.
"Dad! Good news. I found a wife."
The fear inside me changed shape. Kian's gaze dropped to our linked little fingers, then to the bruise on my wrist. He looked back at the boy.
"Did you?"
"She's Aurora. We're married until she's safe. The bad people are outside, so please don't be mad."
Kian's expression didn't soften, exactly. But the dangerous focus in his eyes shifted away from me and settled on the hallway behind him.
"Aurora," he said, "tell me who thinks they can take you."
I opened my mouth. Before I could answer, Regina's voice came from the corridor.
May you like
"She's mine to collect. Whoever you are, stay out of it."
Kian turned toward the sound, and for the first time that night, I was more afraid for the person chasing me than for myself.
