Marissa Brennan knew the shape of trouble before most men had the good sense to introduce themselves.
It came in many forms. Drunk clients who mistook payment for ownership. Businessmen who thought wealth made them untouchable. Young soldiers with something to prove, and old monsters with nothing left to lose. She had seen them all walk through the doors of her house.
Tonight, trouble came in smiling.
Nico Bartoli stepped into the bar fifteen minutes before closing, dark hair slightly mussed, black shirt open at the throat, jacket hanging from one finger over his shoulder. His gaze swept the room first, because even when he pretended to be careless, he never truly was. Then those warm brown eyes landed on her, and his smile shifted into something far more personal.
Marissa sighed. “No.”
He stopped with one foot over the threshold. “I haven’t said anything yet.”
“I know. I’m saving us both time.”
One of the girls laughed from a booth near the window. Nico glanced over, gave her a wink that made her grin, then turned that wicked attention back to Marissa.
“Now, bella, that hurts.”
“Good. Maybe it will teach you not to come into my house wearing that face.”
He looked delighted, the menace. “Which face?”
“The one that says you are about to become my problem.”
Nico crossed the room with easy confidence, weaving between polished tables and empty chairs as if he belonged there. He did not. Not in the way her clients did. Nico belonged to the Carlisi familia, and that made him both safer and infinitely more dangerous.
He leaned one elbow on the bar. “Maybe I like being your problem.”
“You would. You’re twenty-eight.”
His smile thinned at the edges, though his tone stayed light. “And you’re still pretending that matters.”
Marissa closed the cash drawer and locked it. The tiny click sounded too loud between them. “It matters because I have sense.”
Something hot flashed in his eyes before he softened it back into charm. “No, bella. You have excuses.”
Her pulse misbehaved. She hated when it did that around him.
“Nico Bartoli,” she said, voice low in warning.
“There it is.” His grin came back. “You only use my full name when you’re thinking about kissing me or killing me.”
“I can multitask.”
His laugh was quiet, warm, and entirely too intimate.
Before Marissa could decide whether to send him out the front door or have one of the girls pour him coffee to keep his mouth occupied, the energy in the room changed.
The front door opened again.
This time, trouble came in without smiling.
Four men, dressed too well for the violence in their eyes. The man in front was older, silver threading his dark hair, his coat tailored, his expression calm in the way of men who believed fear should arrive before they did. Behind him stood three younger men with heavy shoulders and watchful hands.
Marissa moved from behind the bar before Nico could step fully in front of her.
This was her house.
“We’re closed,” she said.
The older man’s gaze traveled over her in a way that made Nico go very still beside her.
“Marissa Brennan.”
She lifted her chin. “If you know my name, then you know you should have called ahead.”
His gaze dragged over her, deliberately insulting. “I don’t make appointments with whores. I just fuck them.”
The words hit the room like a slap.
Marissa did not move. She did not blink. Men had tried to shame her with uglier words than that, and most of them had learned, eventually, that shame only worked on women willing to carry it.
Nico’s voice came from beside her, quiet enough to be terrifying.
“Careful,” he said quietly. “Say one more word to her like that, and I’ll send your fucking tongue back to your employer in a glass.”
The older man finally looked at him. “This is business.”
“Then speak carefully,” Nico replied.
Marissa felt the heat of his anger, but there was no explosion yet. Nico remained loose beside her, his hand nowhere near his weapon, which meant he was either very calm or very close to doing something stupid.
The older man reached into his coat. Nico shifted half an inch. The three men behind him tensed.
Marissa raised one hand. “Not in my house.”
The man smiled, withdrew an envelope, and placed it on the nearest table as if offering her a gift. “New terms. Weekly payment. Carlisi protection has become … unreliable, so you will pay for ours.”
Marissa stared at the envelope, then back at him. “No.”
His smile hardened. “You haven’t heard the rest.”
“Don’t need to.”
“Money is only part of it. Men loyal to my employer will have access when required. Rooms. Liquor. Women.”
The room went quiet enough for Marissa to hear Celia’s frightened breath catch.
Nico’s charm disappeared.
Marissa had seen dangerous men all her adult life, but the sudden absence of warmth in Nico was chilling.
The older man mistook her silence for fear and stepped closer. “The Battaglia name still carries weight in Chicago.”
Marissa smiled then, because men like him never understood women like her. They saw silk and curves and mistook it for softness. They heard madam and thought shame. They walked into her house and mistook restraint for permission.
“Not here,” she said.
His eyes narrowed. “Then we’ll start the lesson now.”
He snapped his fingers.
One of the younger men lunged for Celia.
Marissa reached beneath the bar.
Nico moved first.
________________________________________
Nico hit the man going for Celia before the bastard reached the booth.
He did not draw his gun. Not with Marissa’s girls in the room. A bullet in a place like this could turn punishment into tragedy.
So, he used his hands.
He caught the attacker by the back of the neck and drove him face-first into the nearest table. Wood cracked beneath the impact. Celia cried out, but one of the other girls grabbed her by the arm and pulled her deeper into the booth.
