Chapter 1 - Twenty-three is too old to be a virgin.
That’s what society says. Tessa knew it. She just didn’t care. She was too busy surviving double shifts and keeping her head down to worry about fairy tales.
But fairy tales twist into nightmares when your best friend’s brother is Dominic Costa. He wasn’t supposed to notice her.
He was supposed to be a ghost in a tailored suit. Then he looked at her—really looked—and surviving stopped. The falling began.
Tessa pushed through the glass doors of the pharmacy after a ten-hour shift, the fluorescent ache still throbbing behind her eyes.
Tuesday nights were the worst. The rain didn’t fall in this city—it spat, coating sidewalks in greasy film.
Her phone buzzed. Gemma: Feed Macaroni. I owe you my life. Keys under fake rock.
Tessa altered her route, taking the subway uptown to where doormen wore actual top hats.
But when she unlocked Gemma’s thirtieth-floor apartment and flipped the light switch, nothing happened. “The breaker’s tripped,” a voice said from the darkness.
Tessa froze, heart slamming into her ribs. A shadow detached from the velvet sofa.
Dominic Costa stepped into the gray window light—eight years older, the brother Gemma rarely spoke about, the man who’d taken over the family business when their father died.
He didn’t look like a movie mobster, but the way he stood projected inescapable gravity.
“Dominic,” Tessa breathed, hand hovering over the dead switch.
“Tessa.”
He knew her name. The syllables sounded strange in his mouth—raspy and low.
“Gemma isn’t here,” she said, forcing her vocal cords to stop vibrating. “She asked me to feed the cat.”
Dominic reached into his pocket and pulled out a silver lighter. He didn’t light a cigarette—just flipped the lid open with a sharp metallic clink.
“I know she isn’t here. She hasn’t been here for two days. I came to see if she was stupid enough to leave a trail.”
Tessa crossed her arms, wet jacket rustling. The fear was there, but exhaustion eclipsed it.
“And did she?”
Dominic stepped closer. The ambient light caught his face—exhausted, heavy shadows beneath dark eyes, faint stubble along his jaw. His nose was slightly crooked, a brutal imperfection on an otherwise arresting face.
“No. She didn’t. Which means someone else cleaned it up.”
He paused, gaze dropping to her hands, which were picking anxiously at a frayed cuticle.
“When was the last time you spoke to her?”
“Three hours ago. A text.”
Tessa held up her phone, unlocking it and tossing it onto the kitchen island. It skidded and stopped right at the edge.
“She asked me to feed Macaroni. That’s it.”
Dominic didn’t look at the phone. He looked at Tessa.
His eyes were the color of wet asphalt—unreadable, entirely too observant.
“You’re shivering.”
“It’s raining.”
“You work at the pharmacy on Fourth and Elm.”
It wasn’t a question.
Tessa’s stomach plummeted. “You have people watching me?”
“I have people watching everyone connected to my sister.”
Dominic leaned against the marble counter.
He picked up her phone, glanced at the screen, then slid it back toward her.
“You live in a studio in Queens. You pay your rent on the first. You don’t date. You don’t go out. You work. You go home. And occasionally, you clean up my sister’s messes.”
Tessa’s jaw tightened. She hated feeling exposed.
She had spent her entire adult life building walls, making herself small and uninteresting so the world would leave her alone.
Her mother had been a beautiful, tragic mess who let dangerous men ruin her life. Tessa had vowed early on to be the exact opposite.
Her virginity, her isolation, her rigid routine—they weren’t moral choices.
They were armor.
“I don’t clean up her messes,” Tessa said, voice dropping, hardening. “I feed her cat. There’s a difference.”
Silence stretched between them. Rain lashed against the thick glass.
For a second, Tessa thought she’d pushed too far.
You didn’t speak to a man like Dominic Costa like he was a telemarketer.
But then the corner of his mouth twitched. Not quite a smile, but the suffocating tension fractured just enough for her to breathe.
“Go ahead, Tessa. Feed the cat.”
The next afternoon, Tessa was aggressively counting amoxicillin pills when the bell above the pharmacy door jingled.
“Be right with you.”
When she finally looked up, breath hitched in her throat.
Dominic Costa was standing in the narrow aisle between greeting cards and compression socks.
In the harsh fluorescent light, he looked entirely out of place—dark bespoke suit, the fabric absorbing the terrible lighting.
Two men in identical dark coats stood outside on the pavement, backs to the glass door, hands clasped.
The lone customer—an elderly woman buying laxatives—took one look at Dominic, dropped her basket, and hurried out.
Tessa stared at him. “You’re scaring off my customers.”
“She looked like she remembered somewhere she needed to be.”
Dominic walked up to the counter. Up close, the sheer size of him was overwhelming.
He didn’t just take up physical space—he commanded the air around him.
“Your shift ended ten minutes ago.”
“I was finishing a prescription.”
Tessa wiped her hands on her blue scrubs, hyper-aware that she smelled like generic hand sanitizer and her hair was held up by a plastic claw clip missing three teeth.
“What are you doing here, Dominic?”
“Gemma’s phone is dead. Has been since midnight.”
His voice was low, meant only for her.
The exhaustion from the night before had morphed into quiet, vibrating intensity.
“Did she reach out?”
“No.”
Tessa frowned, genuine worry piercing through annoyance. Gemma was flaky, but she never went off the grid completely. She lived on social media.
“Are you sure she’s not just sleeping off a hangover at a hotel?”
“I own the hotels she sleeps at. She’s not there. Get your coat.”
“I can’t just leave. I have to clock out. And my manager—”
“Your manager understands that you have a family emergency. Don’t you, Gary?”
Dominic’s gaze flicked to the terrified pharmacist peeking from the back office.
Gary squeaked, “Yes, sir. Take all the time you need, Tessa.”
Tessa glared at Dominic.
She hated the display of power. She hated how easily the world bent for him.
But more than that, she hated the knot of genuine terror forming in her gut about her best friend.
Without another word, she grabbed her damp jacket and bag and walked around the counter.
Dominic pushed the glass door open for her.
Outside, a sleek black SUV idled at the curb. One of the men opened the back door.
Tessa hesitated.
Getting into a car with a mob boss was exactly the kind of thing her mother would have done—the first step on a road that ended in a shallow grave or a shattered life.
Dominic paused, seeing her hesitation.
He didn’t push. He didn’t command.
He simply looked at her, his dark eyes stripping away layers of defensive cynicism.
“I won’t let anything happen to you. But I need you. If she runs, she’ll run to you.”
Tessa swallowed hard, throat clicking.
She stepped into the car.
The interior smelled of expensive leather and mint. The heavy thud of the door closing sealed them in a quiet, soundproof bubble.
Dominic sat beside her, leaving respectable distance. But the heat radiating from his body was undeniable.
The SUV merged into slick traffic.
“Why do you put up with her?” Dominic asked suddenly, staring out the tinted window at the blur of brake lights.
Tessa looked down at her hands, picking at her thumbnail.
“Because when my mom died, I was seventeen. I had no money, no dad, and the state was going to put me in a group home. Gemma hid me in her pool house for three months and brought me food until I turned eighteen and could sign my own lease. She kept me out of the system.”
Dominic slowly turned his head to look at her.
The sharp angles of his face softened just a fraction.
He understood the currency of loyalty. In his world, debts were written in blood.
“You don’t forget a debt.”
“No. I don’t.”
“You’re a good friend, Tessa.”
“I’m a tired friend.”
She leaned her head back against the leather headrest, closing her eyes briefly.
“What kind of trouble is she in, Dominic? Don’t lie to me.”
“She owes a substantial amount of money to a man who does not respect my family’s territory. It’s a provocation. They’re using her stupidity to test my patience.”
Tessa opened her eyes and looked at him.
“Are you going to kill them?”
Dominic didn’t blink. “If they’ve touched a single hair on her head, I will burn their entire world to the ground.”
The utter lack of emotion in his voice sent a shiver down Tessa’s spine.
It was terrifying, violent reality.
Yet looking at the sharp set of his jaw and the fierce protective loyalty burning beneath his cold exterior, Tessa felt an entirely inappropriate flutter in her chest.
She had spent her whole life avoiding dangerous men, only to realize the most dangerous man in the city was the only one who made her feel entirely safe.
Her phone chimed in her lap—sharp ping shattering the heavy atmosphere.
Tessa grabbed it. Unknown number. One text:
Tess, it’s G. Motel 6 on I-95, room 112. Bring cash. Don’t tell Dom.
She stared at the screen, heart hammering.
Slowly, she turned the phone and showed it to the man beside her.
Dominic’s eyes scanned the text. A muscle feathered in his jaw.
May you like
He tapped the glass partition separating them from the driver.
“Change of plans. We’re going to the highway.”
