"My mother uninvited me from Christmas, my boss accused me of stealing $6,000, and my ex threw me into a blizzard—unaware that Boston's most feared mafia boss was listening."

The howling December blizzard outside Beacon Hill slammed against the frosted glass windows, but inside the bakery, the air had turned to absolute zero.

At six-foot-three, Nico Vale commanded Boston’s underground syndicate and commercial shipping empire. His broad shoulders were encased in a dark charcoal bespoke coat, his dark hair silvering slightly at the temples, a faint, razor-sharp scar slicing through his left eyebrow. His cold storm-gray eyes—eyes that made politicians and rival syndicate leaders tremble—locked onto my former manager, Brenda Mercer, and my ex-boyfriend, Julian Cross.

My hands were shaking violently as I stood drenched in sweat and cold tears behind the marble counter.

"M-Mr. Vale..." Brenda stammered, clutching her designer leather handbag so tightly her manicured fingernails nearly pierced the leather. "We... we were just handling an internal staff theft. This girl has been skimmin'—"

"Quiet," Nico commanded.

His voice was not a shout. It was a low, subsonic baritone that vibrated right through the floorboards under my boots, instantly choking the air out of the room.

Nico didn't look at Brenda. He stepped past the display cases of almond tarts and holiday gingerbread, stopping less than two feet away from me. The rich, intoxicating scent of cedarwood, cold rain, and dark espresso enveloped my senses.

"Clara," Nico spoke softly, his gray eyes softening into something raw and deeply protective as he looked at my pale, exhausted face. "Did you really bake for thirteen consecutive days without a single break?"

I swallowed the lump of glass in my throat, nodding once. "Yes, sir. I... I just wanted to buy my mother's almond tart and spend Christmas with my family."

"And your manager refused to pay your thirty-one hours of overtime?"

"She said... she said I was fired and wouldn't get a penny," I whispered, clutching my frayed coat around my chest.

Nico slowly turned his head back toward Julian and Brenda. The warmth in his eyes vanished, replaced by an apocalyptic, diamond-hard rage.

"You have thirty seconds to return those torn notebook pages, Mr. Cross," Nico stated flatly.

Julian tried to force an arrogant smirk, holding his ground. "Look, Mr. Vale, I don't know who you think you are, but I'm the chief auditor for the regional distributor. Clara is a nobody. Her own mother threw her out for Christmas because she's an eyesore! You don't need to defend a fat, penniless—"

BOOM!

Before Julian could finish his sentence, the front glass doors of the bakery swung open with hydraulic violence!

Stepping into the room were four broad-shouldered men in dark tactical suits, led by Lieutenant Colonel Marcus Vance, head of Vance Security. Outside on Beacon Hill, three black armored SUVs idle with flashing emergency lights.

"Don Vale," Marcus Vance reported flatly, holding an encrypted satellite tablet. "We have remote control of the server room. The 4K security feeds from December twelfth are backed up to the private cloud."

Julian went paper-white. The torn pages fell from his trembling fingers, fluttering onto the floor.

Nico took two steps toward Julian, his massive six-foot-three frame towering over my ex-boyfriend like an insurmountable wall of granite.

"You took six thousand dollars in specialty inventory, forged the delivery orders using Clara's login, and borrowed forty-eight hundred dollars from her personal savings," Nico revealed, every word falling like an iron block into the quiet bakery. "And then you tried to throw her out into a sub-zero blizzard on Christmas Eve."

Nico reached out, catching Julian by the lapels of his coat, dragging him forward until their faces were inches apart.

"I bought Winter & Rye three weeks ago, Julian," Nico whispered ice-cold into his face. "Not for the bread. But because sixteen Fridays ago, I sat behind that curtain and watched a brilliant, kind woman give her own lunch to a homeless veteran outside while you screamed at her for taking up space."

Nico shoved Julian backward into Marcus Vance’s grip.