Chapter 1 - THE MAN WHO REMEMBERED
Sophie Carter had expected jury duty to be boring. She had not expected it to introduce her to Nicholas Falcone, a man whose name could quiet an entire courthouse waiting room.
Everyone recognized him. Everyone feared him.
Sophie did neither.
At first, Nicholas was simply the intimidating stranger sitting near her while she fought unsuccessfully with a package of crackers. When he opened it for her, she teased him. When he laughed, half the room seemed shocked.
Hours of delays turned into conversation.
Sophie learned that Nicholas hated voicemail, hated cinnamon in his coffee, and possessed a dry sense of humor nobody would expect from the man whispered to be one of the most dangerous crime bosses in the city.
Nicholas learned something stranger.
Sophie treated him like an ordinary man.
She even openly called him a crime boss.
Instead of apologizing when the words slipped out, she waited for him to deny it.
He didn't.
When Sophie later brought him coffee, she remembered to leave out the cinnamon. That tiny gesture affected Nicholas more than she understood. People remembered his money, his influence, his enemies, and his reputation.
Nobody remembered small things about him.
Then Sophie casually mentioned that her birthday was approaching and joked that everyone had apparently forgotten it.
Nicholas didn't.
Three days later, he appeared at the neighborhood library where Sophie worked, accompanied by security men who looked completely out of place among children's books and reading tables.
He carried a small box.
Inside was a first-edition copy of the mystery novel Sophie had been reading at the courthouse—the terrible book she had read three times because she liked knowing how it ended.
She had never asked Nicholas for it.
She had never even said she wanted it.
He had simply listened closely enough to understand.
For Sophie, the gift meant someone had remembered her.
For Nicholas, it meant something far more dangerous.
For the first time in years, he had found someone who looked at Nicholas Falcone and saw neither power nor fear.
May you like
She saw a man.
And neither of them understood yet how many people would consider that dangerous.
