Gabriel Marchetti once made a decision he could defend to everyone except Mara Roth.
More than a decade ago, Mara trusted him during her father's fight to recover the Valenti Archive. Gabriel used what she gave him, shaped the truth, and helped bury a valid claim. Mara built the rest of her career making certain powerful institutions could never do that to her clients again.
Now she is back in Chicago with a formal challenge to the Bellandis.
Then her informant is murdered.
With living claimants exposed and the evidence chain under attack, ordinary protection is no longer enough. Gabriel offers the one solution that can place Mara inside Bellandi protection while opening records no outsider can reach: a temporary marriage.
Mara agrees only after rewriting the terms herself. Her name remains hers. Her law firm remains hers. Her evidence remains beyond Gabriel's control. And being his wife will never stop her from questioning him, opposing him, or using the truth against his family.
Gabriel is the Bellandi consigliere, the man trusted to remember every promise powerful men would rather forget. He has wanted Mara for years. Winning her, however, means surrendering the very thing he once took from her: the right to decide what risks she is willing to bear.
And someone inside the organization is determined to make sure the old truth stays buried.
PRECEDENT is a mature, high-heat second-chance mafia romance with professional enemies-to-lovers tension, forced proximity, a possessive protector who fell first, consensual dominance, and a grovel paid in truth rather than promises.
