“I Need a Wife by Tomorrow,” the Mafia Boss Said — She Smirked, “Then You’re Moving In With Me.”
Part 1
He was bleeding out on the cold tile floor of a veterinary clinic, a man whose name alone could silence a room. Nikolai Vulov owned half of Chicago. But at 2:00 a.m. on a rainy Tuesday, he was simply a dying man with a deadline.
He did not ask for a priest. He did not ask for morphine.
He grabbed the wrist of the woman stitching him up and delivered an ultimatum that sounded like a curse.
“I need a wife by tomorrow.”
The neon sign above the door buzzed with an erratic hum: Paws and Claws Veterinary Clinic. Inside, the air smelled of antiseptic and wet dog, a scent Vivien Clark had grown used to over the last 3 years. It was better than the smell of fear, which had once followed her everywhere before she changed her name and buried her past in this forgotten corner of South Chicago.
She had been wiping down a stainless steel exam table when the back door was kicked in. The noise cracked through the silence like a gunshot. She spun, a scalpel already palmed in her hand, a reflex from a life she had tried to forget.
A massive man filled the doorway, soaked in rain and blood. His charcoal wool suit was ruined, darkened along the left side of his abdomen. Two hulking men with earpieces flanked him, dragging him forward.
“We’re closed,” Vivien said, her voice steady.
“Fix him,” one of the guards barked, leveling a suppressed pistol at her chest.
The injured man made a sharp, dismissive gesture. “Put the gun away, Alexe. She’s not a threat.”
He collapsed onto the metal table, breathing ragged.
Vivien moved before she could think. She ripped open his shirt buttons. A gunshot wound. Through and through, missing the liver by an inch. He was losing blood fast.
“I’m a vet,” she said, grabbing gauze and clamps. “I treat golden retrievers, not gangsters.”
“Tonight,” the man gritted out, locking his icy gray eyes on hers, “I am a stray dog.”
Even pale from blood loss, Nikolai Vulov possessed a terrifying gravity. Everyone in Chicago knew the Vulov Bratva. They ran the docks, the unions, and the politicians.
“No anesthesia,” he said as she poured iodine into the wound.
“I have ketamine,” she replied, threading a needle.
“No. I need a clear head. Stitch it.”
She worked with efficient brutality. Cleaned. Packed. Sutured. The room was silent except for rain hammering the roof and Nikolai’s controlled exhales. He did not scream. He barely blinked. He watched her hands, steady and scarred. He watched the way she did not shake, despite the gun still loosely held at Alexe’s side.
“You’re not a vet,” Nikolai said quietly as she tied the final knot.
“And you’re not a stray,” she replied, cutting the thread. “You’re done. Get out.”
He sat up, groaning as his abdominal muscles contracted. He checked his smashed platinum Patek Philippe.
“What time is it?”
“2:15 a.m.”
“Damn it.” He looked at Alexe. “The deadline is midnight tonight. If I’m not married by the time the trust executes on my 30th birthday, the seat goes to my uncle. If my uncle takes the seat, we are all dead bodies.”
“The arrangement with the senator’s daughter fell through,” Alexe said. “She’s in rehab.”
“Find someone else.”
“At 2:00 a.m.? Who?”
Nikolai’s gaze moved across the dingy clinic. It paused on the fake diploma Vivien had bought online. Then it returned to her. Dark hair in a messy bun. Intelligent eyes. No ring on her finger.
“You,” he said.
Vivien stilled. “Excuse me?”
“I need a wife by tomorrow. Legally bound. No romance. Just paper. You do this and I pay you $5 million. After 1 year, we divorce.”
She let out a dry laugh. “I’d rather stitch up a rabid pit bull. Leave.”
“10 million,” he amended. “And protection. I see the way you look at the door every time a car passes. You’re hiding from someone. Marry me and the Vulov name shields you. No one touches the wife of the Pakhan.”
She froze.
He was right. She was hiding from Arthur Penhaligan, a loan shark from Boston who had promised to take her kidney if she did not repay her deceased father’s $200,000 gambling debt. She had 3 days left before his trackers found her new address.
“10 million?” she asked softly.
“Cash wired to an offshore account of your choosing.”
This was insanity. This was suicide. But staying and waiting for Penhaligan was a guarantee of death.
“I have conditions,” she said.
“Name them.”
“I don’t live in your compound. I don’t get involved in your business. And I don’t sleep in your bed.”
“Agreed. You can live in the penthouse guest wing.”
“No,” she interrupted. “If I disappear into your penthouse, Penhaligan will think I’ve been taken or killed. He’ll go after my sister in Vermont to flush me out. I need to be seen. I need to appear normal. Just married.”
She stepped closer, tilting her chin up.
“If you want me to be your wife, you leave your penthouse. You leave the guards. You come to the real world.”
His eyes narrowed. “What are you saying?”
“If you want a wife by tomorrow, you’ll have to live at my place.”
Silence filled the room.
Alexe looked as if he might choke.
The great Nikolai Vulov living in a studio apartment above a veterinary clinic.
After a long moment, a corner of Nikolai’s mouth twitched.
“Fine. Pack a bag, doctor. We have a courthouse to bribe.”
At 8:00 a.m., they were the first at City Hall. Mrs. Gable, a clerk who smelled of peppermint and cigarettes, did not look up when Nikolai placed a stack of $100 bills on the counter beside the marriage license application.
“Sign here,” she said flatly.
Vivien’s hand hovered over the paper. Vivien Clark. It was a fake name, but it was the one on her driver’s license. Signing meant legally binding herself to the most dangerous man in Chicago.
“Cold feet?” Nikolai murmured.
“Just wondering if I should ask for $15 million,” she replied.
She signed.
By noon, it was done. No rice. No cake. No kiss. Just a handshake outside the courthouse that felt more like a business merger than a matrimony.
“You live at my place,” she reminded him when he reached for his phone.
He stared at her hand gripping his arm. No one touched him without permission.
“Get in the car, husband.”
They drove to the Flats on Fourth Street, near Moretti territory.
“Boss, that’s not safe,” Alexe warned.
“It’s perfect,” Vivien said. “The Morettis won’t look for the Vulov boss in a tenement building surrounded by their own low-level runners.”
Nikolai studied her. “Hiding in plain sight.”
He opened the car door for her. “After you, Mrs. Vulov.”
The building was crumbling brick with peeling paint. Fourth floor. No elevator.
He carried his own leather duffel bag up the stairs.
The apartment was small. A shoebox. The front door opened directly into a combined kitchen and living room. One bedroom the size of a closet. A bathroom with a perpetually dripping shower. A cat slept on top of the microwave.
“The cat comes with the apartment,” Vivien said, locking the deadbolt and sliding the chain. “His name is Barnaby. Don’t touch him. He bites.”
Nikolai looked at the cat. The cat hissed and went back to sleep.
“There is one bed,” Nikolai observed.
“I take the bed. You take the couch.”
“I was shot 6 hours ago.”
“And I saved your life 6 hours ago. Couch.”
He unclipped his shoulder holster and placed the gun on top of the fridge beside a cereal box.
“Ground rules,” she said, pouring cheap pinot grigio into a glass.
“Rule one: no one comes in here. Not your friends. Not your sister.”
“I don’t have friends here.”
“Rule two: you don’t ask about my work. If I come home late or bleeding, you patch me up and say nothing.”
“Fine. Rule three: you do the dishes. I cook. You clean. We’re a working-class couple.”
“I have never washed a dish in my life.”
“There’s a first time for everything. Welcome to the real world, Nico.”
He stiffened. “Nikolai.”
“Nico fits the apartment better.”
He stepped close, voice lowering. “Understand this. I may be sleeping on your couch and washing your dishes, but I am not a domestic animal. Do not mistake my patience for tameness.”
“I’m a vet,” she replied evenly. “I know how to handle wild animals.”
“And when they bite?”
“You muzzle them.”
He laughed, dark and rich.
A heavy pounding shattered the moment.
“Open up! NYPD!”
Vivien went white. It was not the police. She knew that knock. Arthur Penhaligan’s collectors.
Nikolai had already retrieved his gun.
“Expecting company?” he asked.
“It’s the reason I need $10 million.”
The pounding escalated into kicks.
“Last chance, Vivien! Open up or we break it down!”
Salvatore Rocco’s voice.
Nikolai moved silently to the doorframe and motioned for her to unlock it but leave the chain engaged.
She turned the deadbolt. The door slammed open against the chain.
Through the 4-inch gap, Salvatore’s sweaty face appeared beside a heavy-set man named Barry.
“You have the wrong apartment,” Nikolai said.
Salvatore’s eyes traveled upward from white silk to shoulder holster to icy gray stare. The color drained from his face.
“We’re here for a collection,” Salvatore stammered.
“Vivien Clark doesn’t exist anymore,” Nikolai said calmly. “She is Mrs. Vulov. The Vulov family has no debts to street-level loan sharks.”
Barry reached through the gap and grabbed Nikolai’s shirt.
It happened instantly. Nikolai struck Barry’s wrist upward against the doorframe with the heel of his palm. Bone crunched. Barry screamed.
Nikolai leaned closer.
“Tell Penhaligan if he sends his dogs to my doorstep again, I will return them in pieces small enough to mail in an envelope. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir. Mr. Vulov. Big mistake.”
“Go.”
The hallway fell silent.
Vivien leaned against the counter, pale but standing.
“Arthur Penhaligan,” Nikolai said thoughtfully. “Boston. Gambling debts. Shopkeepers.”
“I owe him $200,000,” she said. “My dad’s debt.”
“Chump change. But now it’s principle. He insulted my wife.”
“We’ve been married 4 hours.”
“In my world, perception is reality,” he said, stepping close. “Until the ink dries on our divorce papers, you are a Vulov. No one touches a Vulov without my permission.”
He tilted her chin up gently.
“You are safe. Not because I care. Because my ego demands it.”
“I understand.”
He winced suddenly.
“You’re bleeding again,” she said.
“I ripped a stitch.”
“Sit.”
She resutured him on the couch.
At 3:00 a.m., he lay awkwardly across the lumpy beige cushions. She could not sleep.
Later, she found him awake, feverish.
“Why did you agree?” he asked.
“Penhaligan gave me until Friday,” she said. “After that, he said I could work off the debt in one of his clubs overseas. I was going to run again.”
“Running is exhausting.”
“Easy for you to say.”
He studied her.
“My father ran numbers for the Irish mob,” she admitted quietly. “I grew up knowing how to pack a go-bag in 5 minutes.”
“So the vet is also a stray,” he said.
He laid back down.
“Tomorrow we convince Chicago I’ve fallen desperately in love with a humble veterinarian.”
“How?”
“We lie. With every look, every touch, every breath. Until midnight on my birthday. Then I set you free.”
She returned to bed feeling safer than she had in 3 years.
It frightened her more than Penhaligan ever had.
Part 2
Morning sunlight exposed every crack in the apartment walls. Vivien woke to the smell of strong coffee and expensive cologne.
The kitchen had been cleaned. A silver tray with pastries, a French press, and china cups sat on the small table. Nikolai stood in a fresh navy suit.
“Good morning, wife. Eat. We have a busy schedule.”
Garment bags hung from the door.
“Your costume for act one,” he said. “Lunch at the Drake Hotel. Gossip columnists, rivals, my uncle’s spies. You need to look like a woman who captured my attention.”
She changed into a cream cashmere wrap dress.
Flashbulbs erupted when the armored SUV stopped outside the Drake Hotel.
“Who told them?” she asked.
“I did.”
He opened a velvet box. Inside lay a diamond ring the size of a quail egg in platinum.
“Give me your hand.”
“Is this a prop?”
“Everything is a prop. But the ring is real. It belonged to my mother.”
He slid it onto her finger. It fit perfectly.
They stepped onto the sidewalk. Cameras exploded. Questions flew.
Nikolai placed an arm around her waist and guided her inside.
In the palm court, elite patrons stared. Women in Chanel whispered. Men regarded Nikolai with fear.
“Smile,” he murmured. “You’re supposed to be in love.”
“I’m contemplating stabbing you with a dessert fork,” she said under her breath.
“It counts as foreplay in my family.”
They ordered tea.
“Well, well,” came a voice slick with contempt.
Uncle Sergey stood beside their table. Silver hair. Cruel mouth.
“Nikolai, we expected a merger with the senator’s family. Instead you bring us… who exactly?”
“Vivien,” she said steadily.
“I don’t recall you in the social register. What do you do?”
“I’m a veterinarian.”
Sergey laughed sharply. “You married the help? My dear, this world eats soft things. Wolves do not heal. They bite.”
Before Nikolai could speak, Vivien set her teacup down with a deliberate clink.
“You’re right, Mr. Vulov,” she said clearly enough for nearby tables to hear. “In my clinic, the loudest, most aggressive dogs are usually compensating for fear. They bark because they know they’re old and losing territory. I’m very good at putting old dogs down when they become a liability.”
Silence.
Sergey’s face reddened.
“I’ll see you at the board meeting,” he hissed, leaving.
Nikolai watched her with open admiration.
“Remind me never to get on your bad side.”
“You’re living in my apartment,” she replied.
On the ride back, the adrenaline faded. By the third flight of stairs, Nikolai leaned heavily on the banister.
Inside the apartment, he collapsed onto the couch.
His bandage was soaked. The wound was infected.
“You pushed too hard,” she said. “You have sepsis.”
“I had to mark territory.”
“Stay awake.”
She ran downstairs to the clinic, retrieved antibiotics, saline, and fresh sutures, and returned in 3 minutes.
She hooked an IV bag to a floor lamp and inserted the cannula.
“Talk to me,” she ordered.
“My grandfather wrote the trust,” he said through clenched teeth. “He thought I was too wild. Clause: married by 30 or control passes to Sergey. Sergey will sell us to the Bratva in Moscow. Bring drugs into neighborhoods. I keep the drugs out.”
“And the previous fiancée?”
“Sergey got to her. Not rehab. Threats. She ran.”
He looked at her through fever haze.
“You didn’t run.”
“I had nowhere to go.”
“You are a wolf,” he murmured. “My wolf.”
He passed out.
Around 2:00 a.m., his fever broke.
Vivien poured herself water. Her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photo.
A small yellow house in Vermont. Her sister Sarah walking out with groceries.
A text followed: A pretty wife makes for a weak husband. You made a fool of Mr. Vulov today. If you want Sarah to keep breathing, leave the apartment door unlocked tonight. We are coming to finish the job.
They were coming to kill Nikolai.
She typed: Come and get him.
She slid off the chain lock and disengaged the deadbolt.
She took the Sig Sauer from the fridge and sat facing the door.
At 3:14 a.m., footsteps approached.
The doorknob turned.
A masked man stepped inside, raising a suppressed pistol toward the couch.
Vivien fired.
The crack was deafening.
He staggered, firing blindly. A bullet shattered the microwave beside her head.
A second man rushed in with a shotgun. She fired twice. One missed. One hit his thigh.
Click.
Her slide had not racked.
The shotgun rose.
Bang.
The shot came from the couch.
The shotgun wielder’s head snapped back. He dropped.
Nikolai sat up, pale and drenched in sweat, holding a snub-nosed backup revolver.
The first attacker reached for his gun.
“Don’t,” Nikolai rasped.
“Sergey,” the man gasped. “He said you were already dead.”
“He was misinformed.”
Nikolai fired.
Silence returned.
Vivien dropped her weapon.
Nikolai slid off the couch, ripping out his IV.
“Are you hurt?” he demanded.
“No.”
“They had Sarah,” she choked. “They sent a photo.”
“You used yourself as bait,” he said.
“I couldn’t let them kill you.”
“It is not fake,” he said hoarsely. “Not anymore.”
He called Alexe.
“Cleanup crew to Fourth Street. Ghost unit to Vermont. Secure the target. If anyone gets within a mile of that house, kill them.”
He hung up.
“Your sister is safe.”
“What do we do now?” she asked.
“We stop hiding. Today is my birthday. Today is the vote.”
Part 3
By 11:00 a.m., they stood in the penthouse of Vulov Tower.
Nikolai buttoned a black shirt over fresh bandages. Pale. Fueled by painkillers and fury.
Vivien wore a sharp white power suit. Armor.
“White?” he asked.
“Who’s dying?”
“Sergey’s career.”
At 12:05 p.m., in the boardroom, Sergey announced Nikolai absent.
Leadership would pass.
The double doors slammed open.
“You’re late, Uncle,” Nikolai said.
He pointed to the wall clock Alexe had set back 5 minutes. It read 11:58.
Gasps filled the room.
He pulled out a chair at the head of the table for Vivien.
“Meet Vivien Vulov. My wife. Under clause 14B, my legal proxy during my medical recovery from a stomach flu.”
“This is a sham,” Sergey spat. “I’ll annul it.”
“Actually,” Vivien said smoothly, placing a hand over her stomach, “we have an announcement. We’re expecting.”
The board erupted. A Vulov heir.
Sergey went pale. A pregnant wife could not be cast aside without war.
In the private elevator afterward, Nikolai stared at her.
“Pregnant?”
“We can’t divorce now,” he said.
“I know.”
“Why?”
“Because I checked the accounts. You paid Penhaligan’s debt at 9:00 a.m. Before the attack. Before I saved you.”
She stepped closer.
“You’re not a monster. You’re a man with too many enemies. I realized I’m better at fighting enemies than I thought.”
He boxed her against the mirrored wall.
“You are dangerous. Reckless. And a terrible liar.”
“I fooled the board.”
“You didn’t fool me.”
He kissed her, not performance but claim.
When they parted, he rested his forehead against hers.
“Sergey is being handled. It’s over.”
The elevator doors opened.
“So,” he said, intertwining his fingers with hers, “back to the penthouse?”
“No,” she replied, pulling him toward the car. “Back to the apartment. I forgot to feed the cat.”
He groaned.
“I hate that cat.”
“He hates you too,” she said. “But he’s family now.”
From a metal table in a veterinary clinic to the throne of the Chicago underworld, their marriage began as transaction and became dynasty. What had started as survival had turned into alliance, then into something neither of them had planned.
And this time, neither of them intended to run.
