Rapace, 33, who was first linked to the project in December last year, has agreed to the project starring opposite Tom Hardy, reported Variety online.
The 'Prometheus' actress will play Nadia, a woman with a scar across her entire neck who crosses paths with the protagonist when he finds a wounded puppy outside her home.
Hardy stars as a man looking to reform his criminal ways who gets mixed up in a bad heist and a killing resulting from a lost and contested pit bull.
Chernin Entertainment and Mike Larocca are producing the film, which author Dennis Lehane adapted from his own short story that first appeared in Boston Noir.
Production is scheduled to begin this spring in New York, where Fox Searchlight is relocating the story rather than film in Massachusetts, where Lehane adaptations 'Mystic River', 'Shutter Island' and 'Gone Baby Gone' all took place.