I Saved Boston's Most Feared Mafia Boss at 9:17 P.M.

Richard Bellamy was arrested at Logan Airport twenty-three hours later.

He was carrying one suitcase, two passports, and seventy-eight thousand dollars in cash.

The news reached us at breakfast.

Matteo walked into the kitchen and handed Dominic his phone.

"State police flagged the passport. He was booked on a flight to Lisbon under his own name, which is either incredibly stupid or incredibly desperate."

"Can we talk to him?" I asked.

Dominic looked at me.

"We can ask."

"You mean your lawyers can ask."

"Yes."

"And I want to hear what he says."

"No."

I put down my coffee.

"That was fast."

"He's dangerous."

"He is a restaurant manager who needed a kitchen employee to break into my apartment."

"He is connected to people who tried to kill us."

"Which is exactly why I need to know what he knows."

Dominic's jaw tightened.

"Chloe."

"Do not use my name like a locked door."

Sofia nearly choked on her coffee.

Dominic gave her a look.

She raised both hands.

"I'm staying out of it."

She was absolutely not staying out of it.

I leaned toward Dominic.

"My mother is dead. Richard helped destroy her career, or his father did. Richard destroyed mine. Someone sent a man to my apartment because they thought I had something my mother hid. I am not a decorative witness in your investigation."

"I know."

"Then stop treating me like one."

His face softened by half a degree.

"You don't go into the room with him. You listen from another room."

"Fine."

"Matteo stays with you."

"Fine."

"You do exactly what he says if anything changes."

"You're pushing it."

Sofia covered her mouth, pretending to cough.

Three hours later, I sat behind one-way glass in a secure interview room at Dominic's attorney's office.

Richard looked twenty years older than he had the morning he fired me.

His tie was gone. His expensive shirt was wrinkled. His eyes kept moving toward the door.

Across from him sat Dominic's attorney, a state investigator, and Dominic himself.

Richard saw Dominic and nearly stood.

"I didn't poison you."

Dominic sat down.

"Interesting opening."

"I didn't."

"Then tell me who did."

Richard looked toward the investigator.

"I want protection."

"For what?" the investigator asked.

"For me. My sister. Her kids."

"From who?"

Richard swallowed.

"Victor Romano."

Even expecting it, I felt my stomach drop.

Dominic did not move.

"Say it again," he said.

Richard closed his eyes.

"Your uncle. Victor."

Dominic's voice stayed calm.

"Start at the restaurant."

Richard rubbed both hands over his face.

"Victor's people approached me six months ago. They knew about my father's work at St. Catherine's. They knew I had gambling debt."

The investigator made a note.

"How much debt?"

"Enough."

"Specific number."

"Two hundred forty thousand."

I almost laughed from disbelief.

Richard had once written me up for eating a dinner roll after a double shift because, according to him, employee theft was a moral failure.

"What did Victor want?" Dominic asked.

"Information at first. Your reservation schedule. Which private rooms you used. Who served you."

"Then?"

"He told me to reserve table four under a private request and keep the floor staff away after nine."

My hands curled into fists.

"Why did you stop Chloe from approaching?" Dominic asked.

Richard's face twisted.

"I was told nobody could interfere for eight minutes."

Eight minutes.

He had known.

Maybe not exactly what would happen, but enough.

I remembered his fingers bruising my arm.

STAY OUT OF IT.

Dominic's voice became dangerously quiet.

"You watched me dying and tried to prevent her from calling an ambulance."

"I panicked."

"No. You obeyed."

Richard looked down.

"Yes."

"Who put the poison in my drink?"

Richard shook his head.

"I don't know."

Dominic said nothing.

Richard rushed on.

"I swear. The carafe came from the private service pantry. It had already been prepared. I was told not to touch it and not to let anyone replace it."

"Who delivered it?"

"One of Victor's people."

"Name."

"I never got one."

"Description."

"Male. Forties. Tall. Gray coat. Romano security pin."

Matteo went still beside me.

A Romano security pin.

Someone inside Dominic's organization.

"What happened after Chloe saved him?" the investigator asked.

Richard looked miserable.

"Victor called me at 5:30 the next morning. He said the waitress had become a liability."

I stopped breathing.

"What did he order?"

"Fire her. Make sure she couldn't get hired in Boston hospitality."

"Why?"

"Because he thought Dominic might contact her. And because her name was Henderson."

Dominic leaned forward.

"Explain that."

"I didn't know at first. Then he asked if Chloe was related to Eleanor Henderson. I checked her emergency contact records from when she was hired. Eleanor was listed as her mother."

My skin crawled.

"And then?"

"He lost his mind. Said the girl could have the key."

The key.

"Did you know what that meant?"

"No. I still don't."

"Daniel Pierce said you sent him to her apartment."

Richard shook his head violently.

"I didn't. Daniel called me. He said someone told him I had messed up and he had to clean it up. I told him to stay away from Chloe."

That surprised me.

"Why?" Dominic asked.

"Because by then I knew Victor was killing people. I wanted out."

"You wanted out after watching me nearly die and ruining Chloe's livelihood."

Richard's eyes filled with shame.

"Yes."

I hated him more for how human he looked.

Monsters were easier when they looked like monsters.

Richard looked like a tired man who had made cowardly choices one after another until other people almost died from them.

Dominic placed a photograph on the table.

Victor.

"Is this the man who gave the orders?"

Richard nodded.

"Yes."

Then Dominic put down another photograph.

Thomas Bell.

Richard's reaction changed.

His pupils widened.

"You know him?" Dominic asked.

"He came to the restaurant."

"When?"

"Three days before your reservation."

The room seemed to shrink.

"Why?"

"He met Victor in my office."

Dominic's face became stone.

"Did you hear what they discussed?"

"No. But Bell gave me the corporate authorization for the private service arrangement."

"He signed it?"

"Yes."

Thomas Bell.

Dominic's father's closest friend.

The man who had taught Dominic finance.

The man with access to restricted Romano accounts.

Dominic stood.

"We're done."

Richard looked terrified.

"Wait."

Dominic stopped.

Richard leaned forward.

"There was one more thing."

"What?"

"The poison wasn't the only plan."

Dominic slowly turned.

"Explain."

Richard looked toward the one-way glass.

For one horrible second, I felt as though he could see me.

"Victor said if Romano survived, the Henderson girl had to disappear before she remembered what her mother left behind."

My lungs tightened.

"He was planning to kill Chloe before the dinner?" the investigator asked.

"No. After. Only if Dominic survived and talked to her."

"Why would he assume she had anything?"

Richard's voice dropped.

"Because Eleanor told him seventeen years ago that she had made a copy of everything."

I pressed a hand to my mouth.

My mother had told Victor.

No wonder he had never stopped looking.

Dominic turned toward the glass.

He could not see me, but somehow I felt his gaze anyway.

Then Richard said the thing that broke whatever trust Dominic still had left.

"And Bell knew."

Thomas Bell disappeared before sunset.

His home was empty.

His office had been professionally wiped.

His company phone sat powered off in a desk drawer.

Inside the locked bottom cabinet, Matteo found copies of the North Atlantic payments, a photograph of Victor outside St. Catherine's from seventeen years earlier, and a handwritten note.

V - ELEANOR STILL HAS IT. DAUGHTER MAY KNOW.

Dominic read the note three times.

I watched something close behind his eyes.

"I'm sorry," I said.

He looked at me.

"For what?"

"You trusted him."

"Trust is a decision. Sometimes it's the wrong one."

His voice sounded empty.

That night, I could not sleep.

At 1:12 A.M., I went downstairs for water.

Dominic was standing by the back windows, looking at the ocean.

"Do mafia bosses ever sleep?" I asked.

"Occasionally."

"You should try it."

"So should you."

"I asked first."

He looked at me.

There was no armor in his face for once.

"Thomas was at my high school graduation," he said. "He sat with my father after Luca died because my father couldn't be alone. When my father died, Thomas gave the eulogy."

I did not know what to say.

So I stood beside him.

"Maybe Richard is lying."

"The documents are real."

"Maybe Bell had a reason."

"People always have reasons."

"Reasons matter."

He looked at me.

"Do they? Richard had debt. Does that matter to you?"

"It explains him. It doesn't excuse him."

Dominic nodded slowly.

"That's a distinction my family rarely makes."