SIX MAFIA MEN FROZE WHEN THE WAITRESS SPOKE ITALIAN

No one spoke for several seconds after the call ended.

Rain tapped against the metal fire escape above us.

Grant was dead.

My grandmother's final warning had predicted the exact sentence I had just heard.

Do not trust the man who is first to tell you Grant Holloway is dead.

I looked at Luca.

"That was a police officer."

Marco held out his hand. "May I see the number?"

I gave him the phone.

He copied it, then walked several feet away and made a call of his own.

Luca watched me.

"You are shaking."

"My grandmother died tonight. My apartment was broken into. A letter says someone at your dinner table helped murder your mother. Now my ex-boyfriend is supposedly dead exactly the way my grandmother warned me someone would say he was."

"Fair."

I almost laughed.

It came out as something closer to a broken breath.

Luca took off his coat and held it toward me.

"I'm not cold."

"You are standing in January rain in a waitress uniform."

"I said I'm fine."

He did not argue. He simply placed the coat over the open suitcase to protect my grandmother's letter from the rain.

That tiny act did something dangerous to me.

It made him seem less like the frightening man from the private room and more like someone who understood that some objects mattered more than comfort.

Marco returned.

"Boston Police has no Detective Warren assigned to a Grant Holloway case."

My stomach dropped.

"So the call was fake."

"Yes."

"Then Grant may be alive."

"Yes."

Luca's eyes hardened.

"And whoever called wanted you to stop looking for him."

I folded my grandmother's letter carefully.

"Or wanted us to know they had read the same warning."

Marco looked at me with new respect.

Luca did too.

"Either way," I said, "I'm opening that safe deposit box."

"Not tonight," Luca replied.

"Tomorrow morning."

"Not alone."

"You really struggle with that word, don't you?"

"Which one?"

"Alone."

His jaw shifted.

"People around me have a habit of getting hurt."

"People around me too, apparently."

That ended the argument.

I refused Luca's offer to stay at one of his hotels. I refused Marco's suggestion that I use a guarded guest apartment. In the end, I agreed to spend the night at Bellissimo's upstairs office suite because it had a lock, a couch, and - according to Marco - cameras on every entrance.

I also made Luca promise no one would enter without knocking.

"Even me?" he asked.

"Especially you."

He stared at me for a second.

"Agreed."

At two in the morning, I gave up trying to sleep.

I sat on the couch with my grandmother's photograph in my lap.

Young Luca stood between Sofia and Elena, looking annoyed with the camera.

He must have been thirteen.

I wondered if he remembered the day.

A soft knock came at the door.

"Who is it?"

"Luca."

At least he kept promises.

I opened the door three inches.

He stood in the hallway holding two mugs.

"Coffee?"

"At two in the morning?"

"Neither of us is sleeping."

That was true.

I let him in.

He noticed the photograph.

"I hated that sweater."

I looked down at teenage Luca's oversized cream knit.

"It is terrible."

"My mother bought it."

"Then it is beautiful."

For the first time, he smiled.

It transformed his face.

Not enough to make him harmless.

Enough to remind me he had once been someone's son before he became everyone's warning.

He sat in the chair across from me.

"Sofia and Elena were close?" I asked.

"Very. My mother trusted almost no one. She trusted Elena."

"Then why did your father believe she betrayed you?"

"Because grief makes people want simple villains. The official evidence showed Elena accessed the route file the night before the attack. Money appeared in an account under her name. She disappeared before questions could be asked."

"She disappeared because someone framed her."

"That is what her letter says."

I stiffened. "You don't believe her?"

Luca looked at the photograph for a long moment.

"I believe she saved my life. I believe my mother loved her. I also believe evidence matters. Tomorrow we find out whether the evidence survived."

It was the most reasonable answer he could have given.

That annoyed me too.

"What about the other men at the table?"

"Marco Bellini, you met. He was my father's attorney and now mine. Enzo Greco oversees security. Carlo Ventresca manages property and legal investments. Adrian DeSantis runs logistics. Matteo Ferraro handles banking relationships."

"Whose father worked with yours?"

"All of them, in some form."

I frowned.

"Convenient."

"No. Dangerous."

He leaned forward.

"Your grandmother said the traitor's son inherited his place. That means I have spent years trusting someone whose father helped kill my mother."

"And you have no idea who."

"Not yet."

The words should have sounded threatening.

Instead they sounded tired.

I looked down at my coffee.

"Grant was interested in my grandmother before he was interested in me."

Luca went still.

"Tell me."

I hated talking about Grant. The relationship had shrunk me gradually, one small compromise at a time, until I barely recognized myself.

But tonight shame felt like a luxury.

"We met at a fundraiser in Boston. I was doing translation work for an import firm. He said he worked in risk consulting. He was funny, attentive, always remembered details. Three months later he wanted passwords. Six months later he hated my friends. After a year, he started telling me my job was unsafe and I should quit."

"Did you?"

"Eventually. Not because I agreed. Because he called my employer and accused a supervisor of harassing me. It was a lie. The whole office became uncomfortable. I resigned."

Luca's hand tightened around his mug.

"Then Grant started asking about Elena?"

"More and more. He claimed he was fascinated by my family history. Once I found him photographing old letters in her desk. He said he was planning a genealogy gift."

"And you believed him."

The words stung.

Luca saw it immediately.

"That came out wrong."

"It came out exactly like men always say it. You believed him. You should have known."

"I did not mean that."

"But you said it."

He set down the mug.

"Then let me say this correctly. He lied to you for years. The shame belongs to the liar, not the person he spent years deceiving."

I looked at him.

The room became strangely quiet.

"Thank you," I said.

He nodded once.

Then my phone buzzed.

A message from an unknown number.

I EXPECTED ELENA TO TEACH YOU BETTER THAN TO TRUST A ROSSI.

Below it was a photograph taken through the restaurant window.

Luca and me.

Sitting across from each other.

The timestamp was less than one minute old.

Luca stood so fast the chair struck the wall.

He crossed to the window and pulled the curtain aside only an inch.

The street below looked empty.

My phone buzzed again.

ASK LUCA WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FIRST WOMAN WHO TRIED TO GIVE HIM EVIDENCE.

I showed him.

His face changed.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"Nothing."

"That is not nothing."

"Dylan -"

"Who was she?"

He looked toward the closed door.

For the first time since I had met him, Luca Rossi seemed afraid to answer a question.

"Her name was Rebecca Shaw," he said finally. "She was a federal accountant. Five years ago she contacted me claiming someone inside my companies was laundering money through contracts I had never approved."

"What happened to her?"

His voice dropped.

"She disappeared before our second meeting."

A chill moved over my skin.

"And you never found her?"

"No."

"Did you tell the five men at your table about her?"

Silence.

That was enough.

"You did."

"I told Marco and Enzo. I later questioned the others."

"So whoever is watching us knows about Rebecca and my grandmother."