THE MAFIA BOSS FOLLOWED HIS SECRETARY HOME

The first threat came at 6:12 the next morning.

Not to me.

To Leo.

A nurse entered his room at the Westchester house carrying a plain white envelope that had been left at the front gate.

No stamp.

No return address.

Inside was a photograph of Leo sitting in his wheelchair during therapy two days earlier.

Across the bottom, someone had written four words in black ink.

GIVE US WHAT'S OURS.

Roman read the message once.

Then he called Marcus.

By the time I came downstairs, every entrance to the estate had been locked down.

Leo was sitting at the kitchen island with the photograph in front of him.

He looked angry, not frightened.

That was worse.

“I want to help,” he said.

“No.”

“Tess—”

“No.”

“This is about me too.”

“You almost died because of these people.”

“And you've spent three years paying the price for it.”

I opened my mouth.

He continued.

“You quit graduate school to work. You sold Mom's jewelry. You slept in hospital chairs. You skipped meals. Don't tell me I don't get a vote.”

The room went quiet.

Roman stood near the window.

He wasn't intruding.

For once, he was letting us be siblings before we were pieces on his board.

I sat beside Leo.

“I just got you back.”

He looked at me.

“You never lost me.”

My eyes burned.

“You know what I mean.”

Leo reached for my hand.

“I remember more.”

Roman turned.

“What?”

“The man who called me three years ago. I couldn't place his voice before.”

My stomach tightened.

Leo looked at Roman.

“It was Gabriel Sloane.”

Roman's gaze hardened.

“He told you he knew your father?”

“Yes.”

“He lured you to Pier Nineteen.”

“Yes.”

Leo nodded toward the photograph.

“And I think he's the one who sent this.”

Roman picked up the picture.

“Then he wants us to respond.”

His phone rang.

Unknown number.

Roman answered on speaker.

“Caldwell.”

A distorted voice spoke.

“You found the box.”

Roman's face revealed nothing.

“What box?”

The caller laughed softly.

“Don't insult me.”

I recognized the cadence.

Not the altered tone.

The rhythm.

The pauses.

I had heard it in a hospital waiting room.

Gabriel Sloane.

Roman said, “If you want something, ask.”

“The ledger.”

Roman looked at me.

Sloane continued.

“Tonight. Ten o'clock. Pier Nineteen. Bring the ledger and the recorder.”

Roman's eyes narrowed.

“And if I don't?”

A second voice came through the phone.

Weak.

Familiar.

“Tess?”

I stood so quickly the chair fell backward.

“Leo?”

My head snapped toward my brother.

He was beside me.

Confused.

Then I understood.

The voice on the phone wasn't Leo.

It was a recording.

From three years earlier.

Hospital audio.

My brother crying my name after waking from surgery.

Sloane had kept it.

He laughed.

“Memories are powerful things.”

I felt sick.

Roman's voice turned cold.

“If you touch either Hayes again, there will be nowhere in this city you can hide.”

“Then bring what belongs to us.”

The call ended.

I stared at the phone.

“He doesn't have Leo.”

“No,” Roman said. “But he wanted you to believe he could.”

I looked at the photograph.

“He knows where therapy happens. He knows this address.”

Marcus entered the room.

“We've got another problem.”

Roman looked at him.

“Carlo is gone.”

The air changed.

“Since when?”

“His driver found his apartment empty at six. Second phone disconnected. His primary car is still in the garage.”

Roman's expression went flat.

“He knows.”

I thought of Carlo leaving the office the night before.

The backward glance.

The hand near his second phone.

Maybe we had made him nervous too quickly.

Maybe he had realized we were watching.

I said, “He'll be at the pier.”

Roman looked at me.

“Probably.”

“Then I'm going.”

“No.”

I crossed my arms.

“We've had this conversation.”

“And you lost.”

“I stayed at your house. That was not the same thing.”

Roman stepped closer.

“You are not walking into a meeting with Gabriel Sloane and Carlo Santini.”

“They asked for the ledger. My father's ledger.”

“They asked me to bring it.”

“They know I exist. They're already threatening my brother.”

Roman's jaw tightened.

I lowered my voice.

“If I hide while you handle everything, I'm still living the way Carlo designed my life. Afraid. Watched. Dependent on people more powerful than me.”

His eyes stayed on mine.

“I won't do that anymore.”

“Tessa—”

“You followed me because you thought I was a thief. You saw where I lived. You saw what my life looked like. So don't stand here now and tell me I can't fight for it.”

Silence.

Leo looked between us.

Then, to my horror, he said, “She's right.”

I turned.

“You are not helping.”

“I know. It's refreshing.”

Roman rubbed one hand over his face.

“I hate both of you.”

Leo smiled.

“No, you don't.”

Roman looked at me.

The exact words he had said to me in the vault.

Heat rose into my face.

Leo noticed.

Of course he noticed.

He grinned.

I pointed at him.

“Not one word.”

“I didn't say anything.”

Roman walked away before either of us could see whether he was smiling.

At 9:48 that night, the river air cut through my coat as Roman and I approached Pier Nineteen.

The ledger in my bag was a copy.

The recorder was fake.

Marcus and Roman's men were positioned out of sight.

I knew none of the details.

Roman had refused to tell me.

“If something happens,” he said as we walked, “you stay behind me.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“I know.”

“Then why—”

“Because I can take a bullet better than you can.”

I stopped.

He looked at me.

“That's not romantic,” I said.

“I wasn't trying to be romantic.”

“Good.”

Neither of us moved.

Then a voice came from the darkness.

“Touching.”

Gabriel Sloane stepped beneath a dock light.

He looked exactly as he had in the photograph.

Older than the man from the hospital.

But the same eyes.

Cold.

Observant.

He looked at me.

“Miss Hayes.”

My hands clenched.

“Andrew Mercer.”

He smiled.

“You remembered.”

“You asked about my brother's backpack.”

“I did.”

“You hit him.”

“No.”

He said it casually.

“I arranged the meeting. Carlo arranged the car.”

Rage flashed through me.

Roman moved half a step in front of me.

Sloane laughed.

“Still predictable, Roman.”

“Where's Carlo?”

“Close.”

“Bring him out.”

Sloane's gaze moved to my bag.

“Ledger first.”

I pulled it free.

Then a voice behind us said, “You always were a terrible liar, Tessa.”

Carlo emerged from behind a shipping container.

He held a gun.

Not at Roman.

At me.

Roman's body went rigid.

“Carlo.”

“Don't.” Carlo's voice had lost all warmth. “One move and she dies.”

I looked at him.

“You hired me.”

“I did.”

“After you tried to kill my brother.”

Carlo shrugged.

“I needed to know what he remembered.”

My stomach turned.

“For three years?”

“For as long as necessary.”

Roman spoke quietly.

“You stole twenty thousand dollars to frame her.”

Carlo smiled.

“I stole far more than that over the years.”

There it was.

The confession.

Roman didn't react.

But I knew him well enough now to see the fury in the stillness.

Carlo continued.

“The twenty was just a test.”

“A test?” I asked.

“To see whether Roman would do what he always does when he smells betrayal.”

His smile widened.

“I underestimated you.”

He looked at Roman.

“Following her home was almost enough. If she'd lived in a better apartment, she'd be dead now.”

Roman's eyes became deadly.

Carlo laughed.

“Don't look offended. I learned from your father.”

“My father trusted you.”

“Your father became weak.”

Roman's voice dropped.

“You killed him.”

Carlo's expression changed.

Only slightly.

Enough.

“You have no proof.”

I said, “My father recorded everything.”

Carlo looked at me.

That was the mistake.

For one second, his attention shifted from Roman.

Roman moved.

Everything happened at once.

A shout.

A gunshot.

Metal ringing somewhere behind us.

Roman slammed into me and drove me behind a concrete barrier.

Another shot cracked through the night.

I felt Roman jerk.

Then warm blood hit my hand.

“Roman.”

He didn't answer.

My heart stopped.

“Roman!”

He looked down at his side.

Blood spread across his white shirt.

Carlo was running toward the far end of the pier.

Sloane disappeared between containers.

Marcus's men moved in.

I pressed both hands against Roman's wound.

“Stay with me.”

He stared at me.

“You're yelling.”

“You've been shot.”

“I'm aware.”

“You're impossible.”

“You've mentioned that.”

His face was getting pale.

Fear rose inside me so fast it felt like drowning.

“Roman, look at me.”

“I am.”

“Don't close your eyes.”

He gave me the faintest smile.

“Bossy secretary.”

My vision blurred.

“Shut up.”

His hand found mine over the wound.

Then his expression changed.

“Tessa.”

“What?”

“Carlo knows the ledger exists.”

“I don't care.”

“You need to care.”

“I care that you're bleeding.”

He tightened his fingers around mine.

“You should've stayed home.”

I almost screamed.

Instead, I leaned close.

“If you survive this, I'm going to kill you myself.”

His eyes closed for one second.

Then he whispered, “Fair.”

The ambulance arrived four minutes later.

It felt like four years.

The ambulance ride blurred into red lights and fragments.

Roman refused oxygen until the paramedic threatened to cut his shirt off completely.

That argument lasted thirty seconds.

I won it by telling the paramedic to proceed.

Roman glared at me from the stretcher.

“Treason.”

“You are bleeding through a towel.”

“Still treason.”

At the hospital, security cleared a private corridor. Doctors rushed him through double doors, and suddenly I had nothing to do.

That was when the fear became unbearable.

I sat alone beneath fluorescent lights with Roman's blood dried across both hands.

Three years earlier, I had sat in another hospital waiting room while Leo was in surgery.

Same smell.

Same lights.

Same helplessness.

My body remembered before my mind did.

I started shaking.

Marcus found me twenty minutes later.

“He's stable,” he said.

I nodded.

Then I cried so hard I couldn't speak.

Marcus sat beside me without touching me.

After a while, he said, “I've worked for Roman fourteen years.”

I wiped my face.

“He has stepped in front of danger for people before.”

I looked at him.

Marcus continued.

“But never like that.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means he didn't calculate.”

My chest tightened.

“That doesn't sound like him.”

“No.”

Marcus looked toward the operating doors.

“That's why it scared me.”

It scared me too.

Because I had spent days telling myself Roman's concern came from guilt. That his protection came from responsibility. That his attention came from the fact that my father had once worked for his.

But no one calculates guilt while a gun is firing.