Smoke filled the hallway faster than ordinary fire should have.
Raphael knew immediately that accelerant had been used.
“Bathroom,” he ordered. “Wet towels.”
Owen grabbed three.
Raphael smashed a decorative glass panel covering the adjoining suite’s emergency access.
Marin stared.
“What are you doing?”
“Making another exit.”
“With what?”
Raphael looked at the brass lamp in his hand.
“This.”
He struck the connecting lock.
Once.
Twice.
The door splintered on the third hit.
Lucia stood behind Owen wrapped in a hotel blanket, astonishingly calm.
“Is this a real fire?”
“Yes,” Marin said.
“Are we going to die?”
“No.”
Raphael answered before Marin could.
Lucia looked at him.
“You promise?”
Raphael went still.
Promises had once been dangerous things to him.
Then he crouched.
“I promise I will do everything in my power to get you out.”
Lucia considered the wording.
“That’s not the same.”
Marin nearly laughed despite the smoke.
“She notices contracts,” Owen said. “Definitely your kid.”
Raphael almost smiled.
They moved through the adjoining suite into a service corridor.
Two members of Raphael’s security team met them at the far stairwell.
The fire had been deliberately set twenty feet from Marin’s room.
Someone wanted panic.
Someone wanted confusion.
Someone wanted an opportunity.
Raphael kept Lucia close as they descended.
On the nineteenth floor, lights went out.
Lucia grabbed his hand.
Raphael stopped.
Her tiny fingers fitted around two of his.
“Don’t be scared,” she whispered.
He looked down.
“I’m not.”
“You turned your ring.”
Raphael glanced at his hand.
She was right.
Lucia turned it back.
One.
Two.
Three.
“Better.”
For the rest of the descent, Raphael could barely speak.
Outside, emergency vehicles surrounded the hotel.
Reporters were already arriving.
That told Marin something.
“This was planned for publicity.”
Raphael nodded.
“If the story tomorrow is that my hotel endangered a child—”
“Your investors panic.”
“And law enforcement gets access to the property.”
Owen whistled.
“Gideon wants everything burning.”
Raphael looked at his security chief.
“Take us to the estate.”
Marin shook her head.
“No.”
“It’s secure.”
“I am not returning to that house.”
Raphael understood immediately.
Five years earlier she had walked out of it with eleven dollars.
“I have another property.”
“No organization staff.”
“Agreed.”
“No Gideon loyalists.”
“Agreed.”
“No weapons around Lucia.”
Raphael hesitated.
“Visible weapons.”
Marin narrowed her eyes.
“That’s my best offer.”
Owen murmured, “Take it.”
Forty minutes later, they arrived at a modest house on Cape Ann overlooking dark water.
Marin stared through the windshield.
“This belongs to you?”
“My grandmother.”
Lucia woke instantly.
“The ring grandma?”
Raphael looked back.
“Yes.”
The house had faded blue shutters and creaking hardwood floors.
Nothing about it resembled the Santoro mansion.
Old photographs filled the walls.
Raphael as a boy.
A woman with silver hair.
Fishing boats.
Family dinners.
Marin realized he had never brought her there.
“That’s you!” Lucia shouted.
She pointed at a photograph of an eight-year-old Raphael missing a front tooth.
Raphael looked uncomfortable.
“Unfortunately.”
“You were little.”
“It happens.”
Lucia laughed.
Marin felt something inside her chest loosen.
Dangerously.
Raphael showed Lucia a bedroom upstairs.
The room had belonged to his younger sister before she died as a teenager.
Stuffed animals still sat on one shelf.
Lucia selected a faded rabbit.
“Can I sleep with him?”
“You can keep him.”
Marin stiffened automatically.
Raphael noticed.
His expression changed.
“Sorry.”
Lucia looked confused.
“Why?”
Raphael crouched beside her.
“Because I once told your mother she couldn’t take anything of mine.”
Lucia frowned.
“That was mean.”
“Yes.”
“Did you apologize?”
Raphael looked at Marin.
“Not properly.”
Lucia sighed dramatically.
“You’re bad at step one.”
Owen laughed from the hall.
Raphael looked almost offended.
Marin turned away before either man noticed her smile.
Later, Lucia slept.
Owen stayed downstairs watching the news.
Marin found Raphael alone on the back porch.
Rain had stopped.
The ocean moved black beneath the moonlight.
“You still have it,” she said.
He looked down.
The silver watch sat on the table.
Her watch.
Marin froze.
“You kept it?”
“For five years.”
“Why?”
Raphael did not answer immediately.
Then he said, “Because I lied.”
“About what?”
“All of it.”
He looked at the watch.
“You weren’t convenient.”
Marin’s throat tightened.
“Don’t.”
“You asked if those eight months meant nothing.”
“Raphael.”
“They meant everything.”
She stood.
“I don’t need this.”
“I do.”
His voice remained low.
“I need to say it even if you never forgive me.”
Marin looked at him.
Raphael Santoro had always been terrifying when angry.
Tonight he looked exhausted.
“I loved you,” he said.
She stopped breathing.
“I loved you before you ever slept in my bed. I loved you when you corrected my accountants in front of six men and didn’t realize nobody had done that in fifteen years. I loved you when you left coffee on my desk because you knew I forgot breakfast. I loved you when you laughed at me for not knowing how the washing machine worked.”
Marin’s eyes burned.
“Stop.”
“I lied because I believed making you hate me was the only way you would leave.”
“You succeeded.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
She turned toward him.
“You don’t know what it feels like to hear the person you love explain that you were only useful in his bed.”
Raphael looked down.
“You don’t know what happened every time I looked at Lucia and saw your eyes.”
“I wish I did.”
That destroyed the anger she had prepared.
Marin sat again.
For several minutes, neither spoke.
Then Raphael asked, “Was she healthy?”
Marin swallowed.
“Yes.”
“When she was born?”
“Seven pounds, three ounces.”
Raphael smiled faintly.
“What time?”
“4:17 a.m.”
He looked at her.
“You remember everything.”
“Almost.”
“Did she cry?”
“Immediately.”
“What was her first word?”
Marin smiled despite herself.
“Book.”
Raphael laughed softly.
“Of course.”
“Her first full sentence was ‘Uncle Owen smells funny.’”
“I like her instincts.”
Marin shook her head.
For a moment, five years disappeared.
Then she remembered.
“You don’t get five years back.”
“I know.”
“You can’t walk into her life and buy everything she wants.”
“I know.”
“You cannot have men follow her to school.”
Raphael hesitated.
“Raphael.”
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“One discreet car.”
“No.”
“Half a car?”
She stared.
He almost smiled.
It was absurd.
And familiar.
And dangerous.
Because Marin realized she did not hate him anymore.
Maybe she never had.
What she hated was the wound.
Raphael’s phone vibrated.
He looked at the message.
His face hardened.
“What?”
“Martin Keane left something.”
“Before he died?”
“Yes.”
“A file?”
“No.”
Raphael showed her the screen.
A photograph of a storage key.
Martin’s final text had been scheduled for delivery after his death.
The message read:
ASK MARIN ABOUT 11/14/21. SHE’LL REMEMBER THE NUMBER.
Raphael looked at her.
“November fourteenth, five years ago.”
Marin closed her eyes.
Numbers.
Dates.
She saw an invoice in her memory.
Mass Meridian Freight.
11/14.
A payment authorization.
“Eight hundred sixteen thousand.”
Raphael stared.
“What?”
“The invoice was eight hundred sixteen thousand dollars. But your legitimate shipment that week was only eighty-one thousand six hundred.”
His eyes widened.
“A decimal shift.”
“Not exactly.”
Marin stood.
“It was intentional.”
“What was the payment code?”
She remembered.
Of course she remembered.
“MMF-7319-B.”
Raphael called someone.
Within minutes, a laptop was on the porch.
They searched old records.
The code opened a chain of transactions.
Shell companies.
Properties.
Political donations.
Bribes.
And finally a private account controlled by Gideon Pace.
Twenty-eight million dollars.
But there was more.
A scheduled payment was due in forty-eight hours.
Twelve million.
To an offshore account.
Raphael stared at the screen.
“He’s cashing out.”
Marin understood.
“Then he’s leaving.”
“No.”
Raphael’s face became cold.
“He’s planning something bigger.”
A noise came from inside.
They rushed in.
Lucia stood at the bottom of the stairs.
“Mommy?”
Marin hurried toward her.
Lucia held out something she had found beneath her bedroom door.
A white envelope.
Raphael grabbed it first.
His face changed.
Marin opened it.
Inside was a photograph of the Cape Ann house.
Taken that night.
On the back:
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT WHEN I ASKED.
Marin looked toward the windows.
The house Raphael considered secret had already been found.
Gideon was not trying to scare them anymore.
He was closing in.