Nicholas wanted Sophie gone before sunrise.
Not dead.
Not gone from his life.
Gone from Boston.
“There’s a house in Vermont,” he said. “Marco can have you there before breakfast.”
Sophie stood in his kitchen wearing yesterday’s clothes and holding a cup of coffee she had forgotten to drink.
“No.”
“Sophie.”
“No.”
“This isn’t a discussion.”
“Then you’re having it alone.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Dominic has your number. He knows where you work.”
“Which means running to a house you own is probably exactly what he expects.”
“It isn’t in my name.”
“Do you think that makes it invisible to somebody who has been stealing from your family for twenty years?”
Nicholas said nothing.
Sophie set down the cup.
“Your mother tried to expose him alone.”
“That is precisely why I’m not letting you—”
“I’m not suggesting we do anything alone.”
She pointed toward Daniel’s files.
“We take this to people outside your family.”
“The FBI?”
“Yes.”
Nicholas laughed once.
Without humor.
“Some of Dominic’s fabricated records have my name on them.”
“Then we show them everything.”
“You have tremendous faith in institutions.”
“I’m a public librarian. It’s practically a job requirement.”
Despite himself, Nicholas almost smiled.
Sophie stepped closer.
“You said you trust Marco.”
“Yes.”
“Who else?”
“My sister. My aunt. Two attorneys.”
“Then stop thinking like a man trying to protect a criminal empire.”
His expression chilled.
“And think like what?”
“A son trying to prove who killed his mother.”
That reached him.
Sophie continued.
“And like a man who promised me he’d stop deciding what I’m allowed to know.”
Silence stretched between them.
Finally Nicholas took out his phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling an attorney.”
Sophie exhaled.
“And then?”
“Someone I know in the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”
She blinked.
“You know federal prosecutors?”
“I know many people.”
“That sentence is never reassuring when you say it.”
This time he did smile.
The meeting happened that afternoon in a law office overlooking the harbor.
Nicholas brought his attorney, Rebecca Shaw.
Sophie brought her father’s evidence.
Two federal investigators arrived.
Nicholas answered every question.
Some were uncomfortable.
Had he known about illegal operations conducted by extended members of his family?
Yes.
Had he participated?
In certain activities years earlier, yes.
Sophie looked at him.
Nicholas did not look away.
He was telling the truth.
All of it.
The interview lasted four hours.
At the end, Special Agent Maya Torres closed her notebook.
“If these records authenticate, Dominic Falcone has a problem.”
“And Nicholas?” Sophie asked.
Torres looked at him.
“He may have problems of his own.”
Nicholas nodded.
“I understand.”
“But cooperation matters.”
Afterward, Sophie found him alone in the hallway.
“You didn’t tell me everything.”
“No.”
“You said you would.”
“I said I’d tell you the truth when you asked.”
“That sounds like a loophole.”
“It is.”
She shook her head.
Nicholas leaned against the wall.
“I wasn’t innocent, Sophie.”
“I never thought you were.”
“I did things in my twenties I’m not proud of.”
“Did you hurt innocent people?”
His eyes held hers.
“I frightened people. Collected debts. Helped businesses my family pressured. I never killed anyone.”
Sophie absorbed it.
“Why did you stop?”
“My mother.”
“What?”
“Before she died, she told me power wasn’t the same thing as character.”
He looked toward the conference-room door.
“After her funeral, I started moving our businesses toward legitimate operations. Slowly. My father supported me. Dominic hated it.”
“Because legitimate businesses were harder to steal from.”
“Yes.”
Sophie suddenly understood.
Dominic had not merely hated Nicholas.
Nicholas threatened everything Dominic had built.
That evening, federal agents placed Sophie under protection.
She hated it.
Nicholas hated it more.
He was not allowed to stay with her.
“You’ll be safer without me nearby,” he said.
They stood outside a secure apartment.
Sophie looked at him.
“Is that what you believe?”
“Yes.”
“Or what you need to believe?”
He frowned.
“You keep doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“Making simple things complicated.”
“No, Nicholas. You make complicated things sound simple.”
She stepped closer.
“You think loving somebody means standing between them and danger.”
His expression changed at the word loving.
Sophie noticed.
Neither corrected it.
“But sometimes,” she continued, “loving somebody means trusting them enough to stand beside you.”
Nicholas touched her cheek.
Slowly.
As if asking permission.
“I don’t know how to do this.”
“Neither do I.”
“I know how to keep people alive.”
“I’d also like to be included in my own life.”
His thumb brushed beneath her eye.
“I’m sorry about reading night.”
Sophie smiled faintly.
“You owe Ben a story.”
“I owe twelve children a story.”
“That too.”
Then Nicholas kissed her.
Not dramatically.
Not desperately.
It was quiet.
Careful.
The kind of kiss that admitted what neither had been willing to say.
When he stepped back, Sophie whispered, “Come back.”
“I will.”
“Don’t promise things because you think I need to hear them.”
“I don’t.”
He looked directly into her eyes.
“I’ll come back.”
For twenty-four hours, nothing happened.
Then Dominic disappeared.
Federal agents searched his home.
Empty.
His office.
Empty.
His accounts began draining.
At 6:42 the following evening, Sophie received a call from her mother.
“Sophie?”
“Mom?”
Her mother sounded frightened.
“There’s a man here.”
Sophie stood.
“What man?”
“He says he knows Nicholas.”
Sophie’s blood went cold.
“Mom, listen to me. Get out of the house.”
“I can’t.”
A male voice came through the phone.
“Hello, Sophie.”
Dominic.
Sophie gripped the phone.
“If you hurt her—”
“Then bring me the original ledger.”
Federal agents were already signaling around her.
Tracing.
Recording.
Dominic continued.
“Midnight. Old Falcone warehouse on Drydock Avenue. Come alone.”
“You know that won’t happen.”
“I know Nicholas won’t let it happen.”
A pause.
“That’s why you’re not going to tell him.”
The call ended.
Sophie turned to Agent Torres.
“You heard?”
“Yes.”
“My mother—”
“We’ll find her.”
But Sophie knew Dominic had planned this.
He wanted the ledger.
And he wanted Nicholas separated from Sophie.
There had to be a reason.
She looked at Daniel’s index.
Warehouse references.
One number beside Drydock Avenue appeared repeatedly.
Sophie decoded it.
It was not a book title.
It was a date.
The date Nicholas’s mother died.
Sophie stared.
Dominic was not asking her to bring evidence.
He was inviting Nicholas into a trap.
And suddenly Sophie knew what her father’s final secret had been.
The warehouse contained the one piece of evidence Dominic had never found.
Proof of murder.