Vincent Marchetti entered Reed’s house without waiting to be invited.
That told me more about him than any introduction could have.
Men feared Reed Callaway.
Vincent behaved as though fear was something he had outgrown.
Tommy closed the door and remained near it.
I stood halfway up the stairs with Ava in my arms.
Vincent looked at me.
“Pretty girl.”
Reed’s voice hardened.
“Don’t.”
Vincent smiled.
“I was talking about the baby.”
“I know.”
Silence stretched between them.
I should have gone upstairs.
Instead, I stayed.
Maybe curiosity was my worst habit.
Maybe fear had exhausted me.
Or maybe after somebody broke into my apartment, I had earned the right to understand why.
Vincent removed his gloves.
“I heard about the restaurant.”
“You hear too much.”
“That’s why I’m still alive.”
He looked at me again.
“Claire Bennett?”
My blood ran cold.
Reed’s head turned sharply.
“How do you know her name?”
Vincent gave an elegant shrug.
“Chicago is a small town when you know the right people.”
Reed moved closer.
“Say what you came to say.”
Vincent’s smile disappeared.
“Your father left debts.”
“My father is dead.”
“Debts aren’t.”
Reed’s jaw tightened.
Vincent continued.
“The council wants the south-side contracts returned.”
“They were never yours.”
“They were never yours either.”
“I built them.”
“You inherited the doors.”
“And I built everything behind them.”
I understood almost none of the conversation.
But I understood hostility.
Vincent turned toward me.
“And now everyone hears Reed Callaway is playing house.”
Reed grabbed the front of Vincent’s coat.
The movement was so fast I gasped.
Tommy didn’t move.
That frightened me more.
Reed spoke quietly.
“You put her name in your mouth again, and we stop pretending this is business.”
Vincent stared at him.
Then smiled.
“There he is.”
Reed released him.
Vincent straightened his coat.
“I wondered how long it would take.”
“What?”
“For someone to give you something to lose again.”
His gaze flicked toward Ava.
My stomach dropped.
Reed stepped forward.
Vincent lifted both hands.
“I’m leaving.”
He opened the door.
Before stepping outside, he looked back.
“Old mistakes are expensive, Reed. New attachments cost even more.”
Then he disappeared into the snow.
The door closed.
Nobody spoke.
I came downstairs slowly.
“What did he mean?”
Reed turned away.
“You should sleep.”
“No.”
“Claire.”
“No more answering questions by saying my name.”
Tommy rubbed a hand over his face.
“I’m going to check outside.”
Coward.
He left.
Reed and I stood in the living room.
Ava played with the zipper on my coat.
“What did Vincent mean?”
“He wanted a reaction.”
“He got one.”
“That was the point.”
“And the south-side contracts?”
“Businesses.”
“Legal businesses?”
His silence answered.
I laughed bitterly.
“This is insane.”
“You knew who owned the restaurant.”
“I knew rumors.”
“You believed them.”
“I believed enough to need the paycheck more than I needed peace of mind.”
That landed.
Reed looked at me for a long time.
Then he sat in the leather chair near the fireplace.
For once, he didn’t look powerful.
He looked tired.
“My father built an organization around fear,” he said. “Bookmaking. Protection money. Union pressure. Construction contracts. By the time I was old enough to understand it, half the city owed him something.”
“And you inherited it.”
“I inherited a war.”
His eyes moved toward the old photograph on the mantel.
“Natalie wanted me out.”
I sat on the edge of the couch.
“Were you trying?”
“Yes.”
His answer came immediately.
“I had arranged to sell my interests. We were leaving for Boston.”
“What happened?”
“My father refused to let me walk.”
The room grew still.
“He took my car that morning,” Reed said. “Natalie had left her purse in it the night before. She took his sedan instead.”
I closed my eyes.
“The bomb.”
He nodded.
“People assumed my father would be inside.”
“Who did it?”
“Vincent’s brother.”
I looked toward the door.
Reed continued.
“My father had killed him six months earlier. Vincent’s family retaliated. Natalie and Daniel paid for it.”
The words hung between us.
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want pity.”
“It wasn’t pity.”
He looked at me.
For one second I saw the twenty-six-year-old man who had lost his entire future in one explosion.
Then the wall returned.
“I took control after that.”
“To get revenge?”
“At first.”
“And then?”
“To make sure nobody could ever take anything from me again.”
I looked down at Ava.
“That strategy doesn’t seem to be working.”
A humorless smile touched his mouth.
“No.”
The next morning, Reed was gone before sunrise.
I woke to the smell of coffee and found Tommy making pancakes.
Badly.
“You’re burning them.”
“They’re rustic.”
“They’re black.”
“Rustic.”
Ava sat in the old high chair, banging a spoon against the tray.
I should have felt terrified.
Instead, for ten minutes, we looked like a strange little family.
Then my phone rang.
Elena.
My stomach clenched.
I answered.
“You’re fired,” she said.
My heart sank.
“What?”
“The health department received an anonymous complaint that a baby was being kept in a food-storage area.”
I closed my eyes.
“Of course they did.”
“The inspector arrived this morning.”
“Is the restaurant in trouble?”
“Reed handled it.”
“And me?”
A pause.
“I’m sorry, Claire.”
The call ended.
I stood motionless.
No job.
No apartment I felt safe in.
Eleven dollars had become nine after I bought coffee on the way to work yesterday.
Nine dollars and a baby.
Tommy watched me.
“What happened?”
“I’m fired.”
His face changed.
“Reed won’t allow that.”
“Reed doesn’t get to decide everything.”
Tommy gave me a look.
“You haven’t known him long.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
I went upstairs, packed Ava’s things, and decided I was leaving.
I didn’t know where.
Mrs. Perez’s couch.
A shelter.
Anywhere that didn’t make me feel like another object Reed could protect, control, or buy.
I reached the front door just as Reed entered.
He saw the bags.
“No.”
My anger exploded.
“You don’t get to say that.”
“You’re not leaving.”
“I lost my job because of this.”
“You lost your job because Vincent made an anonymous complaint.”
“Same result.”
“I’ll fix it.”
“You can’t fix everything!”
He went silent.
I immediately regretted the words.
But I didn’t take them back.
“I had a life before you noticed me,” I said. “It wasn’t a good life. It was exhausting and broke and humiliating half the time, but it was mine.”
His expression tightened.
“And somebody invaded that life.”
“Because of you.”
“Yes.”
The fact that he admitted it stopped me.
“I’m trying to keep you alive long enough to hate me properly.”
Despite myself, I laughed.
One sharp, shocked sound.
Reed looked almost pleased.
Then the kitchen window shattered.
Tommy yelled.
Reed moved before I understood what happened.
He slammed me to the floor and covered Ava and me with his body.
Glass exploded across the tile.
A bullet buried itself in the wall.
Tommy fired through the broken window.
Outside, tires screamed.
For several seconds I could hear nothing except Ava crying.
Reed lifted his head.
“You hurt?”
“No.”
“Ava?”
“She’s okay.”
His hand was bleeding.
A long piece of glass had cut his palm.
I stared at the blood.
He had thrown himself over us without hesitation.
Not ordered Tommy to do it.
Not ducked.
Not thought.
He had protected my daughter with his own body.
Something inside me shifted.
Then Tommy picked up an object from the floor.
A brick had come through the window with the bullet.
A note was wrapped around it.
He handed it to Reed.
Three words had been written across the paper.
PAY YOUR DEBT.
Reed’s face became stone.
But below those words was something else.
A photograph.
Me leaving the hospital eight months earlier.
Holding newborn Ava.
And standing twenty feet behind me in the photograph was a man I had not seen in almost a year.
Derek.
Ava’s father.