She was slapped for spilling wine—until the Mafia boss saw his dead brother’s watch on her wrist and realized she had been hiding from his family for six months.

One clap.

Another.

Then another.

“How moving,” a woman called from the kitchen. “The grieving widow finally brings the watch back to its rightful owner.”

Damon pushed me behind the overturned table.

“Stay here.”

“Who is she?”

“Someone who wants us listening.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

He glanced at me. “Miriam Vale.”

The woman stepped through the kitchen doorway.

She was older than I remembered, or perhaps the memory had softened her. Her silver hair was pinned beneath a black hat. She wore a long raincoat and held a pistol loosely at her side. No mask. No hesitation.

She looked at me as though she had been expecting this moment for months.

“Adriana,” she said.

The name sliced through the room.

Nico raised his weapon, but Damon lifted one hand.

“Not yet.”

Miriam smiled. “Still polite when you’re angry, Damon. Your mother would be proud.”

“You were at the clinic.”

“I was.”

“You threatened my wife.”

“I warned her.”

“You made her disappear.”

“I kept her alive.”

My fingers dug into the carpet. “You knew Eli was going to die.”

Miriam’s expression changed.

For one second, the woman with the gun looked tired.

“I knew someone had decided he should.”

“Who?”

“The same people who have decided your child should be used as a weapon.”

Damon shifted closer to me.

“You said the baby belongs to my family.”

“That is what they want you to believe.”

“Who are they?”

Miriam’s eyes moved to the photograph in his hand. “You still trust paper?”

“I trust bullets.”

“That is why your brother died.”

The sentence cracked something open inside Damon.

He stepped forward.

“You were there.”

“No.”

“You knew where he was.”

“Yes.”

“You let him walk into the alley.”

“I told him not to.”

“You watched him die.”

Miriam’s mouth tightened. “I watched him choose you.”

Damon moved so quickly that even Nico reacted. He crossed the distance between them, knocked the pistol from her hand, and pinned her against the kitchen door.

I should have stopped him.

Instead, I heard myself ask, “What does that mean?”

Miriam looked past Damon toward me.

“Eli could have walked away,” she said. “He could have given Marcel the information he wanted and saved himself. He refused.”

“What information?”

“The names of the men Damon trusted.”

Damon’s face had gone pale beneath his anger.

“My organization was infiltrated,” he said.

“Not infiltrated,” Miriam corrected. “Purchased.”

The word hung in the air.

“Marcel Marquetti bought three of Damon’s captains, two customs officers, and someone in his family.”

“Who?” Damon asked.

Miriam shook her head. “You are not ready.”

“I decide when I’m ready.”

“You have been deciding with half the truth for three years.”

I stepped out from behind the table. “Miriam, why did Eli give me the watch?”

Her gaze dropped to my wrist.

“Because he wanted you to survive long enough to hear what was inside it.”

Damon released her with a shove. “Open it.”

“It’s already open.”

“The key.”

Miriam looked at the tiny brass key in his palm.

Then she laughed once, without humor.

“You have no idea what you’re holding.”

“Explain.”

“It opens the vault beneath the old Marquetti hotel.”

My stomach turned.

“The hotel Celeste came to discuss tonight?”

“The hotel her father is desperate to sell before the state discovers what is beneath it.”

“What is beneath it?” Damon demanded.

Miriam’s eyes went to the broken window.

“A ledger.”

“A book?”

“A record of every shipment, every payment, every murder purchased through Boston’s port for the last twenty years.”

Damon stared at her.

“Why would Eli hide it?”

“Because the ledger does not only name enemies.”

“Whose name is in it?”

Miriam looked at me.

“Your husband’s.”

The room seemed to lose all sound.

I took one step back.

“Eli was part of it?”

“No,” Miriam said. “He was investigating it.”

“Then why is his name there?”

“Because someone wanted the world to believe he was.”

Damon looked toward the envelope. “A frame job.”

“A perfect one. Eli discovered the ledger had been altered. He found the original pages and copied the names. Before he could bring them to Damon, Marcel learned about the investigation.”

“Why didn’t Eli come to me?”

Miriam’s eyes hardened. “Because someone made sure he believed you were the one who sold him out.”

Damon turned toward me.

I saw the question in his face before he asked it.

“Did you know?”

“No.”

“Did he ever say he suspected me?”

I thought about the night in our apartment, the way Eli had paced beside the window, checking the street every few minutes.

“He said your phone was compromised. He said someone close to you was feeding them information.”

Miriam nodded. “He was right.”

“Who?” Damon asked again.

The front doors burst open.

Smoke rolled across the floor.

Nico fired twice into the ceiling as a warning, and Damon grabbed my hand. His fingers closed around mine with fierce certainty.

“Back entrance,” he said.

“What about Miriam?”

“She can follow.”

“I’m not leaving her.”

He looked at me with disbelief. “She threatened you.”

“She also kept me alive.”

Miriam snatched her pistol from the floor and fired toward the entrance. A man in a black mask collapsed behind the bar.

“The pregnant woman has a point,” she said.

We ran through the kitchen.

My feet slipped on wet tile. Damon caught me around the waist. The baby shifted hard, and I felt a hot pulse of pain.

“Stop,” he said.

“I can walk.”

“You’re shaking.”

“I’m angry.”

“You’re bleeding again.”

I looked down.

Miriam swore. “They’ve hit the building from both sides.”

The rear exit opened onto a narrow alley filled with smoke. Headlights glowed at the far end. A vehicle blocked the street.

Damon pulled me behind a stack of crates.

“There are too many,” Nico said.

“Then we make them think there are more,” Damon replied.

He took a phone from his pocket and sent one message.

Seconds later, every light in the alley went dark.

Gunfire erupted.

Damon moved with terrifying precision, pulling me from cover to cover while his men returned fire. Miriam stayed behind us, shooting only when she had a clear target.

We reached the convoy.

I was almost inside the SUV when a masked man stepped from beneath the awning and aimed directly at my stomach.

Damon saw him.

He shoved me down and fired.

The man fell.

But before he died, he smiled at me.

“Tell Damon,” he whispered, “the bride is already chosen.”