Part 2: Hours before proposing to another woman, a mob boss walked into a restaurant restroom and found four six-year-old boys who shared his exact face.

The hallway outside the restroom was lined with dark mahogany and velvet wallpaper, but to me, it felt like a collapsing tunnel.

I stepped through the doorway, my boots barely making a sound against the runner rug. The boys had stopped near a small vestibule by the secondary exit. And there she stood, bending down to zip up the smallest boy’s jacket.

Clara.

Six years. Two thousand one hundred and ninety days of believing she had taken a payoff from my father and vanished into thin air. Two thousand days of drinking myself numb in private penthouses, wondering why a woman who once held my soul in her hands could throw it away for three million dollars and a one-way ticket out of Logan Airport.

She turned. Her auburn hair caught the amber glow of the sconces. She looked exhausted, her cheeks slightly thinner than I remembered, dressed in a simple wool coat that had seen too many winters. But those green eyes—wild, intelligent, and fierce—had not changed at all.

Her gaze shifted from her son to my shoes. Then up my navy trousers. To the bespoke jacket. To my face.

Every drop of color drained from her skin.

"Dominic," she whispered, the name slipping from her lips like an ancient curse.

"Mama, who is that man?" the tallest boy asked, pointing a small, blunt finger at me. "He looked at us funny in the bathroom."

Clara didn’t answer him. Her body moved entirely on instinct. She shoved all four boys behind her skirt, extending her arms wide like a bird shielding her nest from a hawk. Her knuckles were white, trembling against the fabric of her coat.

"Don't," she breathed, her voice cracking with terror. "Don't you come near them."

"Clara," I said, my own voice sounding alien to my ears. It was hoarse, stripped of the cold, lethal composure that had kept the Five Families of New England under my thumb for half a decade. "What is this?"

"It’s nothing," she said too quickly, backing toward the heavy glass exit door. "It’s a coincidence. We’re leaving."

"Four boys," I stepped forward. She took two frantic steps back. "All six years old. All carrying the Moretti jawline, Clara. All reaching for the back of their necks when they're nervous."

"Lots of kids do that!" she spat, but her voice betrayed her. Panic was clawing up her throat. "Get away from us, Dominic. You made your choice six years ago. You don't get to stand there in your thousand-dollar suit and look at them."

"My choice?" I echoed, stunned. "You took the money, Clara! You walked out of my penthouse while I was in Chicago fighting a turf war for my life!"

Clara let out a bitter, strangled laugh that made the boys whimper in confusion. "Is that what they told you? Is that what your dear father put in his little ledger before he died?" She grabbed the brass handle of the exterior door. "He didn't offer me money, Dominic. He offered me a bullet. He said if I didn't disappear off the face of the earth, he'd make sure neither I nor the life inside me ever saw the light of day."

The air in the corridor turned to ice.

Before I could process the words, the heavy front doors of the restaurant swung open behind me.

"Boss?" Marcus’s gravelly voice broke the silence. My right-hand man stood there, an umbrella dripping onto the marble, his face grim. "Car’s out front. We’re forty minutes late. The Senator and Sloane are already at the cathedral reception hall. The press is getting restless."

Clara seized the distraction. She shoved the glass door open, dragging the four boys out into the biting chill of the Boston autumn rain.

"Clara! Wait!" I roared, moving after her.

Marcus caught my arm. "Dominic, the Harringtons—"

I ripped my arm out of his grasp so violently the seam of my jacket strained. I leveled a glare at him that had sent grown cartel leaders to their knees.