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 wooden stairs groaned under my weight as I climbed to the third floor. The hallway smelled of boiled cabbage, damp carpet, and cheap radiator heat. It was suffocating.

I paused outside apartment 3B. Behind the thin wooden door, I could hear high-pitched laughter, the squeak of sneakers on linoleum, and Clara’s exasperated voice: "Mateo, put the spatula down! Luca, help your brother with his shoes!"

Mateo. Luca.

Two names. I didn't even know the other two. My heart battered against my ribs like a caged beast.

I raised my fist and knocked. Three firm, measured raps.

Instantly, the laughter inside vanished.

"Boys, go to your room," Clara’s voice was a harsh whisper. "Close the door and lock it from the inside. Do not come out until I tell you."

"Mama?"

"Now, Nico! Take Leo with you!"

Nico. Leo. Mateo. Luca. My four boys.

A deadbolt clicked. A chain rattled. The door opened three inches, held fast by a brass security chain. Clara’s pale face appeared in the gap. She had changed into an oversized grey sweater, her hair pulled into a messy knot. In her right hand, concealed behind the doorframe, I caught the glint of a heavy kitchen knife.

"Go away, Dominic," she said, her voice shaking but resolute. "I have nothing you want. I never asked you for a single penny."

"Open the door, Clara."

"No. Leave us alone. If you take one step forward, I’ll scream. The neighbors will call the police."

"The police in this precinct report to my payroll, Clara, and you know it," I said softly, leaning closer to the crack. "I don't want to break this door down. I don't want to frighten our sons."

She flinched as if I had struck her. "*My* sons. You don't get to call them that. You weren't there when I threw up every morning for nine months. You weren't there when I had an emergency C-section on a county hospital gurney with no one to hold my hand! You weren't there when Mateo had pneumonia and I had to work three shifts at a diner just to pay for his inhaler!"

Tears spilled over her lower lashes, carving clean tracks through the dust and stress on her face.

"I didn't know," I said, the words heavy and hollow. "Clara, I swear on my mother’s soul, my father made me believe you abandoned me."

"And you believed him!" she cried out. "You knew who he was! You knew what that family did to anyone who stood in their way, and you still believed I walked away from you?"

Her words cut deeper than any blade my enemies had ever driven into my flesh. She was right. I had chosen to nurse my wounded pride rather than tear the world apart looking for the truth.

"I’m sorry," I whispered.

Clara froze. The king of Boston’s underworld, a man whose name made district attorneys resign, standing on a rotting landing, apologizing.

Slowly, her shoulders slumped. The exhaustion of six years of solitary warfare seemed to crush her all at once. She closed the door slightly, slipped the chain off, and swung it wide.