Chapter 2 - The Man Who Knelt
For most of his adult life, Rafe Colazo had believed fear was useful.
Fear kept enemies from crossing his borders. It kept dishonest men from lying twice. It kept armed strangers from reaching his family.
But as he knelt on the marble floor of the Salt Line with Mave Donovan’s blood soaking through his sleeve, Rafe understood that fear had failed him.
Six bodyguards had been positioned around the restaurant.
Not one of them had moved in time.
The only person who had seen the attack coming was a twenty-seven-year-old waitress wearing shoes so worn that the soles had nearly separated from the leather.
“Stay with me,” Rafe ordered.
Mave’s eyelids fluttered.
Her breath came in shallow, uneven pulls. The baton had struck high across her back, and the angle of her left shoulder told him something had broken.
Still, her right arm remained around Sofia.
Rafe’s nineteen-year-old sister sat trembling beside her, one hand pressed over her mouth.
“I’m all right,” Sofia whispered. “You saved me. I’m all right.”
Mave looked at her as though those words were the only medicine she needed.
“Good.”
Her eyes closed again.
“No.” Rafe touched her jaw carefully. “Look at me.”
Mave forced her eyes open.
They were gray-green, exhausted, and strangely calm.
“You’re the dangerous man,” she murmured.
Rafe almost thought he had misheard her.
“What?”
“The customers talk.” A broken breath escaped her. “They say you own half the harbor.”
“People talk too much.”
“They say everyone is afraid of you.”
“Are you?”
Mave studied him for one fading second.
“No.”
Then her body went limp.
Sofia screamed.
The first paramedic reached them moments later, followed by another carrying a trauma bag. Rafe moved only when they physically pushed him aside.
As they cut through the back of Mave’s uniform, a folded hospital bill slipped from her apron and landed near the photograph.
Rafe picked it up.
Boston Children’s Hospital.
Patient: Finn Donovan.
The amount printed at the bottom was large enough to explain the worn shoes, the double shifts, and the shadows beneath Mave’s eyes.
Rafe’s jaw tightened.
Behind him, the attacker had been forced to his knees. Nico Vale, Rafe’s head of security, held the man’s arms while another guard pressed a gun against his neck.
The attacker’s stolen server jacket had fallen open. A black crow had been tattooed beneath his collarbone.
Rafe recognized the symbol.
He had seen it painted on a shipping container three months earlier, shortly before the container vanished from one of his warehouses.
“Take him alive,” Rafe said.
The attacker smiled through bloodied teeth.
“That disappoints you?”
Rafe rose slowly.
The room seemed to shrink around him.
“Dead men answer fewer questions.”
The attacker’s smile weakened.
Rafe turned to Nico. “No police interviews until I speak to him.”
Nico nodded.
Gerald Moss, the restaurant manager, stood behind the bar with his face drained of color.
Rafe walked toward him.
Moss lifted both hands. “Mr. Colazo, I had no idea—”
“My sister says the waitress warned you.”
“She mentioned someone suspicious, but employees make mistakes. I was managing a full dining room.”
Rafe stopped several feet away.
“You were busy.”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“And she was inconvenient.”
Moss swallowed.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You did not have to.”
Rafe glanced at Mave’s blood on the floor.
“She saw an unfamiliar man watching my sister. She came to you because you had authority. You humiliated her instead of listening.”
“I made an error in judgment.”
“A broken plate is an error. My sister almost had her skull crushed because you could not be bothered to turn your head.”
Moss began to shake.
“Please. I have a family.”
Rafe’s expression did not change.
“So does she.”
The paramedics lifted Mave onto a stretcher.
She cried out as they stabilized her shoulder.
The sound sliced through Rafe’s anger.
He abandoned Moss and returned to her side.
“We’re taking her to St. Catherine’s,” a paramedic said.
“I’m coming.”
“Immediate family only.”
“She has no family here.”
Rafe did not know whether that was true, but the folded bill and worn photograph told him enough.
The paramedic looked at the armed men surrounding them, then decided not to argue.
Sofia caught Rafe’s arm.
“Finn.”
Rafe looked at her.
“The boy in the photograph,” Sofia said. “If she doesn’t come home, he’ll be alone.”
Rafe turned to Nico.
“Find him.”
Nico gave the attacker to another guard. “Hospital records?”
“Use whatever you need.”
The stretcher began moving.
Mave’s eyes opened as they reached the doors.
“The picture,” she whispered.
Rafe held it up.
Her fear eased for half a second.
“Finn can’t be alone.”
“He won’t be.”
“You don’t know him.”
“I know where he is.”
Mave tried to raise her head. Pain forced it back down.
“Don’t scare him.”
Rafe looked at the men in black suits clearing the entrance.
“That may be difficult.”
Her lips almost formed a smile.
Then she lost consciousness again.
Outside, rain had begun to fall across Boston.
The ambulance lights reflected red across the wet pavement. Guests gathered beneath the restaurant awning, whispering as Rafe climbed inside beside a woman whose name he had not known fifteen minutes earlier.
Before the doors closed, he looked toward Nico.
“Find out who she is.”
Nico nodded.
“And the man?”
Rafe’s gaze shifted to the attacker being dragged through a side exit.
“Find out who sent him.”
The ambulance pulled into traffic.
Across the street, a dark sedan remained parked beneath an unlit streetlamp.
A man inside lifted a phone.
“The waitress survived,” he said.
A distorted voice answered.
“And Sofia?”
“Untouched.”
There was a long silence.
“The girl was never the true target.”
The man in the sedan looked toward the ambulance.
“Then who was?”
“The woman who stepped in front of the weapon.”
The man lowered his voice.
“Does Colazo know?”
“Not yet.”
“And if he finds the photograph?”
May you like
The voice on the other end became cold.
“Then kill the boy before Rafe learns why his face matters.”
