Chapter 1
“Who was waiting for my grandson on the other shore?”
Lucas’s face lost what little color remained.
That was my answer before anybody spoke.
Theo stood behind me in Daniel’s arms, both small hands gripping the lapels of the bodyguard’s coat. His travel bag remained beside Briana’s feet, packed neatly enough to tell me this departure had been planned for more than an hour.
The boatman killed the engine.
Good choice.
I stepped toward him.
“Name.”
He looked at Lucas.
Wrong man.
I repeated it more quietly.
“Name.”
“Malcolm Vane.”
The marina disappeared around me for one second.
Malcolm.
I had not heard that name spoken inside Carbone territory in nine years.
Lucas looked down.
Briana did not.
Interesting.
She had expected the name to mean something to me.
“You made a deal with Malcolm Vane.”
Lucas swallowed. “Mom—”
“Eleanor.”
His eyes lifted.
He knew what that meant.
Mother was personal.
Eleanor meant he was about to answer to the head of the Carbone family.
“What does he want with Theo?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
I almost smiled.
The sentence guilty men use when reality sounds ugly without decoration.
“Then improve it.”
Lucas rubbed both hands over his face.
“He was supposed to stay at the Vane estate.”
“For how long?”
“Thirty days.”
Theo heard.
I saw his expression change.
That mattered more than Lucas’s answer.
“Why?”
Lucas said nothing.
Briana finally snapped.
“Because Malcolm wanted assurance the debt would be paid.”
I turned toward her.
“You offered my grandson as collateral.”
“He would have been comfortable.”
There it was.
The first justification.
Luxury makes captivity respectable if you are morally lazy enough.
I looked at Lucas.
“Did you agree to that word?”
“No.”
“What word?”
“Collateral.”
“Then what did Malcolm call Theo?”
Lucas closed his eyes.
“A guest.”
Of course.
Mafia families have always invented polite language for ugly arrangements.
Then the boatman spoke.
“Mr. Vane didn’t call him a guest.”
Everybody turned.
Lucas stared at him.
I waited.
The man’s voice dropped.
“He called the boy the Carbone pledge.”
My stomach tightened.
May you like
Debt was only the invitation.
Theo was being taken because he was mine.
