Chapter 1
I turned the silver pin between my fingers.
Same crest.
Same weight.
Same black enamel border worn by every capo officially appointed under my name.
Almost.
The needle on the back was wrong.
Too new.
The engraving beneath the crest was missing one tiny cut my father had added twenty years ago so counterfeit pins could be spotted immediately.
I looked at the cash scattered around Evelyn’s shoes.
Then at the guards lining the wall.
“Which of my men did you buy?”
One guard lowered his eyes.
Frank Delaney.
Eight years protecting my home.
Three Christmases at my table.
The man who carried Nora through the hospital entrance when she split her eyebrow at two.
I stared at him.
“Frank.”
His jaw tightened.
“Yes, Boss.”
Caleb laughed from inside the wreckage of the dessert trolley.
“He doesn’t know which Boss you mean.”
The room changed.
I looked at my cousin.
Blood at the corner of his mouth.
Still smiling.
Too confident for a man who had just been caught with counterfeit rank and cash.
That meant he believed the damage was already done.
“How many?”
I asked.
Frank said nothing.
I looked toward the other guards.
Twelve men.
Three lowered their eyes.
Then a fourth.
Nora stood behind my two personal bodyguards, clutching the back of one man’s jacket.
She watched them.
Not me.
Them.
The people who were supposed to make her feel safe.
“Daddy?”
I turned.
“Why they call Caleb Boss?”
My chest tightened.
I crouched.
“Because some adults forgot who they worked for.”
Caleb laughed again.
“No.”
I stood.
“They remembered who was actually here.”
There it was.
Not money alone.
Resentment.
I looked at him.
“You think being present made you Boss.”
“I think disappearing into nurseries and school meetings while I kept crews moving made you something else.”
Silence.
Evelyn slowly pushed herself upright.
“Your daughter found one pin tonight.”
She looked toward the floor.
“There are forty more.”
My hand closed around the counterfeit crest.
Forty.
I had eighteen capos.
May you like
Which meant these pins were not replacing my command.
They were creating another one.
