"Get out."

He said it quietly. That was the worst part.

Clara didn't move. "Rico—"

"You are accusing my family," he said, rising from his chair, "of killing my wife. Based on a crayon drawing by a three-year-old."

"Four. He's four now."

"Don't."

The word cracked like a gunshot. Clara flinched.

Rico came around the desk. He didn't touch her. He stopped three feet away, and his face was a face she had never seen before—not the cold boss from the restaurant, not the exhausted father in the hallway. Something worse. Something hollowed out.

"Nico was my best friend when we were children," he said. "He slept on my floor when his father beat him. I paid for his mother's funeral. He stood beside me at the altar when I married Elena. He carried her, Clara. He carried her coffin on his shoulder."

"I know—"

"You don't know anything." His voice broke. "You've been in this house six weeks. You don't know what loyalty is in this family. You don't know what it costs."

"I know what Leo said."

"Leo is four years old. He thinks the moon follows the car. He thinks Rosa's cat can talk. He saw a red toy and he got scared, and you're turning that into—into—"

"And Sal Greco?" Clara heard her own voice rise. "The man who beat up my brother. The man who said relax, Nico. Is that a coincidence too?"

"There are a hundred Nicos in Brooklyn!"

"Then look!" she shouted. "That's all I'm asking you! Just look!"

The study rang with silence.

Somewhere down the hall, a door opened. Small footsteps.

Rico turned away from her. He braced both hands on the edge of his desk, head bowed, shoulders rigid.

"I hired you," he said, very low, "to take care of my son. Not to investigate my family. Not to put ideas in his head. Not to turn him against the only people he has left."

"I would never—"

"You're fired."

The words landed in the center of her chest like a fist.

"Rico."

"Dante will drive you and your brother home. You'll be paid through the end of the year." He didn't turn around. "And I'll keep men on your building. Nobody will touch either of you. That much I still owe you."

Clara stood there with the drawing in her hand.

She thought about arguing. She thought about telling him he was a coward, that Elena had built a steel room beneath this house because she knew exactly where the danger was. She thought about telling him she was afraid—truly afraid—for him.

But his back was a wall, and she knew walls. She had grown up beside them.

She put the drawing down on the desk.

"Keep this," she said. "Please. Just—keep it."

He didn't answer.

---

She packed in fifteen minutes. Evan didn't ask questions. One look at her face and he simply shoved his clothes into his duffel bag and followed her down the stairs.

Rosa was waiting in the foyer, tears running down her face. She pressed a paper bag into Clara's hands—still warm. Sfogliatelle.

"For the train," Rosa whispered. "You were right. God forgive me, I think you were right."

Dante held the front door open. He wouldn't meet her eyes.

They were halfway across the foyer when Leo appeared at the top of the stairs.

He was holding the cinnamon jar.

He looked at Clara's suitcase. At Evan's bag. At the open door.

And Clara watched his face crumple in slow motion.

"No," Leo said.

He started down the stairs. Too fast. Rosa lunged and caught him on the third step. He fought her, kicking, the cinnamon jar falling and bouncing and rolling across the marble.

"No! No! Clara! Don't go! DON'T GO!"

The same two words. The words that had changed everything in Il Destino.

Clara couldn't breathe.

She took one step toward the stairs.

"Miss Bennett." Dante's voice was gentle but firm. "Please. Boss said."

Above them, the study door had opened. Rico stood at the top of the staircase, gripping the banister, white-faced. He looked at his screaming son. He looked at Clara.

He didn't say a word.

Clara turned around and walked out the door.

Behind her, all the way down the curved driveway and into the back of the car, she could still hear Leo screaming her name.

---

Nobody spoke on the drive to Sunset Park.

Dante kept his eyes on the road. Evan sat in the back with his duffel bag on his knees, staring out the window. Clara held Rosa's paper bag in her lap and didn't open it.

At a red light on Fort Hamilton Parkway, Dante cleared his throat.

"Miss Bennett."

She didn't answer.

"For what it's worth," he said, "I think you're right."

Clara turned to look at him.

His big hands were tight on the steering wheel. "I've been with the family eleven years. I was there the night Mrs. Moretti died. I drove the boss to the hospital." He swallowed. "Nico got there before us. Before anybody called him. I thought about that for a long time afterward. Then I stopped thinking about it, because thinking about things like that in my job is how you end up in the river."

"Then why are you telling me?"

The light turned green. Dante didn't move for a second.

"Because that kid bit me," he said finally. "Right down to the bone. And then two weeks later he pushed a truck at me and said 'boom.' And I figure anybody who can do that deserves somebody who'll keep thinking."

The car behind them honked.

Dante drove on.

When they pulled up in front of her building, he got out and opened her door, the way he had the very first night.

"Lock your door," he said. "There's a car across the street. They're ours."

"Dante." Clara stopped on the curb. "Talk to him. Please. He'll listen to you."

The big man looked down at the sidewalk.

"He doesn't listen to anybody right now," he said. "But I'll try."

---