Finger-shaped bruises circled her wrist.

Vincent stared at them.

Then she hesitated and pushed the sleeve higher.

More bruises covered her forearm.

Purple.

Yellow.

Black near the elbow.

Something terrible passed across Vincent’s face.

Maggie immediately lowered the sleeve.

“I handled it.”

“No.”

“I changed the locks.”

“No.”

“I filed a police report this afternoon.”

“Good.”

She blinked, clearly expecting something else.

Vincent took his phone from his pocket.

“What are you doing?”

“Correcting a problem.”

Her expression changed instantly.

“Vincent.”

He stopped.

“You cannot kill him.”

His eyes lifted to hers.

Interesting.

She believed he could.

More interestingly, she believed he would.

“I didn’t say I was going to kill him.”

“You didn’t have to.”

Vincent almost smiled.

Not because anything was funny.

Because Maggie Hart had just done what nearly everyone else in Philadelphia had learned not to do.

She had told him no.

“He hurt you.”

“Yes.”

“He entered your home.”

“Yes.”

“He threatened you?”

Silence.

Vincent’s expression hardened.

“What did he threaten?”

Maggie looked toward Owen.

Then back at Vincent.

“He said if I didn’t come back to him, he’d find something I loved more than myself.”

The room became perfectly still.

Vincent looked at his sleeping son.

When he turned back, every trace of emotion had disappeared from his face.

That frightened Maggie more than anger would have.

“You should have told me.”

“I knew what you would do.”

“You have no idea what I would do.”

“I know what people say about you.”

Vincent studied her.

“And yet you work in my home.”

“Because the man they talk about isn’t the man Owen knows.”

The sentence struck somewhere he did not permit anyone to touch.

Vincent said nothing.

Maggie’s voice softened.

“Please. Don’t become that man because of me.”

Vincent looked at Owen again.

His little boy had spent eighteen months learning that people could disappear without warning.

His mother had disappeared.

His laughter had disappeared.

For months, even his voice had disappeared.

Vincent suddenly understood something Maggie could not.

If Darren Cole simply vanished into darkness because Vincent Calder had decided he deserved to, Vincent would protect Maggie’s body.

But he might destroy everything she had spent five months teaching Owen about safety.

About trust.

About good people having choices when they were angry.

Vincent put the phone back into his pocket.

“All right.”

Maggie stared at him suspiciously.

“All right?”

“You asked me not to kill him.”

“Yes.”

“I heard you.”

Relief moved through her shoulders.

She had no idea that Vincent Calder was a man who could keep a promise and still terrify the devil.

At 12:14 a.m., after Maggie had gone to the guest room because Vincent refused to let her return to her apartment, he entered his study.

His oldest lieutenant, Thomas Rourke, answered on the first ring.

“Boss?”

“Find Darren Cole.”

There was a short pause.

Rourke knew Vincent well enough to hear the difference in his voice.

“Alive?”

Vincent stared through the windows toward the sleeping city.

“Yes.”

Another pause.

“That sounds inconvenient.”

“It is.”

“What did he do?”

Vincent’s eyes became ice.

“He touched someone under my protection.”

Rourke exhaled slowly.

“I’ll have him before sunrise.”

Vincent ended the call.

Then he opened the drawer of his desk.

Inside lay a photograph of his late wife beside Owen.

For a long time, he stared at it.

“I’m trying,” he whispered.

At 4:38 Friday morning, Darren Cole woke to three men standing beside his bed.

At 5:16, a black SUV crossed the Benjamin Franklin Bridge toward New Jersey.

And by the time Philadelphia woke for work, Darren Cole had disappeared.

But he was very much alive.

For Vincent had decided that killing him would be easy.

Living with what came next would be harder.