Chapter 2 - The Face in the Rain
The autumn air outside the Mercedes smelled of wet asphalt, roasting chestnuts, and exhaust fumes. A cold drizzle had started to bead against the cashmere of my overcoat as my leather oxfords hit the curb.
Behind me, the car door clicked shut. Frank stepped out as well, his hand casually resting near his left lapel where the compact Sig Sauer rested in its leather holster. He didn’t draw attention to himself, but his eyes were already scanning the rooftops, the shopfronts, and the alleyways. When a man like Nicholas Moretti stepped onto an open Boston sidewalk, targets were painted on every nearby shadow.
The girl didn’t run.
Most people in this district recognized my face from local television segments or neighborhood gossip, or at least recognized the cut of a six-thousand-dollar bespoke suit. They usually stepped aside. But she merely tilted her chin up, blinking through the misty rain, her small shoulders squaring under the oversized blue jacket.
“Candy, mister?” she asked, her voice clear despite a slight tremor from the biting chill. “One dollar. Milk chocolate or almond.”
I stopped two feet away from the taped cardboard box.
Down in the stroller, the baby wheezed. His cheeks were flushed a violent, feverish pink, and tiny beads of sweat glistened beneath his fine, damp brown hair. The faded yellow blanket tucked around his chest was paper-thin—the sort of fleece handed out at county shelters.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Macy,” she replied without hesitation. “Macy Vance. And that’s Leo. He’s nine months old.”
“Where is your mother, Macy?”
Her fingers tightened on the damp cardboard rim of the box. That ancient, guarded look flickered across her eyes—the look of a child who had learned far too early that adults with authority usually brought clipboards, police cruisers, and foster homes.
“She’s working,” Macy said smoothly. “She’s at the laundromat on Fourth. She told me to stay right here under the dry cleaner’s awning until five o’clock. So... do you want chocolate or not?”
She was lying about the mother. I had spent forty-two years studying the subtle twitches of liars, politicians, and contract killers. Her gaze shifted two inches to the left, toward a dented coin cup sitting beside the stroller wheel.
I reached inside my coat and pulled out my leather wallet. I slid out three crisp hundred-dollar bills.
Macy stared at the green paper, her eyes widening slightly, but she didn’t reach for it. Instead, her small mouth set into a stubborn, defensive line.
“I don't have change for that,” she said quietly. “And I’m not a beggar. My mom says we earn our keep.”
“I’m not giving you charity, Macy,” I said, crouching down so my eyes were level with hers. My tailored trousers creased against the wet sidewalk, but I didn’t care. “I’m buying the entire box. And I’m hiring you to show me where your brother’s medicine is.”
“We don’t have medicine,” she whispered, her voice finally cracking beneath the weight of her reality. “The clinic wanted sixty dollars for the liquid drops because Mama lost her insurance card. That’s why I need forty-three dollars. Forty-three is enough for the generic bottle at the pharmacy across the street.”
Forty-three dollars.
Forty-three candy bars at a dollar each.
The neat rows, the duct tape, the calculated precision—it wasn’t just dignity. It was an eight-year-old child doing basic survival arithmetic to keep her baby brother from suffocating in a drafty bedroom.
“Frank,” I said, not taking my eyes off the little girl.
“Boss?”
“Call Dr. Chen. Tell him to meet us at the brownstone on Commonwealth. Bring pediatric antibiotics, a saline nebulizer, and blood testing kits.”
“Sir, the Alvarez meeting—”
“Tell Alvarez that if he leaves before I arrive, I will revoke his docking permits at the marine terminal by sundown.” I turned back to Macy, pressing the folded bills into her cold, chapped palm. “Pick up the box, Macy. We’re going to get your brother warm.”
She hesitated, looking between the money, my face, and the luxury sedan idling at the curb. “Who are you?”
“Someone who hates bad arithmetic,” I told her.
Frank stepped forward to lift the rickety stroller, but as he bent down, his overcoat brushed against the baby’s fleece blanket, peeling it back slightly to reveal the infant’s tiny chest.
Pinned to the collar of the baby’s stained cotton onesie was a silver medallion.
A heavy, antique silver pendant engraved with the image of Saint Michael slaying the dragon, encircled by three interlocking olive branches.
My breath caught in my throat like crushed glass.
My hand moved before my mind could stop it, my fingers clamping down on the cold silver disc.
I knew that medal.
I had commissioned it in Florence, Italy, fifteen years ago. There were only four in existence. I wore one under my dress shirt. My brother, Julian, had worn the second until the day he was buried. My consigliere, Carlo, wore the third.
And the fourth had belonged to Helena Vance—the woman who had vanished from my life eight years ago, taking a piece of my soul and thirty million dollars in bearer bonds with her.
My heart slammed against my ribs with terrifying force. I stared at the baby’s face, looking past the fever, past the sweat, searching the structure of his brow, the shape of his jaw.
“Macy,” I whispered, my voice sounding distant, hollow, like a voice echoing from the bottom of an abandoned well. “Where did Leo get this necklace?”
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Macy pulled the blanket back over the medal protectively, glaring at me like a cornered wolf pup.
“It’s my mama’s,” she said fiercely. “She said it’s the only thing our father left behind before he died.”
