Chapter 7 - THE DINNER INVITATION
At 7:00 PM sharp, a knock sounded on the heavy oak door of the fourth-floor suite.
Nell had changed into the only decent dress she owned—a simple navy blue cotton dress her mother had bought her for her high school graduation. It was slightly too tight across the shoulders, but it was clean and respectable.
She opened the door.
A young footman stood there holding a silver tray with a single white envelope resting in the center.
"Mr. Santoro requests your presence in the private dining room on the second floor," the boy said, staring firmly at the wall past her shoulder. "He said you should bring the locket."
Nell’s stomach turned to lead.
"Tell him I'll be down in five minutes," she said.
The private dining room was nothing like the grand ballroom where the party had been held. It was a small, intimate space lit by a single wrought-iron chandelier, with a round mahogany table set for two.
Rafe Santoro sat at the head of the table, wearing a dark suit without a tie, looking like a predator resting between hunts.
When Nell walked in, he stood up—a gesture of old-world courtesy that seemed entirely out of place in a room where men were killed over missing ledgers.
"Sit down, Nell," he said, gesturing to the chair opposite him.
She sat, keeping her hands folded tightly in her lap so he wouldn't see them shake.
A middle-aged waiter materialized from the shadows, poured two glasses of red wine, and vanished just as quickly as he had appeared.
"You haven't touched your wine," Rafe noted, cutting a piece of rare steak with a silver knife that moved with terrifying efficiency.
"I don't drink when I'm negotiating," she said coolly.
Rafe paused, his knife hovering over the plate. A slow, dangerous smile touched his lips. "Negotiating? What makes you think we're negotiating, Nell? You're sitting in my house, wearing my clothes, eating my food. In this city, that doesn't look like a negotiation. That looks like a surrender."
"Then why am I still breathing?" she fired back, her eyes locking onto his without flinching. "Teddy Vain would have put a bullet in my head ten minutes after I dropped those glasses. You had him beaten off your porch with a shotgun. Why protect me unless you want something I have?"
Rafe set his knife and fork down. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table, closing the distance between them.
"I don't like people breaking rules in my house," Rafe said softly. "Teddy Vain laid a hand on a woman who couldn't fight back. That violated the only law I care about."
He paused, his gray eyes narrowing.
"And as for what I want... I want the same thing you want, Nell. I want to clean out the rot that has been festering in Boston for twenty years. My uncle was part of it. The governor is part of it. And Teddy Vain’s father built his entire empire on the blood of honest cops like your father."
Nell’s breath hitched. "You knew my father?"
"I knew him," Rafe said quietly. "We sat across from each other in interrogation rooms more times than I can count. He was the only man in the precinct who couldn't be bought. When the others took their envelopes from my uncle, Arthur Whitaker walked out."
Rafe reached across the table, his large, scarred hand resting flat on the mahogany wood, inches from her fingers.
"He didn't have to die, Nell. But he got too close to the Commonwealth Bank account. And now, you're holding the key to the safe that contains every name, every bribe, and every wire transfer that proves who pulled the trigger."
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Nell stared at him, her chest heaving. The secret she had guarded with her life for over a year—the secret she thought she carried entirely alone—was sitting right out in the open between them.
THE END OF CHAPTER 7
