Chapter 10 - The Enemy Behind the Enemy
By evening, Boston had started moving against Rafe.
Not with gunfire.
That would have been easier.
Banks froze accounts connected to three Colazo companies.
A city inspector shut down two warehouses citing emergency violations.
Federal warrants appeared for businesses Rafe had spent years making legitimate.
Anonymous files reached newspapers.
Old photographs.
Old allegations.
Old crimes.
Some true.
Some altered.
Some impossible to distinguish.
Someone was trying to destroy the Colazo name without firing another bullet.
Rafe stood in his office overlooking Boston Harbor.
Nico entered.
“Three board members resigned.”
“Let them.”
“Two suppliers suspended contracts.”
“Replace them.”
“Press wants a statement.”
“No.”
Nico hesitated.
“That may not be smart.”
Rafe looked at him.
“I didn't hire you for public relations.”
“Thank God.”
Mave entered behind him.
Her hospital sling remained on.
Finn was staying with Kathleen and Lucia in a secure townhouse.
Sofia was with federal investigators.
Martin had survived surgery.
Vane remained critical under armed guard.
Everything should have felt safer.
It didn't.
Mave placed coffee on Rafe's desk.
“You look like death.”
“Everyone keeps complimenting me today.”
“You haven't slept.”
“Neither have you.”
“I have an excuse.”
“So do I.”
She leaned against the desk.
“Who's behind it?”
“We don't know.”
“I thought you knew everything scary.”
“Finn said that.”
“He's usually right.”
Rafe looked at the harbor.
“Vane worked for someone.”
“Police?”
“Maybe.”
“Political?”
“Maybe.”
“Mafia?”
“Maybe.”
“Excellent investigation.”
He looked at her.
She smiled faintly.
Rafe suddenly reached for her.
Slowly.
Giving her time to move.
She didn't.
His fingers brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek.
Mave's breath caught.
“This is probably a terrible time,” he said.
“For what?”
“To finish what I was going to say in the car.”
She remembered.
If we get out of this…
Her heart accelerated.
“What were you going to say?”
Rafe looked at her mouth.
Then back to her eyes.
“That meeting you missed because you were saving Lucia.”
“What meeting?”
“The bank.”
Mave stiffened.
“I didn't miss it. They denied me.”
“I know.”
“Of course you know.”
“I want to help you open the bakery.”
She stared.
“What?”
“Finn told Lucia.”
“That little traitor.”
“He said your mother taught you to bake.”
“She did.”
“You wanted a storefront.”
“That dream died when medical bills learned my address.”
“It doesn't have to stay dead.”
Mave pulled away.
“We had this conversation.”
“Not charity.”
“What then?”
“Investment.”
“Absolutely not.”
“You haven't heard terms.”
“If the terms involve you—”
“They do.”
“No.”
“As a silent partner.”
“You are physically incapable of silence.”
Rafe smiled.
Mave's stomach did something annoying.
Then Nico entered again.
“Sorry.”
Rafe's expression flattened.
“You don't look sorry.”
“Found the money.”
They followed him into the conference room.
A network diagram covered the monitor.
“Vane's hidden accounts fed into shell companies.”
Nico highlighted three.
“All controlled through a Boston legal firm.”
“Name?”
“Barton, Hale & Kress.”
Rafe frowned.
“Lawyers.”
“Yes.”
“Who owns controlling interest?”
“Charles Kress.”
Rafe knew him.
Everyone did.
Charles Kress was seventy.
Philanthropist.
Former federal prosecutor.
Chairman of three civic foundations.
And one of Vittorio Colazo's oldest supposed friends.
Rafe stared at the name.
“No.”
Mave watched him.
“You know him.”
“He spoke at Vittorio's funeral.”
Nico nodded.
“He also arranged the deal that prevented Vane from being indicted in 2007.”
Rafe's jaw tightened.
“Why?”
“Because Vane worked for him.”
The pieces came together.
Kress had used police, organized crime, courts, and legitimate corporations.
Vane had been muscle.
Kress had been architecture.
“What does he want?”
Nico looked grim.
“Control.”
“Of what?”
“Port contracts, labor organizations, property.”
Rafe understood.
Vittorio had discovered more than police corruption.
He had discovered a system.
Rafe's phone rang.
Charles Kress.
Of course.
Rafe answered.
“Charles.”
“Rafael.”
The elderly man's voice remained warm.
“I hear you've had an unpleasant week.”
“You could say that.”
“Mothers returning from the dead. Sisters kidnapped. Waitresses appearing from nowhere.”
Mave's eyes narrowed.
Rafe put the call on speaker.
“What do you want?”
“You've always been impatient.”
“Apparently inherited.”
Kress chuckled.
“You know the truth now?”
“Enough.”
“Then you know Vittorio was sentimental.”
“He was better than you.”
“Was he?”
Kress sighed.
“He built criminal power and convinced himself that loving children made him honorable.”
“What did he find on you?”
“Everything.”
“And you killed him.”
“I authorized a correction.”
Rafe's face hardened.
Mave saw his hands curl.
Kress continued.
“Vane was never elegant. He made it personal.”
“And you?”
“I make things useful.”
“Finn was useful?”
“Children are often the most efficient leverage.”
Mave stepped toward the speaker.
“You touch him again and—”
Kress laughed.
“Mave Donovan.”
Her face went still.
“Your mother was a remarkable inconvenience.”
“She's alive.”
“Yes.”
“Which means you failed.”
“For now.”
Rafe put a hand near Mave's.
Not restraining.
Grounding.
“What happens at midnight?” he asked.
Kress's voice changed.
“Your organization ends.”
“How?”
“Every dirty asset your family ever touched becomes public. Every official you paid. Every shipment you moved before your reform. Every body tied to the old years.”
Rafe stared out the window.
Some of those things were true.
That was the problem.
“You think exposure scares me?”
“No.”
Kress sounded almost admiring.
“I think prison does.”
Rafe smiled.
“You've misunderstood me.”
“Oh?”
“I stopped caring what happens to me yesterday.”
Mave looked at him.
Kress went silent.
Rafe continued.
“That makes me inconvenient.”
“You won't sacrifice yourself.”
“Why not?”
“Men like us don't.”
Rafe's smile disappeared.
“You keep making Vane's mistake.”
“What mistake?”
“Thinking I'm like you.”
He ended the call.
Nico exhaled.
“Bold.”
“Stupid?”
“Also.”
Mave stared at Rafe.
“What are you planning?”
“Full disclosure.”
Nico looked alarmed.
“Rafe.”
“Everything.”
“You can't.”
“Watch me.”
Rafe turned toward the window.
“Kress expects me to protect the empire.”
Mave understood.
“So you burn it first.”
“Not the legitimate companies.”
“The rest?”
“Everything.”
Nico rubbed his face.
“You understand what that means?”
“Yes.”
“Charges.”
“Yes.”
“Prison.”
“Possibly.”
Mave's stomach dropped.
“No.”
Rafe looked at her.
“If I hand federal prosecutors every record we have before Kress leaks them, he loses leverage.”
“And you lose your freedom.”
“Maybe.”
“Rafe.”
“It protects Lucia.”
“What about you?”
“I'm not the priority.”
Mave's eyes flashed.
“That line sounds familiar.”
He understood.
She had spent her life doing exactly that.
Finn first.
Bills first.
Work first.
Everyone except Mave.
Now she hated seeing it in him.
Rafe smiled sadly.
“I'm learning from you.”
“Then learn the better parts.”
He stepped closer.
“What are those?”
Mave's voice lowered.
“Staying.”
The room seemed smaller.
Nico quietly left.
Rafe looked toward the closed door.
“Coward.”
Mave laughed.
Then Rafe kissed her.
Not aggressively.
Not like a man who took what he wanted.
He touched her cheek and waited.
Mave closed the distance.
The kiss was soft.
Brief.
Almost painfully careful.
When they separated, she whispered,
“That was terrible timing.”
“I warned you.”
She smiled.
Then the building alarms began screaming.
Nico burst back in.
“Fire.”
Rafe turned.
“What?”
“Garage level.”
Smoke began seeping beneath the conference-room door.
Kress had not waited until midnight.
The lights failed.
Emergency power flickered.
Gunfire erupted downstairs.
Nico drew his weapon.
“They're inside.”
Rafe grabbed Mave's hand.
“Stay with me.”
They moved toward the secure stairwell.
Another explosion rocked the building.
Glass cracked.
Mave stumbled.
Rafe caught her.
Then his phone rang.
Charles Kress.
Rafe answered while moving.
“You seem busy,” Kress said.
“What do you want?”
“One last correction.”
Smoke thickened.
Rafe coughed.
Kress continued.
“Your family thinks tonight is about destroying you.”
“It isn't?”
“No.”
A pause.
“It's about making Boston watch you become exactly what we always said you were.”
Rafe reached the stairwell door.
Locked.
Someone had overridden the system.
Nico cursed.
Kress whispered,
“There's a news helicopter already circling.”
Rafe looked toward the windows.
A helicopter light swept across the smoke.
“Why?”
“To record the massacre.”
Rafe's blood ran cold.
“What massacre?”
Kress laughed softly.
“The one your men are about to commit downstairs.”
Rafe looked at Nico.
“We didn't order anyone downstairs.”
Nico understood.
Fake Colazo gunmen.
Kress was staging an attack.
Rafe kicked the stairwell door.
Once.
Twice.
It opened.
They reached the lobby.
Men in black jackets bearing Colazo security patches fired toward police arriving outside.
“Those aren't ours!” Nico shouted.
Cameras flashed.
Police returned fire.
Chaos.
Mave saw one attacker raise a rifle toward a young patrol officer hiding behind a cruiser.
She ran.
Rafe caught her.
“Mave!”
She pointed.
The officer was exposed.
Rafe released her and moved instead.
He tackled the gunman from behind.
The rifle fired into the ceiling.
News cameras captured everything.
Rafe Colazo—the supposed mafia boss orchestrating an attack—dragged an armed man away from a police officer and threw his own weapon aside.
“Don't shoot!” Mave screamed.
Rafe raised both hands.
Police surrounded him.
“On your knees!”
He obeyed.
Mave's heart stopped.
Rafe Colazo had spent his whole adult life refusing to kneel.
Now, for the second time in one week, he did.
The first had been beside her bleeding body.
The second was in front of Boston police.
Officers cuffed him.
Mave pushed through smoke.
“He saved him!”
Nobody listened.
Rafe looked at her.
“Finn.”
“What?”
“Go to Finn.”
“No!”
“Mave.”
Police dragged him toward a cruiser.
“Rafe!”
He held her gaze.
For the first time, fear crossed his face.
Not fear of prison.
Fear for her.
Then an officer slammed the car door.
Mave stood in the street as cameras turned toward her.
Across the harbor, screens began lighting up with breaking-news alerts.
BOSTON CRIME BOSS ARRESTED AFTER DEADLY DOWNTOWN SHOOTOUT.
Mave stared at the headline.
Then another message appeared on her phone.
Unknown number.
A photograph.
Finn.
Kathleen.
Lucia.
Inside the secure townhouse.
Taken through the window.
Someone was watching them.
Beneath it were six words.
May you like
RAFE IS IN CUSTODY. YOUR TURN.
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