Chapter 6 - The Shadows of the Past
She did not touch him. She could not bring herself to cross the expanse of broken glass and four years of scars to offer him comfort. But she didn't run.
"Get up, Raphael," she said softly. "The king of Boston doesn't kneel in a diner."
"I am no king," Raphael said, rising slowly, his joints stiff, his face streaked with tears and rain. "Not without you."
The door to the pantry clicked open. Clara stepped out, holding Leo by the hand. The boy looked at his mother, then at the tall man standing near the counter.
Leo walked forward slowly, stopping two feet from Raphael. He tilted his head back, his slate-hazel eyes locking onto Raphael’s.
"You have the same nose as me," Leo observed with the frank innocence of a three-year-old.
Raphael swallowed hard, crouching down so he was at eye level with his son. He kept his hands strictly to his sides, terrified that reaching out would scare the boy away.
"I do," Raphael whispered. "I have your nose. And you have my stubborn jaw."
"Are you the man from the storm?" Leo asked.
Raphael looked up at Marin, whose eyes were filled with unshed tears, then back to the boy. "No, little one. I was the storm. But I came to bring the sun back, if your mama will let me."
Leo considered this for a moment. Then he reached into his small pocket, pulled out the three toothpicks he had crossed together, and offered them to Raphael. "Here. You can have my deer."
Raphael took the fragile wooden sticks in his scarred, calloused fingers as if they were made of spun gold. "Thank you, Leo. I will keep it forever."
***
Outside, Gideon was still waiting near the idling sedan when his phone vibrated with a priority alert.
He picked it up. "Pace."
"Gideon," a voice crackled from Boston. It was Carlo, their lieutenant at the docks. "We have a breach. Moretti’s nephew—Julian Moretti—he didn't flee to Florida. He tracked the boss’s private vehicle three days ago. He put a bounty out on whatever Raphael went north to find. There are four SUVs heading up Route 201 right now. They're thirty miles out from Black River."
Gideon’s blood ran cold. "Julian knows?"
"He doesn't know who is there, but he knows Raphael traveled without his security detail. He thinks it’s an arms drop or an unlisted vault. He brought twenty men."
Gideon hung up, drew his weapon, and kicked open the diner door.
"Raphael!" Gideon shouted. "We have company. Julian Moretti. Twenty guns, ten minutes out."
Marin gasped, pulling Leo into her arms instantly. The old fear, cold and sharp, flooded her veins. "They followed you here."
Raphael stood upright. The weeping, broken man vanished in a fraction of a second. In his place stood the Don of the North End—his eyes icy, his posture lethal, his mind calculating angles and choke points with terrifying precision.
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"They did not follow me to take what is mine," Raphael said, reaching beneath his overcoat and pulling out a matte-black automatic pistol. "Not today. Not ever again."
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