Ignoring New York’s most dangerous mafia boss was supposed to cost me a tip,

The business card was not made of heavy cardstock with raised gold lettering like the ones Samantha’s father handed out at charity galas.

It was a piece of matte-black titanium, no thicker than a credit card, bearing only two things in etched silver lettering: a ten-digit private phone number and a single, stylized letter: M.

I stared at it on the mahogany table for ten full seconds after Mason Moretti and his men had vanished through the Obsidian Lounge's rear exit. The back door had swung shut with a soft, pneumatic hiss, leaving behind only the lingering scent of cedar-wood cologne and the hum of the jazz saxophonist attempting to pick up his rhythm where he had left off.

"Clara?"

Julian’s voice came from behind the bar. He was holding a dry bar towel, his knuckles white as he scrubbed the same spot on the zinc counter for the fourth time.

"Are you breathing?" he whispered, glancing toward the empty booth as if he expected Mason to materialize out of the shadows.

"I’m breathing," I said, my voice sounding hollow even to my own ears.

I picked up the titanium card. It was surprisingly heavy, cool to the touch, and carried the faint, metallic tang of high-grade alloy.

"What did he say to you?" Julian asked, abandoning the bar to hurry over, his eyes wide with frantic, protective concern. "Did he threaten you? Clara, I swear to God, if that animal gave you trouble, I’ll quit tonight. We can pack your things, leave the city, go down to my brother’s place in Louisville—"

"He didn't threaten me, Julian," I said, sliding the card into the pocket of my black skirt. "He just informed me that my rent is overdue, my sister’s insulin is expensive, and my former boss at Vance & Croft Accounting is currently running a massive tax-fraud scheme through the restaurant’s accounts payable."

Julian blinked once, twice, his brain stalling out. "Your... your boss? Arthur Vance?"

"The same," I said, untying my stained apron and letting it drop onto the floor by my feet. "Now, hand me my coat. I have a twenty-four-hour pharmacy on Forty-Ninth Street to visit before the morning shift starts at seven."

"Clara, wait," Julian grabbed my forearm. "You can't just walk out of here! You insulted Mason Moretti in front of the entire North Side syndicate! In this city, people disappear for looking at him sideways, and you told him to clean up his own water drop!"

I looked down at Julian’s hand on my arm, then up into his terrified, well-meaning eyes.

For three years, Julian had been the only person in New York who had offered me a hot meal when I skipped lunch or covered my station when my mother was in the hospital. He was a good man—soft, anxious, trapped in a world of loud men and dangerous money that he didn't belong in any more than I did.

"Julian," I said softly, covering his hand with mine. "If Mason Moretti wanted me gone, I wouldn't have walked out of that booth. He’s not going to hurt me."

"How can you possibly know that?"

"Because," I replied, grabbing my cheap wool coat from the back hook, "men who want you dead don't look at you like you're an interesting math problem."

The cold Manhattan air hit me like a physical blow the moment I stepped out the side door of the Obsidian Lounge into the dark, rain-slicked alley.

The wind off the Hudson was biting, carrying the sharp, chemical tang of melting sleet and diesel exhaust from the commercial trucks idling along Eleventh Avenue. I pulled my coat tight around my throat, shoved my hands deep into my pockets, and started walking north toward the pharmacy.

My flats were completely ruined—the electrical tape had given up entirely, letting freezing slush seep straight through the canvas into my toes with every step.

Clack. Squish. Clack. Squish.

By the time I reached the bright, sterile fluorescent lights of the twenty-four-hour Duane Reade on Forty-Ninth Street, my feet were completely numb.

I stood in front of the counter, handing the pharmacist my debit card and the prescription slip for Maya’s insulin.

The middle-aged pharmacist—a tired-looking man with graying hair named Dave who had filled my mother’s morphine prescriptions during her final weeks—slid his card through the reader, stared at the small amber screen for three seconds, and then looked up at me with an apologetic wince.

"I’m sorry, Clara," Dave said, his voice dropping into that quiet, empathetic tone that always signaled bad news. "The card’s declining. Insufficient funds."

A hot, humiliating prickle of tears stung the backs of my eyes.

I had forgotten. I had paid the electricity bill on Tuesday; I had bought groceries on Wednesday; and my direct deposit from the accounting office wasn't scheduled to clear until Friday afternoon.

Maya needed that insulin by six a.m.

She was seventeen, old enough to manage her diabetes herself, but young enough that when her blood sugar crashed in the middle of the night, she panicked and called me in tears, whispering that she felt like her veins were full of glass.

"Can you... can you hold it for twelve hours, Dave?" I asked, my voice cracking slightly. "I can bring the cash tomorrow morning before I go to the office."

Dave started to nod, reaching for the plastic bag to put the box back on the refrigerated shelf, when a shadow fell across the glass door of the pharmacy.

The bell above the entrance didn't ring; it was drowned out by the heavy, authoritative thud of two pairs of expensive leather oxfords striking the linoleum.

I didn't need to turn around to know who had followed me from the Obsidian Lounge.

Dante—the stocky enforcer with the thick neck—stepped up beside me, placing a heavy, cream-colored leather shopping bag onto the counter between Dave and me.

Behind him stood Mason Moretti.

He had removed his overcoat, wearing only his charcoal suit and crisp white shirt, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, looking completely out of place beneath the glaring white neon tubes of a discount drug store at two in the morning.

"Fill the prescription, pharmacist," Mason said.

His voice was quiet, but it had that unmistakable, low baritone gravity that made Dave’s hand freeze over the keyboard.

"M-Mr. Moretti," Dave stammered, his eyes widening as he recognized the face from the front page of the Chicago Tribune business section. "I... we don't carry accounts for—"

Mason didn't argue. He reached into his trouser pocket, pulled out a stack of crisp, banded hundred-dollar bills thick enough to choke a horse, and dropped it onto the glass counter beside the cash register.

"Take four hundred from the stack," Mason instructed. "Put the rest in her handbag."

"I don't take charity, Mr. Moretti," I said, spinning around to face him, my teeth gritted, the humiliation burning so hot in my chest it felt like acid. "I work for my money! I don't need a mobster buying my sister’s medicine to prove how powerful he is!"

Mason didn't flinch.

He stepped closer, his tall, broad frame completely filling the narrow aisle between the pharmacy shelves, his dark eyes locking onto mine with an unyielding, terrifying patience.