“NO!” she interrupts. “It’s not them. I would never . . . I wouldn’t let that stop me. I don’t care what they think anymore.”

Her face is dark and almost angry. I’m not sure where that bitterness comes from. Maybe just regret at how they influenced her before.

I don’t care. I don’t blame her for that anymore. She was young. We both were.

“What is it, then?” I ask her.

Simone is looking down at her plate, ripping her toast into fragments.

“I have to talk to you about something,” she says. “Tonight.”

“Why tonight? Why not right now?”

“I have to do something else, first.”

I don’t like the mystery. I feel like Simone and I have no chance if we can’t be completely open with each other. I don’t want to be blindsided like I was before.

“Just promise me something,” I say.

“Anything.”

“Promise you won’t run away again.”

I don’t say it out loud, but if she does . . . I’m just going to put a gun to my head and fucking kill myself. Because I won’t survive it again.

Simone looks me right in the eye. Her face is somber and sad.

“I won’t leave you,” she says.

I think she’s telling the truth. But the enunciation of the sentence is slightly off—like she’s saying, “I won’t leave you.” Like she’s implying I might leave her instead.

That doesn’t make sense, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to fuck up our conversation this time around.

“Where do you want to meet tonight?” I ask her.

“Come to my hotel,” she says. “Nine o’clock, after Henry goes to bed.”

“Perfect. I’ll be there.”

Nothing could keep me away. Not this time.

I kiss Simone again, tasting the butter and coffee on her lips. Then I walk her down to the front entryway, so she can take a cab back to her hotel. I’m sure she’s anxious to get back to her nephew.

I’ve got my own plans for the day.

First, I’m supposed to meet Cal and Aida for lunch. And after that, I’m going to figure out what the fuck is going on with this shooter. I’ve got some contacts who track hired killers—if a contract was put out on Yafeu Solomon, they may have heard about it.

I’m meeting my sister at a restaurant on Randolph Street, close to City Hall where Cal has his alderman office. Aida’s in there half the time as well, meeting with councilmen and aldermen, teamsters and business owners, helping Cal broker the hundred different deals than benefit our families.

Cal was instrumental in getting the first part of the South Shore Development approved. Today we’re going over the permits for phase two, which should start next year, after our current tower block is finished.

So I spend the morning down at South Shore, making sure nothing’s getting fucked up past fixing then, right before noon, I drive over to the Rose Grille.

It’s a large, busy restaurant, with dozens of white-cloth covered tables, sparkling glassware, and baskets of fresh rolls with whipped honey butter. It’s a favorite spot for political types, since City Hall is right across the street. Almost all the diners have their phones out, tweeting or texting or whatever the fuck they do to try to stay relevant every minute of the day.

Cal and Aida are already seated when I get there. Aida’s punctuality has improved about ten thousand percent since she married Cal. I can see she’s already demolished half the rolls. My sister’s appetite was legendary even before she was pregnant, so I’d hate to see her grocery bill in the third trimester.

We’re sitting next to the large picture window at the front of the restaurant. The sun is glaring in my eyes. I try to lower the blinds.

“Why don’t you just sit on the other side of the table?” Aida asks me.

“He doesn’t want to sit with his back to the door,” Cal says, without looking up from the stack of permit papers.

Cal knows. It’s a commonality between gangsters and soldiers that you never sit with your back to the doorway.

The blinds are fixed in place and can’t be lowered. I take my seat again, pushing my chair back a little.

“Sparkling or still water?” the waiter asks me.

“Still.”

“Ice or no ice?”

“I don’t give a fuck.”

“He means no ice, thank you,” Aida says to the waiter. To me, she says, “You’re a dick.”

“I don’t like fancy places,” I grumble. “They have to make everything so damned complicated.”

“This is not fancy,” Aida says. “This is normal.”

“Oh yeah?” I raise an eyebrow at her. “Now that you’re a Griffin, a thirty-dollar salad is plebeian to you?”

Aida sets down the butter knife, glaring at me. “First of all, I’m still a Gallo,” she tells me, adding, “No offense,” for Callum’s benefit.

“None taken,” he says, flipping over to the next page of permit applications.

“And if you’re planning on winning back your ex-girlfriend, who probably eats gold-leaf soufflé for a snack because she’s a fucking world-famous supermodel, you better take her somewhere nicer than the Rose Grille.”

I can feel my face flushing. “Who says I’m trying to win her back?”

Aida rolls her eyes. “I know you’re not stupid enough to let her get away again. Not after you spent nine whole years moping.”

The waiter sets down our water glasses. He forgot and filled them all with ice. Not that I give a shit either way.

“Can I take your order?” he says nervously.

“Burger, medium,” I say. “Please.”

“Same,” Aida says, handing him her menu. “Thanks.”

“Steak sandwich,” Cal says, not looking up from his papers.

Once the waiter leaves, I point to the water glasses. “See? He wasn’t listening to you anyway.”

“That’s probably toilet water in yours,” Aida says sweetly.

Callum’s reading the last page of applications. “What’s this one?” he says.

“Let me see . . .” I lean over for a closer look. Aida leans in, too. But she’s not as coordinated as usual, since her proportions have changed. Her belly bumps the table, knocking Callum’s ice water into his lap.

Cal jumps up from the table, shouting, ice cubes flying in every direction off his crotch. At that exact moment the window shatters, a waterfall of glass raining down. Something whistles through the air, right where Cal’s head had been a millisecond before. A vase of peonies explodes over his shoulder. A hail of pottery shards hit my right arm, while shards of glass from the window cut my left.

Cal and I react almost at the same time. We grab the table, flip it on its side, and pull Aida down behind it, so it forms a barricade between us and the window.

Meanwhile, the rest of the diners have cottoned on that the window is broken and we’ve hunkered down in a makeshift foxhole. After a moment of shocked silence, there’s a stampede for the front doors.

“Go!” I say to Cal.

Taking advantage of the chaos, and staying low to the ground, we run in the opposite direction, toward the kitchens. The shooter is across the street—we need to go out the back.