Chapter 12 - THE BOY I MET BEFORE HE BECAME A MAFIA BOSS
I had met Roman DeLuca when I was seven.
Neither of us remembered until Margaret's letter forced the memory back.
Dad had taken me to work because the babysitter canceled.
I spent most of the evening sitting inside the ambulance station coloring.
Then a call came.
Dad couldn't leave me alone.
Another paramedic brought me along.
I stayed in the front seat while Dad treated a wounded boy.
Roman.
Fourteen years old.
Pale.
Bleeding.
Terrified.
I remembered climbing into the back after Dad said it was safe.
Roman's hands were shaking.
I had red mittens.
One had a snowman sewn onto it.
I took it off and gave it to him.
"Hold this."
He stared at me.
"Why?"
"Because it helps when you're scared."
I had forgotten the moment completely.
Roman hadn't remembered my face.
But Margaret had.
She'd arrived at the hospital and found her son holding a child's red mitten.
Years later, Dad and Margaret became friends.
Quietly.
Connected by one terrible night.
Roman sat in the library holding his mother's letter.
"I kept that mitten until I was nineteen."
I stared.
"What?"
He smiled faintly.
"My father found it and threw it away."
My chest hurt.
"Why?"
"He said I was too old to carry childish things."
Of course.
Powerful fathers.
Small humiliations.
Lessons teaching boys that tenderness was weakness.
I looked at Roman differently.
Not as the feared man Chicago whispered about.
Not as the man who carried me through snow.
As a fourteen-year-old boy holding a red mitten because he was afraid to die.
"You were worth saving," I whispered.
His eyes filled.
"Your father wrote that."
"I'm saying it."
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then Roman stepped closer.
"Claire."
My heart fluttered.
There had been something growing between us since Christmas.
Something I refused to name.
Partly because he'd been engaged.
Then because everything was chaos.
And partly because men with Roman's power frightened me.
Not physically.
Emotionally.
Power changed relationships.
I had spent years being controlled by debt.
I wouldn't exchange one cage for another.
Roman seemed to understand.
He never touched me without asking.
Never offered money directly.
Never told me where to go.
Never made decisions about Lily without involving us.
That mattered more than charm.
More than wealth.
More than the way my heart behaved when he looked at me.
"May I kiss you?" he asked.
I stared.
The most feared man in Chicago was asking permission.
I smiled.
"Not yet."
His eyes softened.
"Okay."
No disappointment disguised as punishment.
No cold silence.
Just acceptance.
I almost kissed him for that alone.
Instead, I laughed.
"You handled that suspiciously well."
"I'm growing."
"Slowly."
"Painfully."
I smiled.
Then his phone rang.
The warmth vanished from his expression.
He listened.
"What do you mean he escaped?"
My stomach tightened.
"Who?"
Roman ended the call.
"Adrian Cole."
The man from the snow.
The man who took my key.
He had been located two days earlier.
Before investigators could arrest him, he disappeared.
But he'd left something behind.
A message addressed to me.
Roman showed it.
Claire, Vivian wasn't supposed to kill you.
My blood ran cold.
May you like
Then the second line appeared.
She was trying to keep you from discovering what happened to Lily.
