No shoes

No shoes.

No time.

I stepped onto it.

The first shard entered my heel.

White pain shot through my leg.

I kept moving.

Another cut my arch.

Another sliced my toes.

“Clara!”

One of the men reached the roof behind me.

Then I recognized his voice.

I had heard it at our kitchen table.

One of Vince’s trucking men.

That changed everything.

I crossed the glass.

Climbed down a service ladder.

Ran six blocks through the North End leaving bloody marks on wet pavement.

By Hanover Street, sirens wailed somewhere behind me.

I reached Nicholas’s private entrance.

Unlocked it.

Fell inside.

He found me sitting on the tile with both hands wrapped around my ankles.

For one second, the feared Nicholas DeMarco looked terrified.

Not angry.

Terrified.

“Who?”

“Vince.”

His face became empty.

Which was worse.

He reached for me.

Stopped.

“May I?”

I nodded.

He lifted me into his arms.

And carried me toward the bathroom.

PART 5 — The feared crime boss knelt and washed my blood away.

“Don’t call your men yet.”

Nicholas looked at me like I had lost my mind.

My blood was soaking through his coat on the bathroom floor.

“Clara—”

“Please.”

That word stopped him.

He filled an old copper basin with warm water.

Then he knelt.

Nicholas DeMarco.

The man prosecutors whispered about.

The man whose signature could empty warehouses and end careers.

On his knees.

In front of me.

He cupped my left foot in both hands and lowered it into the water.

Pink spread through the basin.

His jaw tightened.

He pulled out the first piece of glass with tweezers.

Then another.

His shirt cuffs darkened with water.

“You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes.”

“You could get Rosa.”

“I know.”

“Then why?”

He looked up.

“Because you bled getting back to me.”

That shut me up.

His uncle Salvatore appeared in the doorway.

Silver hair.

Black overcoat.

He watched Nicholas change the bloody water three times.

Nobody spoke.

Later, after Rosa bandaged my feet, I asked for the green ledger.

Something had been bothering me.

My mother used flower codes in her bookkeeping.

Roses.

Lilies.

Asters.

Sam had copied them.

At 3:07 a.m., I finally understood.

Roses were Corsetti.

Lilies were DeMarco.

And the tiny asters marked the hidden percentage taken from both.

Every aster payment went to one man.

Vince.

My brother had not died because Nicholas or Corsetti ordered it.

Sam died because Vince was stealing from both families and needed him silent.

I closed the ledger.

For once, I didn’t cry.

I smiled.

Because Vince had just handed me the weapon that would bury him.

PART 6 — Cameras, bank records, and one witness destroyed Vince’s lies.

“You invited Corsetti?”

Nicholas stared at me across the kitchen table.

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Clara.”

“Nicholas.”

Rosa hid a smile behind her coffee mug.

I slid three folders toward him.

The first contained photocopies from Sam’s ledger.

The second held bank-transfer records my lawyer had subpoenaed from an account Sam secretly controlled.

The third contained still images from the brownstone’s rear security camera.

Vince.

Meeting one of the men who chased me across the roof.

Forty-eight hours before the kidnapping attempt.

Nicholas stared at the photograph.

His face went still.

“There’s more,” I said.

I had gone back through Sam’s personal effects.

Inside an old graduation card from our mother, I found a storage-unit key.

Inside the unit were duplicate manifests and a small cassette recorder.

Sam’s voice filled Nicholas’s study.

“If I’m dead, Vince DeMarco did it.”

Nicholas closed his eyes.

Only once.

Then Salvatore brought in the final piece.

A trucking supervisor named Eddie Morales.

Three years earlier, Eddie had watched Vince meet Sam inside a Somerville garage.

Cash changed hands.

So did falsified manifests.

“Why didn’t he talk before?” Nicholas asked.

“Because Vince threatened his daughter’s custody case,” I said. “Eddie finally spoke after my lawyer arranged police protection.”

Nicholas looked at me differently.

Not like someone he needed to shield.

Like an equal.

“When is the council?”

“Tuesday.”

“You arranged it already?”

“Ten-thirty.”

A slow breath left him.

“Remind me never to underestimate a florist.”

“Too late.”

And on Tuesday morning, Vince walked into a room believing I was still the frightened woman he had sold.

He was about to meet Sam’s sister instead.

PART 7 — I exposed my brother’s killer before both mafia families.

“You killed my brother.”

I said it before Vince had even finished sitting down.

The entire room froze.

Anthony Corsetti sat opposite Nicholas.

Salvatore at the head.

Lawyers near the wall.

Two off-duty police investigators waited downstairs with copies of everything.