Everyone Feared the Mafia Boss Who Never Let Anyone Touch Him Until His New Assistant Silently Fixed His Tie

The rain had turned into a thick, sleety fog by the time the SUV turned off the state highway onto a gravel lane south of Calumet City.

On either side of the road, black marshland stretched into the dark, dotted here and there by the skeleton frames of abandoned industrial cranes and high-voltage power lines.

The SUV stopped three hundred yards from a low, white-painted frame house with a tin roof. A single light burned behind a grimy kitchen window at the rear.

The driver, Miller, turned off the headlights. The engine idled with a low, wet purr.

"Stay in the car," Arthur said.

He reached into the side pocket of his door and pulled out a heavy, dark-barreled automatic pistol. He checked the slide with a single, smooth movement of his thumb—a quiet clack-clack that sounded like an iron gate dropping shut.

Paige looked at the gun. Then she looked at the house.

"He isn't alone," she said.

Arthur paused, his hand on the door handle. "What?"

"The power lines," she pointed through the fogged window toward a small utility pole near the lane. "The transformer box is humming too loud for one kitchen light and a refrigerator. There’s a heater running in the barn behind the house."

Arthur stared through the gloom.

In the dark behind the small house, the long, rusted shape of an old tractor shed sat in the weeds. A faint, blue-tinted haze of diesel exhaust was rising from a pipe near the roofline.

"A generator," Arthur muttered.

"Two cars," Paige added, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Under the tarp near the pump house. You can see the reflection of the chrome bumper on the wet grass."

Arthur turned his entire body toward her now. His pale eyes were wide, bright with a sharp, dangerous intelligence that had nothing to do with corporate boardrooms.

"You have good eyes, Bennett," he said.

"I have a mother who used to hide her medication behind the radiator," Paige said softly. "You learn to look at details when people are trying to hide things from you."

Arthur looked at Miller in the front seat. "Call the second car. Tell them to block the lane from the south. Nobody leaves through the marsh."

"Right, boss," Miller said, reaching for his radio.

Arthur looked back at Paige. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a small, heavy silver key on a thin leather strap, and laid it on the seat between them—exactly halfway between her side and his.

"If I’m not back in fifteen minutes," Arthur said, "Miller takes you back to the city. You go to my office. Third floor safe behind the portrait of the lake. This key opens it. Inside is an envelope with your name on it."

Paige looked at the silver key.

"What's in the envelope?"

"Enough money to keep your mother in that place in Naperville until she’s ninety," Arthur said flatly.

Paige’s heart gave a sudden, violent thud against her ribs.

"How do you know about Naperville?" she whispered.

"I'm a mob boss, Bennett," Arthur said, his hand touching the door handle again. "You think I let a woman sit three feet from my throat without knowing who pays her bills?"