Chapter 4 - The Reunion in the Park
Carmine Solano looked older, but time had only sharpened him into something more formidable.
He had served three years in a maximum-security federal facility before a high-priced appellate team, funded by hidden offshore reserves, picked apart the prosecution's case and secured a shock release. He had spent the last two years ruthlessly purging the remnants of his old life, cutting away the violence, legitimizing every remaining asset, and transforming the syndicate into a clean, global logistics conglomerate.
He had spent five years looking for one woman.
He stepped out of the car. He wore a simple black coat, no tie, his hair threaded with silver at the temples. When he walked across the grass toward her, the ambient noise of the park seemed to fade into nothingness.
Mara stood up, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She stepped in front of the bench, instinctively shielding the space where her children were playing.
"Hello, Mara," he said. His voice was raspy, deeper than she remembered, stripped of its old untouchable arrogance and replaced by something raw and heavy.
"You shouldn't have found us," she managed to say, her fingers digging into the wood of the park bench.
"It took me sixty-two months," Carmine said, stopping a few feet away. He didn't try to close the distance. He looked at her with a vulnerability that would have terrified anyone who knew who he used to be. "Every day of it."
Before she could speak, two small bodies came hurtling across the grass.
"Mom! Leo pushed me into the puddle!" Clara yelled, muddy-kneed and indignant.
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"I did not! She tripped!" Leo fired back, marching up right behind her.
They both stopped dead in their tracks when they saw the strange man standing next to their mother. Twin sets of dark, piercing eyes—identical to the ones staring down at them—slowly drifted upward from Carmine’s expensive shoes to his stunned face.
