The midnight asphalt stretched out under the torrential downpour as Raphael’s dark sleek sedan sliced through the storm on Interstate 95 North

The clock on the waiting room wall ticked loudly. 2:15 A.M. 3:00 A.M. 3:45 A.M.

The rain outside hammered against the tall glass windows of the hospital tower. Inside the private room, the air was warm, smelling faintly of coffee and bleach.

Josephine sat on a leather sofa, wrapped in a heavy wool coat Raphael had ordered Gideon to bring from the car. Raphael stood by the window, staring out at the storm-drenched skyline of Boston, a lit cigarette held between his fingers—a vice he only indulged when the weight of the world became unbearable.

"You haven't asked me," Josephine said softly, breaking a two-hour silence.

Raphael blew a thin stream of grey smoke against the glass. "Asked you what?"

"Why I hid who I was," she said. She looked at her hands, which were resting on her lap. "You think I’m just a maid who applied through an agency two years ago, don't you?"

Raphael turned to face her, his dark eyes intense. "I know who you are, Josephine. I knew the day you walked into my house."

Josephine’s head snapped up in sheer shock. "What?"

"Josephine Hartley," Raphael said calmly, walking over to stand in front of her. "Daughter of Thomas Hartley, the former chief accountant for the Moretti crime syndicate. Three years ago, your father found evidence that Dominic Moretti was laundering money through offshore human trafficking rings. He tried to turn state's evidence to protect you and Wyatt. Moretti found out. Your parents' car crash wasn't an accident."

Josephine stared at him, her mouth open, tears fresh in her eyes. "You knew... you knew all along?"

"Of course I knew," Raphael said gently. "Gideon background-checks every single person who steps foot on my property. When your application came across my desk, I knew Moretti was hunting for Thomas Hartley’s surviving children to ensure no missing financial records ever surfaced."

"Then... why did you hire me?" she whispered, her chest heaving. "Why did you let me sweep your floors and make your tea for two years without saying a word?"

Raphael looked down at his cigarette, then extinguished it in a small tray on the side table.

"Because my house is the safest place in the eastern hemisphere," Raphael said, his voice dropping into a quiet, gravelly register. "No one touches what belongs under my roof. Two years ago, you were a scared twenty-two-year-old girl with an infant brother, running from a monster. Giving you a uniform and a wage was the easiest way to keep you alive without drawing Moretti’s attention to you."

Josephine stood up, her body trembling with a mixture of overwhelming gratitude and utter disbelief. "You protected us... for two years? Without asking for anything in return?"

"I didn't do it to be a savior," Raphael said bitterly, turning away toward the window again. "Eleven years ago, at 12:43 A.M., my little sister Clara called my phone. She was nineteen. She had gotten involved with a crew connected to the local mobs. She begged me to pick her up from a diner in Providence. I was busy securing a turf deal. I told her to take a taxi and that we’d talk in the morning."

He closed his eyes, the memory tearing through him as fiercely as it had a decade ago.

"By four in the morning," Raphael continued, "the police found her car at the bottom of the river. Moretti’s men had staged it to look like an accident because she heard something she shouldn't have. I promised myself on her grave that if a woman ever came to me asking for shelter from those monsters, I would burn the city to the ground before I let them touch her."

Josephine stepped toward him. Without thinking, without fear, she reached out and placed her small, warm palm against his cheek, turning his face to look at her.