"“Will You Buy This Portrait?”—The Mafia Boss Stopped Cold When He Recognized Her Face, Then the Triplets Begged for Their Mother

The drive back to Rittenhouse was quiet. The snow had started falling in earnest—large, heavy flakes that covered the dark stains on the pavement of the old refinery before the police scouts could even find the gate. Marcus drove with his usual precision, his eyes tracking the wipers as they cleared the windshield.

"Marcone’s people in Boston will want an explanation," Marcus said as we crossed the South Street Bridge.

"Give them the truth," I said, leaning my head against the cool glass of the window. "Tell them Salvatore had an administrative disagreement with the management, and the position has been eliminated. If they want to send a replacement, tell them to send someone who doesn't take pictures of children."

"Understood," Marcus said. "And the local capos?"

"They saw what happened at the boardroom on Thursday," I said. "They’ll stay in line. They like their shipping lanes too much to risk the frost."

When the elevator doors opened into the penthouse, the clock on the marble mantel was striking 3:00 AM. The house was warm, quiet, the smell of white lilies still lingering in the air.

I walked down the hallway toward my private bathroom, intending to wash the scent of the refinery from my skin before Margot woke up. But as I passed the kitchen, I noticed a light on in the sunlit alcove.

Margot was sitting at her easel. She was wearing her old flannel shirt, her dark red hair loose around her shoulders, a single spotlight illuminating the canvas before her. She was painting—not the quiet, late-afternoon portrait from Walnut Street, but something different. Something large, wild, and dark. A landscape of the river under a stormy sky, the water painted in deep blues and charcoal grays that looked remarkably like the Schuylkill.

She didn't turn around when I entered, but she stopped her brush, her hand hovering an inch from the canvas.

"You smell like the cold, Roman," she said softly.

"The wind was up by the river," I said, standing by the edge of the plastic sheet.

She turned her head slowly, her brown eyes tracking the line of my jaw, then dropping down to my hands. She noticed the slight red smudge on the leather of my left glove—a drop of Marcone's coffee, or perhaps something else from the concrete floor.

She didn't scream. She didn't look afraid. She had known Roman Kessler for nine years; she knew the price of the roof she was sitting under.

She reached out with her painting rag, took my left hand in hers, and began to meticulously wipe the smudge from the leather with gentle, circular strokes.

"Is it finished?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper against the sound of the snow hitting the glass walls.

"It’s finished," I said. "The perimeter is clear, Margot. Nobody is going to take another photograph of you in the park."

She let out a long, shuddering breath, her forehead leaning against my chest just as it had in the Manayunk kitchen three weeks ago. "I hated your world, Roman. I hated the violence of it. I hated the way it made every phone call feel like an emergency."

"I know," I said, wrapping my arms around her, holding her so tight I could feel the steady, healthy rhythm of her lungs.