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Now Rurik waited.

He didn’t tell me whom to trust or which name to pursue. The choice frightened me more than captivity because it returned responsibility to hands that had survived for years by surrendering it.

His phone vibrated against the table.

We both looked down. Rurik read the message, and something guarded moved across his face.

“Rowen is looking for you. He wants to talk.”

I stared at the first child on Salvatore’s map—the son Nicoletta had loved and Valentino had refused to claim. Rowen deserved the truth. He also deserved not to have his life detonated by strangers who considered blood a weapon. I couldn’t promise we would tell him everything. I couldn’t promise the meeting would not end in threats, hatred, or another locked door.

But Salvatore had left the truth so someone could finish what he began. Rurik had guarded it for years. For the first time, neither man would decide what happened next without me.

I placed my palm over Rowen’s file.

“Then arrange the meeting.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

By the time Rurik parked across from Calloway’s Bar & Grill, I had already decided I would not tell Rowen the truth.

That decision should have made the meeting pointless. Instead, every step toward the entrance felt deliberate, as if I were carrying something that belonged to him and refusing to hand it over. Rowen’s parents were his history. No one should have needed permission to know where he came from.

But Rowen was not asking for a name that would change only his life.

Nicoletta Valentinetti and Brian Buchannon were not merely two people who had conceived a child before Nicoletta married Valentino. Their names belonged to rival histories built with bullets and graves. Revealing them could divide the Valentinettis, expose an old betrayal to the IRA, alter inheritance, and turn Rowen into living proof that powerful men had protected a lie. Truth like that had teeth. It would bite through every connected family until someone answered blood with more blood.

Rurik came around the front of the car but didn’t reach for me. He had begun to understand that I measured safety differently now. A hand at my elbow could feel like kindness one moment and captivity the next, and I needed the choice to cross the street to remain mine.

So I crossed it beside him.

Salvatore’s ring rested against my chest beneath my sweater. I had worn it for years as proof of a marriage no one else could acknowledge. That morning, it felt heavier, as though every secret he had kept had settled inside the gold. The husband I remembered would have hated Rowen’s pain. The man revealed by the files would have understood why I had to cause it. Both were Salvatore, and I could no longer let myself love only the version who made me feel safe.

Warmth met us when Rurik opened the door. Fried onions, old wood, and beer drifted out from a bar top polished by generations of elbows. Calloway’s had survived long enough to become more than a business. Faded photographs covered the walls: firefighters, police officers, weddings, children, and the Calloways lost on September eleventh. Stacy had buried brothers, cousins, and a husband, yet she had still made a place where other people came to feel safe.

That kind of survival had once inspired me. Now I wondered how many widows learned to keep serving the world after it took the person who had made living in it bearable.

Rowen occupied a booth near the back, far enough from the bar that ordinary conversation would dissolve before reaching another table. An open menu rested in his hands, but his attention stayed fixed on the entrance. He saw me first. Relief crossed his face, brief and unguarded, before Rurik stepped from behind me and turned it into irritation.

Once, the reaction might have amused me. Rowen had known me when I was still the girl who followed Dante into trouble and smiled sweetly whenever an adult demanded an explanation. He belonged to the version of my life where family connections seemed complicated but stable—when Nolan was my father, Cian was my uncle, Salvatore was beyond my reach, and Rowen Shay was exactly who he believed himself to be.

I slid into the booth. Rurik settled beside me and took the outside seat, draping one arm along the backrest behind my shoulders. He didn’t touch me. His body simply formed a boundary between mine and the room, offering protection without pretending it was affection I had invited.

Stacy reached our booth before Rowen could speak.

“Good evening, everyone. I don’t know what I did to deserve your company tonight, but as long as you stay civil, we won’t have a problem. Got me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Rowen said quickly.

Stacy’s sternness softened when she looked at me. The warmth in her face made my chest ache because she saw Caity Kelley’s daughter, not the widow guarding a dead man’s secrets. “Maddie,” she said, smiling, “tell your momma the Fireman’s Ball is coming up, and I’m going to need her help since Justin is still away.”

“Can I help too?” I asked, grateful for the few seconds when I could pretend my greatest responsibility involved centerpieces and donated liquor. “And I know Freyja would love to help.”

“I’ll take all the help I can get, honey. Tell your momma to call me.” Stacy glanced between Rowen and Rurik, her eyes narrowing with the instincts of a woman who had managed too many dangerous men to be impressed by either. “You two behave. I mean it.”

She hurried away before either man could promise something he had no intention of delivering.

Rowen narrowed his eyes at Rurik. “What are you doing here?”