The first time Grace Bennett encountered Sophie Hale, the youngster was perched atop a table in one of Boston’s most exclusive dining rooms, shrieking that her father had murdered her mother.
Silverware froze in midair.
Wine glasses halted halfway to manicured lips.
A senator’s wife clutched her necklace of pearls. A real estate mogul silently lowered his smartphone, realizing that recording Dominic Hale’s daughter during a breakdown might be the final error he ever committed.
Dominic himself stood ten feet away, drenched from the storm, his black wool coat leaking water onto the buffed floor. Four men in bespoke suits flanked him like sentient walls. Every individual in Bellaforte recognized his identity, even if none dared to vocalize it.
Dominic Hale possessed the docks, the clubs, the unions, the shipping lanes, the judiciary, and operatives who never appeared on any corporate payroll.
But in that specific moment, he was powerless to manage one shivering eight-year-old girl.
“You killed her!” Sophie bellowed, her dark hair tangled around her ashen face. “You said she went to heaven, but I heard the fire. I heard her calling my name!”
Dominic’s features remained motionless.
That was the terrifying part.
His jaw flexed once. His gray eyes turned flat. His security detail scanned the exits, the patrons, the employees, and finally the child, as if searching for a solution to a paradox without making physical contact.
“Sophie,” Dominic commanded, low enough that half the patrons leaned in to catch it. “Get down.”
“No!”
She kicked a crystal water carafe off the table.
It slammed into the floor and disintegrated.
A woman inhaled sharply. Someone murmured a prayer. The floor manager, who had managed intoxicated statesmen, irate billionaires, and a cinema star sobbing over chilled risotto, turned as white as parchment.
Grace Bennett was balancing three plates of lobster ravioli when the impact occurred.
She halted near the service station, tray steady on one hand, and observed the little girl snatch a steak knife from a vacant table.
The bodyguards lunged.
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