Chapter 1
“She gave me her last dollar. You just lost a club worth millions.”
I let Dominic’s brass manager badge fall onto the broken Castellano emblem.
It hit with a small metallic sound that carried farther through the lobby than the crash of the wheelchair had.
Nobody moved.
Maeve stood beside me clutching the paper bakery bag against her chest. I placed the last coin back into her palm and closed her fingers gently around it.
“Keep it.”
She looked up at me. “But you needed it.”
That sentence almost hurt more than Dominic’s cruelty.
A three-year-old with worn sneakers and barely enough money for herself believed I needed her last coins more than she did.
Dominic stared at me as if the floor had disappeared beneath him.
“Uncle Rocco, I didn’t know—”
“I know.”
His mouth closed.
That was exactly the problem.
He had behaved that way because he did not know who I was.
Not because he lost control.
Because cruelty was his control whenever he believed the person in front of him had no power.
I looked toward the club members who had laughed nervously while he mocked Maeve. Several immediately lowered their eyes.
Then I noticed something else.
Maeve’s bakery bag carried the stamped name of a small shop three blocks away.
VANCE BAKERY.
I knew that name.
Not the bakery.
Vance.
Six months earlier, one of my older captains had warned me Dominic was pressuring small businesses near the club for “membership support” that had never been authorized by me.
I had found no proof.
Dominic handled the neighborhood accounts.
He assured me the businesses were contributing voluntarily.
I looked at Maeve’s worn cardigan.
Then at her bag.
“Who owns the bakery?”
“My daddy.”
Dominic went pale.
That answered more than he realized.
I crouched beside Maeve.
“What’s your father’s name?”
“Daniel Vance.”
I looked at Dominic.
He took one step backward.
I had come into my own club disguised as a helpless old man because I wanted to know how Dominic treated people when the Castellano name could not protect them.
May you like
Maeve had just given me the second thing I needed.
A name Dominic was terrified I would hear.
