Chapter 7 - The Surrender
At ten o’clock that night, Harper was sitting on the sofa in her small apartment, a mug of chamomile tea resting in her hands. A storm was battering the coast, rain lashing against the windowpanes.
She should have felt proud of herself. She had stood up to Victor Rossi. She had refused to be bought.
Yet, a hollow, gnawing ache lived in her chest.
She kept seeing the look in Victor’s eyes in the alleyway—not the arrogant glare of a mobster, but the raw terror of a father. And she kept picturing Finn. Was he eating? Was anyone holding his hand? Was he clutching the blue ribbon she had left him?
A heavy knock sounded at her apartment door.
Harper stood up, setting her mug down. She approached the door cautiously. “Who is it?”
“Harper.”
The voice was muffled by the wood, but it was unmistakable. Yet it sounded completely broken, stripped of all resonance.
Harper unlocked the deadbolt and pulled the door open, ready to threaten him with the police again.
The breath left her lungs.
Victor Rossi was not standing.
He was on his knees in the dimly lit hallway.
His bespoke coat was soaked through, puddling water onto the floorboards. His hair was plastered to his forehead, his face pale and haggard. The powerful, terrifying boss of the Rossi syndicate had collapsed onto both knees outside her door, his head bowed.
Harper took an involuntary step back. “Victor... what are you doing?”
Victor lifted his head. For the first time, Harper saw tears tracks cutting through the grime on his face.
“He’s in the hospital,” Victor said, his voice a hoarse, ragged wreck. “He’s running a 104 fever. He won't wake up. The doctors don't know what else to do. He’s calling for you, Harper. Only you.”
Harper’s hand flew to her mouth. “Finn...”
“I don't care about the money,” Victor choke out, his chest heaving as the words ripped from his soul. “I don't care about the contract. You can spit on me. You can shoot me. You can take every dime I own and leave me in the gutter. But please... please save my boy. Don’t let him die because his father is a monster.”
Harper stared at the man on the floor.
The mafia king was kneeling before the woman he had told no one would ever want. There was no pride left in him. No arrogance. No threats. Just a father begging for the life of his child.
Victor looked up at her, his gray eyes burning with agony.
“And I was wrong,” he whispered, his voice shaking with a depth of emotion that made the air between them tremble. “I was so damn wrong, Harper. You are the most beautiful, extraordinary woman I have ever known. I attacked you because I was terrified of how much my son needed you... and how much I wanted you. I was a coward. Please... hate me. But save Finn.”
Harper stood frozen for two seconds.
The pain of the past three weeks warred with the memory of a five-year-old boy who trusted her to make the sirens stop.
Her maternal heart won without a contest.
May you like
“Get off the floor, Victor,” Harper said, her voice steady and resolute. She grabbed her winter coat and her boots from the hook by the door. “We have an hour and a half to get to Boston. Drive.”
***
