SHE CONFRONTED HIM IN BUNNY SLIPPERS… NOW THE MAFIA BOSS IS OBSESSED

Gabriel took the phone from my shaking fingers.

The photograph showed my father standing outside Grand Central Terminal.

The date stamp was impossible.

Fourteen days after his funeral.

“No,” I whispered.

Gabriel enlarged the image.

“I'll verify it.”

“You think he survived?”

“I don't know.”

Those four words were strangely comforting.

Old Gabriel would have promised answers.

This Gabriel told me the truth.

We spent forty-eight hours tracing the photograph.

The answer was less miraculous than I wanted and more painful than I expected.

The date stamp had been altered.

The photograph itself was older.

The message was bait.

But the person who sent it had possessed something nobody outside our circle should have known about.

Arthur's final investigation.

The trail led to Charles Vane, the former chairman of the foundation that owned Rossi Gallery.

Seventy-three years old.

Respectable.

Philanthropic.

Invisible.

Exactly the kind of man nobody looked at twice.

My father had.

Vane had created the laundering network.

Vittorio had participated.

But Vane had ordered Arthur's death when Arthur discovered the entire structure.

And now he wanted the last surviving piece of evidence.

The Woman in Blue.

The painting was scheduled for public exhibition that Saturday.

Gabriel wanted to remove it.

I refused.

“No more hiding.”

“Nora.”

“We use it.”

He studied me.

Then nodded.

Together.

That was the difference now.

Saturday night, Rossi Gallery reopened beneath chandeliers and winter light.

Hundreds attended.

Journalists.

Collectors.

Federal agents pretending to appreciate Dutch landscapes.

Gabriel stood across the room in a black tuxedo.

He looked exactly like the dangerous man who had opened his penthouse door months earlier.

Except now, when his eyes found mine, they softened.

At nine seventeen, Charles Vane arrived.

He walked directly toward The Woman in Blue.

I waited.

He waited.

Then the lights went out.

The emergency system activated.

A shadow moved toward the painting.

I followed.

Vane removed the canvas from its mount.

“Looking for something?”

He spun.

I stood behind him.

Gabriel appeared at the opposite door.

Vane smiled bitterly.

“Arthur's daughter.”

“Arthur Bennett's daughter,” I corrected.

Vane's smile disappeared.

“He should have minded his own business.”

There.

The confession we needed.

Vane continued talking.

Again, arrogance.

Again, the assumption that money had made him untouchable.

He admitted arranging the crash.

Admitted manipulating Vittorio.

Admitted burning records.

He even admitted sending men after me.

When agents entered, Vane finally understood.

The painting had never contained the final evidence.

I had.

A recorder rested beneath my dress.

Vane was arrested before midnight.

And for the first time in eight years, my father's death finally had the truth attached to it.

Six months later, spring returned to New York.

Gabriel no longer ran an empire.

He operated a legitimate security consultancy and spent an embarrassing amount of time pretending not to interfere with my work.

I became head conservator at Rossi Gallery.

We established the Arthur Bennett Fellowship for young restoration students who couldn't afford elite programs.

Marco became head of security and complained constantly that our relationship had made Gabriel “soft.”

Gabriel responded by doubling his workload.

Celeste moved to Paris and sent me an expensive bottle of champagne with a card reading:

You survived him. Impressive.

But my favorite change happened in apartment 4B.

Gabriel practically lived there.

He claimed his apartment across the hall still existed.

Technically.

His toothbrush disagreed.

One night, I woke at 3:12 a.m.

Thump.

I opened my eyes.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

I climbed out of bed.

My pink bunny slippers waited beside the nightstand.

Yes.

I had kept them.

Some historical artifacts deserve preservation.

I grabbed the broom.

The hallway was dark.

The thumping came from the living room.

I raised the broom and stepped around the corner.

Then stopped.

Gabriel stood beside the window.

Marco stood behind him.

So did several people from the gallery.

Candles covered the room.

White roses filled every surface.

And Gabriel was holding a small black box.

I lowered the broom.

“No.”

His face fell.

I laughed.

“I mean no, you did not turn my sleep deprivation into a proposal.”

Relief crossed his face.

“That was poorly phrased.”

“Very.”

He walked toward me.

For a man who had once terrified half of New York, Gabriel looked strangely nervous.

He opened the box.

Inside was a simple antique diamond ring.

Nothing enormous.

Nothing designed to advertise his wealth.

It was exactly the kind of ring I would have chosen myself.

“My mother's,” he said.

That silenced me.

Gabriel took my hand.

“The first time you came upstairs, everyone in that hallway was afraid of me except the woman holding a broom.”

“I was exhausted.”

“I know.”

“You offered me money.”

“I've improved.”

“Marginally.”

Marco snorted.

Gabriel ignored him.

“You were the first person in years who looked at me and saw a man behaving badly instead of a name everyone feared.”

His thumb brushed my knuckles.

“You challenged me. You saved me. You refused to let me confuse control with love.”

My eyes filled.

“And you taught me that protecting someone doesn't mean building walls around her.”

He lowered himself onto one knee.

“Nora Bennett, I can't promise you quiet.”

I laughed through my tears.

“That much is obvious.”

“I can't promise normal.”

“Also obvious.”

“But I can promise that I will never make your choices for you again. I will stand beside you when you want me there, argue with you when you're impossible, make coffee when you work too late, and spend the rest of my life trying to deserve the woman who threw five thousand dollars at my feet.”

“It was five thousand?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, God.”

Marco laughed.

Gabriel smiled.

“Will you marry me?”

I looked down at the terrifying mafia boss who wasn't a mafia boss anymore.

The man who had once believed money could solve anything.

The man who had protected me before I knew his name.

The man who had made terrible mistakes and then done the much harder work of changing.

I lifted the broom.

Everyone froze.

Gabriel stared at it.

I dropped it.

Then I threw my arms around his neck.

“Yes.”

He caught me.

The room erupted.

Gabriel kissed me while Marco complained that technically nobody had heard the word because my face had been buried against Gabriel's shoulder.

So I said it again.

“Yes.”

Louder.

Clearer.

My choice.

My future.

My ridiculous man.

One year later, at 3:12 in the morning, I woke to another sound.

Not stomping.

Crying.

Gabriel was already climbing out of bed.

“I've got her.”

I smiled sleepily as he crossed to the bassinet beside our window.

Our daughter, Amelia Arthur Rossi, had inherited my lungs and Gabriel's refusal to respect sleeping hours.

He lifted her carefully.

The feared man who had once commanded rooms without raising his voice now stood barefoot in old sweatpants, rocking a six-week-old baby against his tattooed chest.

“She hates sleep,” he whispered.

“Genetics.”

“Yours.”

I threw a pillow at him.

He caught it one-handed.

Amelia stopped crying.

Her tiny fist closed around his finger.

Gabriel froze.

Even after six weeks, she could still do that to him.

I watched his entire expression soften.

There were no guards outside our door anymore.

No enemies hunting us.

No secret ledgers behind paintings.

Vittorio would spend the rest of his life in prison. Charles Vane had been convicted. The last pieces of the old organization had been dismantled or turned over to legitimate management.

The apartment building still stood.

So did Rossi Gallery.

And hanging above our living-room fireplace was my father's little lighthouse painting.

Restored.

Preserved.

Home.

Gabriel carried Amelia back toward the bed.

He looked down.

Then stopped.

“What?”

He pointed at my feet.

I followed his gaze.