[COMPLETED] The Night I Poked the Mafia Boss Twice and Changed Everything

Two tequila shots into my twenty-sixth birthday, I poked Boston’s most feared crime boss in the chest twice and watched an entire nightclub go silent. Less than a minute later, a bullet hit the pillar where my head had been, Matteo Conti threw me over his shoulder, and my miserable birthday shift became a fight to stay alive.

Ten hours into a double shift at the Velvet Room, I was exhausted, angry, and forty dollars short on my mother’s assisted-care payment. So when Matteo’s entourage slammed into me and whiskey soaked his charcoal suit, whatever patience I had left vanished.

“You have an entire aisle,” I snapped, jabbing one finger into his chest. “Yet somehow your army of refrigerators still managed to knock into me.”

Three men nearby stopped breathing.

Matteo’s security chief, Leo Mercer, reached toward his jacket.

I poked Matteo again.

“Now I have three broken glasses, a wet floor, and a manager who’ll blame me. So unless being terrifying makes you immune to workplace safety, stand still while I get a broom.”

Matteo slowly looked down at my finger.

Then back at me.

Behind the bar, Jimmy Morales made the sign of the cross.

“You always talk to strangers like this?” Matteo asked.

“Only the ones standing in broken glass.”

“Boss,” Leo muttered.

“I heard her.”

“No. Boss.”

Something in his voice changed.

Matteo’s amusement vanished.

A man in a gray jacket was moving fast through the crowd, one hand slipping beneath his coat.

Then I saw the gun.

Someone screamed.

Matteo grabbed my waist just as the first shot slammed into the wooden pillar where my head had been.

My feet left the floor.

“What the hell?”

He threw me over his shoulder.

Actually threw me over his shoulder.

“Put me down!”

“Not tonight.”

“You psychotic maniac!”

Another shot cracked behind us.

Matteo covered my head with one hand and carried me through the service corridor while his men closed around us. Somehow, even while terrified, I understood how absurd my life had become.

On my birthday, I was upside down over Boston’s most feared man’s shoulder.

“Matteo Conti!”

Cold November air hit me when he burst through the rear exit.

“If I survive this, I’m reporting you to somebody!”

“To whom?”

“I’ll think of someone!”

He laughed.

Then another bullet struck the brick wall above us.

The laughter disappeared.

Matteo shoved me into an armored SUV and climbed in after me. As we tore out of the alley, I noticed a thin line of blood along his jaw from flying glass.

My hands started shaking.

He reached toward me.

“Don’t.”

His hand stopped immediately.

“You’re safe.”

“You threw me into a car.”

“A bullet missed your skull by four inches.”

“That doesn’t make this normal.”

“No. It makes it necessary.”

I swallowed hard.

“What happened?”

“The man who hit your tray wasn’t drunk,” Matteo said.

“I figured that out when he started shooting.”

“He came for someone in that room.”

“You.”

Matteo went quiet.

“That was my assumption.”

“Great. Drop me home.”

“No.”

Anger replaced some of my fear.

“What do you mean, no?”

“The shooter saw you interfere. Whoever arranged this will assume you saw his face.”

“I barely saw anything.”

“They don’t know that.”

“Then give me a guard.”

“No.”

“You really enjoy that word.”

“It prevents funerals.”

I stared at him, my heart still pounding.

“I have a mother who depends on me.”

His expression changed.

“I know.”

Those two words hit harder than the gunshots.

My fear sharpened instantly into suspicion.

“You know?”

Matteo looked at me for three long seconds.

Then he said my name.

“Mara Bennett.”

I had not introduced myself.

Every muscle in my body tightened.

Across from us, Leo turned slightly in the passenger seat, watching the dark street through the windshield while pretending not to listen. The SUV moved through downtown Boston with the kind of smooth speed that told me traffic rules were a suggestion for people who did not travel with three armed men.

“How do you know my name?” I asked.

Matteo rubbed the thin cut along his jaw with his thumb. “Your mother is Ellen Bennett.”

The shaking in my hands stopped.

That scared me more than the shaking had.

“If you have done anything to her—”

“I haven’t.”

“Then explain.”

He held my gaze. Whatever amusement I had seen in the nightclub was gone. “My mother knew yours.”

I laughed once because the answer was too absurd to fit inside the night I was having.

“My mother is a retired rehabilitation nurse from Quincy.”

“And mine spent six months relearning how to walk when I was seventeen.”

The words landed quietly.

Matteo looked toward the window. For the first time since I had jabbed him in the chest, he seemed less like the man people whispered about and more like somebody remembering a hospital corridor.

“My mother was shot during a robbery outside one of my father’s restaurants,” he said. “Ellen worked the rehabilitation floor. She was the only nurse who could get Sofia Conti to do anything she didn’t want to do.”

Despite myself, I pictured my mother planting both hands on her hips and ordering a crime boss’s wife to get out of bed.

That sounded exactly like her.

“Your mother never mentioned the Contis.”

“She promised mine she wouldn’t. Sofia hated people treating her differently because of our family.”

I looked at Leo. “And you expect me to believe this is a coincidence?”

“No,” Matteo said.

My attention snapped back to him.

He leaned forward, forearms on his knees. “Three weeks ago, your mother called my office.”

The city outside seemed to disappear.

“She did what?”

“She asked for me. My assistant almost dismissed the call until she used my mother’s name.”

My pulse climbed again.

“What did she want?”

“She said a man had been asking questions about you at Harbor Pines. Not a relative. Not a friend. She didn’t know his name.”

I stared at him.

“Why didn’t she tell me?”

“According to her, because you were already carrying enough.”

“That sounds like her,” I whispered.

It also made me furious.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I had Leo check whether there was a real threat before frightening you.”

“And?”

Leo finally turned around. “Until tonight, we had nothing concrete.”

A cold line moved down my back.

“The shooter.”

“Possibly,” Matteo said. “Or he came for me and your mother’s concern is a separate problem. We don’t know yet.”

I pressed my palms against my thighs.

“Take me to Harbor Pines.”

“No.”

I stared at him.

He held up one hand before I could explode. “Not because I enjoy the word.”

“You clearly do.”

“Because if the shooter followed us, leading him to your mother would be reckless.”

“She is alone.”

“She is not.”

My anger flared. “What did you do?”

“I put two men outside the building after Ellen called me.”

“You put guards on my mother without telling me?”

“Discreet security. They never went inside.”

“That is not better.”

“It is if someone was asking how often you visited.”

I opened my mouth and found nothing.

Leo’s phone vibrated.

He read the screen, then looked at Matteo.

“What?”

Leo’s voice stayed calm. “Her apartment door was forced twenty minutes ago.”

My lungs forgot what they were for.

“What?”

“No one is inside now,” Leo said. “Our guy reached the building after the club attack. Doorframe is damaged. Bedroom drawers open. Nothing obvious taken.”

I turned on Matteo. “You had someone at my apartment too?”

“After bullets started flying, yes.”

I sank back against the seat.

“My mother.”

Matteo’s expression softened by half a degree.

“Call her.”

He handed me a phone.

“Why can’t I use mine?”

“Because yours may be traceable.”

I almost argued. Then I remembered the bullet mark in the pillar.

Harbor Pines answered on the fourth ring.

“This is Mara Bennett. I need to speak to my mother. Ellen Bennett, room two-fourteen.”

A minute later, I heard her voice.

“Mara?”

My eyes burned.

“Hi, Mom.”

“You sound strange.”

“I had a bad night at work.”

“That place finally fire you for insulting a customer?”

A laugh escaped me before I could stop it.

Across the SUV, Matteo’s mouth moved slightly.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I just needed to hear you.”

There was a pause.

Then her tone changed.

“He found you.”

I looked at Matteo.

“Who?”

“Matteo.”

My grip tightened around the phone.

“You knew he was watching me?”

“I asked him to.”

“Mom.”

“I was scared.”

“What man came asking about me?”

“I don’t know. Gray hair. Expensive coat. He said he was looking for an old friend. He knew your name, where you worked, and that your birthday was this week.”

My stomach turned.

“Did he threaten you?”

“No. That was the problem. He was too polite.”

I closed my eyes.

“Mom, listen to me. Don’t leave the building with anyone unless I call first.”

“I’m not helpless, Mara.”

“I know.”

The lie hurt.

“I’ll come tomorrow.”

“You sound like you’ve been crying.”

“I’m twenty-six. I’m allowed one dramatic birthday.”

“You hate birthdays.”