Just a command.
I typed back, I could drop it off somewhere if that’s more convenient.
Three dots appeared, disappeared, then appeared again before the reply came through.
7:00 p.m. Be ready.
I set the phone down, my hands suddenly trembling.
Why was I so unsettled? They were just people who wanted their child’s backpack returned. Wealthy people, judging by their clothes and cars, but people nonetheless.
Then it hit me why the name Dante Russo had sounded familiar.
Six months earlier, there had been a shooting outside a restaurant in the North End. Three men were killed, reportedly members of an organized crime family. The newspaper had mentioned a rival boss, someone the police suspected but could never touch.
Dante Russo.
The most feared mafia boss in Boston.
And I had just helped his son.
Sleep eluded me that night. I tossed and turned, my mind replaying the events at the coffee shop, trying to convince myself I was overreacting. Maybe it was a different Dante Russo. Maybe the newspaper reports had been sensationalized. Maybe I had nothing to worry about.
But the envelope of cash sitting on my kitchen counter suggested otherwise.
In the morning light, I finally gathered the courage to count it.
$10,000 in crisp $100 bills.
Who gave a stranger that kind of money just for helping a lost child?
A voice in my head whispered the answer.
Someone who doesn’t want the police involved.
I called in sick to work, something I never did, even when I actually was sick. My supervisor sounded surprised but did not question it.
I spent the morning pacing my small apartment, alternating between staring at Marco’s backpack and checking the time. 7:00 p.m. seemed both too far away and too close.
By noon, I had made a decision.
I would return the backpack and the money, explain that I wanted no part of whatever this was, and ask never to be contacted again.
