LITMIR.BIZ

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and cousins’ birthright as much as it is mine,” Tate said. “They were a part of my grandfather’s life and lifestyle. And I—”

      He halted there, still a little thrown by everything he’d learned. He searched his brain for something that might negate everything Renata had told him. But his memories of his father were hazy. The only clear ones were of the day he died. Tate remembered the police coming to their house, his mother crying and a guy in a suit trying to console her. As an adult looking back, he’d always figured the guy was from the insurance company, there to handle his father’s life-insurance policy or something. But after what Renata had told him, the guy might have been a fed, there to ensure that his mother was still protected.

      He conjured more memories, out of sequence and context. His father swinging him in the ocean surf when he was very little. The two of them visiting an ancient-looking monkey house of some zoo. His father dancing him around in the kitchen, singing “Eh, Cumpari!,” a song Tate had never heard anywhere else except for when...

      Oh, God. Except for when Talia Shire sang it in The Godfather, Part III.

      “There are more photos,” he heard Renata say from what seemed a very great distance. “Joey had several framed ones of you and him on shelves in his office until the day he died.”

      Tate looked at the photo in his hand again. The Iron Don honestly looked like he could be anyone’s grandfather—white hair and mustache, short-sleeved shirt and trousers, grinning at the boy in the picture as if he were his most cherished companion. There were no gold chains, no jogging suits, nothing to fit the stereotype at all. Just an old man happy to be with his family. Yet Tate couldn’t remember him.

      On some level, though, a lot of what Renata said explained his memories. He couldn’t recall taking a long road trip anywhere until his mother married William Hawthorne. So how could he have been in the ocean when he was so young? Unless he’d lived in a state that had a coastline. Like New Jersey. And there were no ancient-looking monkey houses in this part of the country. But some zoos in the Northeast had lots of old buildings like that.

      He looked at Renata Twigg. “I’m the grandson of a mobster,” he said softly. This time, the remark was a statement, not a question.

      “Alleged mobster,” she qualified again, just as quietly.

      “But real grandson.”

      “Yes.”

      So Tate really did have family out there with whom he would have grown up had things been different. He would have attended birthday parties and weddings and graduations for them. Vacationed with them. Played with them. He wouldn’t have spent his childhood alone. Strangely, if his father had gone into the family’s very abnormal business, Tate might have had a very normal childhood.

      The pounding of footsteps suddenly erupted in the hall outside his office. Tate looked up just in time to see a man in a suit, followed by a harried Madison, come hurrying through the door. When he halted, the man’s jacket swung open enough to reveal a shoulder holster with a weapon tucked inside. Tate was reaching for his phone to hit 9-1-1 when his presumed assailant flipped open a leather case in his hand to reveal a badge with a silver star.

      “Inspector Terrence Grady,” the man said. He reminded Tate of someone. An older version of Laurence Fishburne, maybe. “United States Marshals Service. Tate Hawthorne, you’ll have to come with me immediately.”

      “Sir, he pushed right past me,” Madison said. “I tried to—”

      “It’s all right, Madison,” Tate said as he stood.

      Renata stood at the same time, though she didn’t cut quite as imposing a figure as Tate was trying to achieve himself. Actually, it was kind of hard to tell if she’d stood at all, because she barely came to his shoulder. Small women. He never knew what to do with small women. They were just so...small. But Renata Twigg had already inspired a few interesting ideas in his head. Given the chance—which, for some reason, he was hoping for—he was sure he could find a few more.

      Instead of responding to Inspector Grady, Tate, for some reason, looked at Renata. He expected her to look as confused as he felt over the marshal’s sudden appearance. Instead, a blush was blooming on her cheeks, and she was steadfastly avoiding his gaze.

      He turned back to the marshal. “I don’t understand. Why should I go anywhere with you?”

      Grady—maybe not Laurence Fishburne, but he looked like someone Tate knew—said, “I can explain on the way.”

      “On the way where?”

      “We need to get you someplace safe, Mr. Hawthorne.” And then, just in case Tate had missed that part before, he added, more emphatically this time, “Immediately.”

      Tate straightened to his full six-three and leveled his most menacing gaze on the marshal. “I’m not going anywhere. What the hell does a federal marshal have to do with—”

      Hang on. Didn’t federal marshals run the Witness Protection Program? Tate looked at Renata again. She was looking at something on the other side of the room and fiddling with the top button of her shirt in a way that might have been kind of interesting in a different situation. Under the circumstances...

      “Renata,” he said softly.

      She was still looking at the wall and twisting her button, but she lifted her other hand to the twist of dark hair at her nape, giving it a few little pats, even though not a single hair was out of place. “Yes?”

      “Do you have any idea why a federal marshal would show up at my front door less than an hour after you did?”

      “Mr. Hawthorne,” Grady interrupted.

      Tate held up a hand to halt him. “Renata?” he repeated.

      Finally, she turned her head to look at him. This time he knew exactly what she was thinking. Her eyes were a veritable window to her soul. And what Renata’s soul was saying just then was Oh, crap.

      In spite of that, she said, “No clue.”

      “Mr. Hawthorne,” Grady said again. “We have to leave. Now. Explanations can wait.”

      “Actually, Inspector Grady,” Tate said, returning his attention to him, “you won’t have much to explain. I’m guessing you’re here because my grandfather was Joseph Bacco, aka the Iron Don, and now that he’s gone, he wants me to be the new Iron Don.”

      “You know about that?”

      “I do.”

      Grady eyed him warily for a moment. “Okay. I wasn’t sure you were even aware you had a WITSEC cover, if your mother ever made you privy to that or if you remembered that part of your life. The other thing I came here to tell you is that your WITSEC cover has been compromised, thanks to a hack in our files we discovered just this morning. We need to put you somewhere safe until we can get to the bottom of it.”

      Tate barely heard the second part of the marshal’s comment. He was too focused on the first part. “You knew my mother?”

      Grady was visibly agitated about his lack of compliance with the whole leaving immediately thing, but he nodded. “I was assigned to your father and his family after he became a state’s witness. The last time I saw your mother or you was the day your father died.”

      Okay, that was why he looked familiar. The man in the suit that day must have been a younger Terrence Grady.

      “Look, Mr. Hawthorne, we can talk about this in the car,” he said. “We don’t know that there’s a credible threat to your safety, but we can’t be sure there isn’t one, either. There are an awful lot of people interested in taking over your grandfather’s position—the one they know your grandfather wanted you to assume—and it’s safe to say that few of them have your best interests at heart. Last week, someone accessed your federal file without authorization, so your WITSEC identity is no longer protected. That means I have to get you someplace where you are protected. Immediately.”

      “Um,

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