44 “You’re Sitting Beside Me Tonight,” the Mafia Boss Told His Shy Secretary — Then One Unexpected Moment at Dinner Made Everyone at the Table Realize She Wasn’t Just His Employee

The abandoned spice warehouse on Tenth Avenue smelled of wet brick, rust, and eighty years of industrial oil soaked into the floorboards.

The rain had settled into a steady, freezing drizzle that drummed against the corrugated tin roof like a thousand tiny fingers tapping out a code.

Inside the cavernous ground-floor loading bay, a single overhead mercury-vapor lamp cast a harsh, jaundiced circle of light onto a circle of concrete floor where Higgins sat bound to a heavy wooden shipping pallet with fifty feet of industrial plastic wrap.

His glasses were gone, his hair was sticking to his forehead in damp gray tufts, and he was making small, high-pitched whimpering noises that echoed off the damp brick walls.

The heavy iron sliding door groaned open, and Declan walked in, his long wool coat swishing around his ankles, followed closely by Miller and Clara.

Clara walked with her hands buried deep in the pockets of her wool coat, her sensible loafers clicking against the concrete floor with steady, unhurried precision. She looked like she was inspecting a branch office for a routine safety audit.

Declan stopped three feet from the trembling accountant. He didn't raise his voice. He didn't draw a gun. He simply stood there, his hands resting casually in his trouser pockets, looking down at Higgins with the cold, absolute detachment of a surgeon examining a cancerous growth.

"Higgins," Declan said softly.

Higgins let out a ragged sob, his shoulders shaking beneath his cheap gray cardigan. "Mr. Shaw—boss—I swear to God, I didn't mean to—they had my daughter—the federal prosecutor, he cornered me at the Starbucks on Broadway—he said if I didn't hand over the secondary manifests, they’d indict Chloe for wire fraud—"

"Your daughter is studying art history at NYU, Higgins," Declan said, his voice level, quiet, and completely devoid of warmth. "Her tuition is forty-two thousand a year. I know because I approved the corporate scholarship fund that pays half of it."

Higgins sobbed louder, tears streaming down his pale, flabby cheeks. "They threatened her, Mr. Shaw! They said she’d go to federal prison for twenty years!"

"And you decided," Declan continued, his voice dropping another octave, "that the best way to protect your daughter was to hand our entire shipping ledger over to the DOJ, put every man in this organization at risk of a RICO indictment, and betray the company that has been paying your medical insurance for twelve years."

"I had no choice!" Higgins wailed.

"Everyone always has a choice, Higgins," Declan said calmly. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a folded sheet of white paper and a black fountain pen, and dropped them onto Higgins’s lap. "This is your resignation letter. It includes a full confession of corporate embezzlement, data theft, and unauthorized transmission of proprietary logistics records to federal law enforcement."

Higgins stared at the paper as if it were a venomous snake. "If I sign this... I’m going away for the rest of my life..."

"If you don't sign this," Declan said, his dark eyes narrowing into two razor-thin slits, "Miller is going to take you down to the salt flats in New Jersey, and nobody will ever find your glasses again."

Higgins looked up at Miller, who stepped forward out of the shadows, cracking his massive knuckles with a sound like dry branches snapping in winter.

The accountant didn't hesitate anymore. He grabbed the fountain pen with shaking, clumsy fingers, dragged the tip across the bottom of the paper, and signed his name in a messy, frantic scrawl before collapsing forward against the plastic wrap, weeping uncontrollably.

Declan picked up the paper, checked the signature, and handed it to Clara without looking at her.

Clara slipped the confession into her leather folder, smoothed the edge with her thumb, and nodded once. "The signature is legally binding. I had him notarize his own resignation form in my head three weeks ago just in case this happened."

Declan let out a short, dark bark of laughter. He turned back to Higgins.

"Miller, put him in the trunk of the Buick, drive him to the bus station in Port Authority, and buy him a one-way ticket to Miami. If he comes back north of the Mason-Dixon line before he’s ninety, feed him to the pigs in Secaucus."

"Boss," Miller grunted, hauling the weeping accountant up off the pallet with one thick arm.

As Miller dragged Higgins toward the shadows, Clara looked up at Declan.

"Miami?" she asked dryly. "Isn't that a bit harsh? The humidity down there plays havoc with his sinuses."

"It builds character," Declan said, turning to face her in the harsh circle of yellow light.

For a long moment, the warehouse was quiet, save for the steady patter of rain against the corrugated roof overhead.

Declan stepped closer to her—close enough that she could feel the heat radiating off his broad chest, close enough to smell that cold rain and bergamot scent that seemed to follow him everywhere.

"You knew it was Higgins from the start," Declan said, his dark eyes searching her face with an intensity that felt almost physical.

"I knew someone with administrative root access was leaking files," Clara said, refusing to look away, even when his face came within inches of hers. "Higgins was the obvious choice. He’s weak, he’s in debt, and he drinks cheap scotch at lunch."

Declan reached out. His large, scarred fingers grazed the edge of her collar, his thumb brushing lightly against her jawline with a touch so impossibly gentle it sent a sudden, electric shock straight down her spine.

"And you?" Declan whispered, his voice dropping into a low, dark gravel that made her breath catch in her throat. "Are you weak, Clara?"

"I have student loans, Mr. Shaw," she managed to say, though her voice was suddenly a little thinner than usual. "That makes me indestructible."