Page 44 of Her Dark Salvation

He put his glasses back on and straightened them atop his nose. “Okay, okay,” he said. “You’re right. I’m sorry. But Anna, these are not things you want to know about. Your assignment has nothing to do with any of that.” He waved his hand as if he could brush away my newfound knowledge. “And you want to keep it that way.”

“Don’t.” I crossed my arms and scowled. “Don’t you dare do that to me. You know better than to tell me what I don’t want to know, what you think I’m not capable of handling. You aren’t getting out of this without an explanation.”

Jeff scrubbed a hand over the remnants of his hair and sunk into the couch. He let his head fall back and stared at the ceiling. Sophie, my long-haired, gray and white fur baby, climbed into his lap, and kneaded his thighs, purring so loudly I could hear her over Jeff’s exaggerated sighs. He lifted his head to pet her, and she finally lay down on her second favorite lap, hiding her eyes beneath her paw. He calmed as he stroked her fur.

I went into the kitchen, poured two glasses of Chianti from an open bottle on the counter, and returned to sit cross-legged next to him. “Why don’t you start from the beginning,” I said and handed him the wine.

He downed a mouthful, winced, and his expression turned serious. “We both signed NDAs.”

“We did.”

“So, this stays in this room.” He held my eyes with a weighty stare. “No matter what.”

He was so tense, I reached for his hand and squeezed. “I promise. Nothing you say will leave this room.”

He nodded and resumed stroking Sophie’s fur. “I think you’ve figured out by now, Marco DeVita is connected, but I want to be clear—don’t mistake being connected for being involved. He’s a good man, Anna. One of the best I’ve ever known. He does a lot for his community. You don’t need to know the details. Can’t you trust me and accept that?” His voice was confident in its sincerity, tone heavy with respect, no trace of hesitation.

“In the past two weeks, I’ve met the head of the Boston Mafia and participated in what I’m pretty sure was extortion of a city official. A week later, the grandson of Tony Moretti turns out to be the Chief Operating Officer of DEI’s European branch. There’s no way that’s coincidence.” I shook my head. “I trust you. You know I do, but I can’t keep doing this job knowing I might be involved in something illegal. I won’t do it. So, unless you want me to delete my model and never go back to Terme di Boston, you better start talking.”

“I know for a fact Marco isn’t involved with the Valenzanos. Not in the way you’re thinking. If anything, he actively distances himself from them.”

“How could you possibly know that? In fact, how do you know anything about this? The Mafia, Jeff? Really?”

His shoulders slumped and his head dropped, and he stared into his wine, moving the glass through slow circles.

“Do you remember when I expanded CMG?” He pushed his hand deep into Sophie’s fur as if anchoring himself to the present while he traveled back in time. “It was right after Michael and I got married. Neither of us had any money. I’d put every penny I’d earned at McKinsey into starting the company, and we were finally turning a profit.”

“I remember eating a lot of grilled cheese and tomato soup at your apartment.”

His mouth quirked, attempting a smile, but unease held his features hostage. “I got impatient, wanted to expand. I knew how much money I could be making.”

Sophie lifted her head and glared at Jeff. He’d started bouncing his knee, and she did not appreciate being jostled. We’d never kept secrets from one another, not once in our twenty-four-year friendship. And now he slugged down his wine while trying to still his leg so Sophie would lie back down.

“There was no way I could get a loan. Michael was mired in student debt. I’d barely dug myself out of mine. The only collateral I had was CMG itself. No bank was going to give me the money I needed to expand.” He looked at me with haunted eyes. “So, I went somewhere else for a loan.”

Sickening suspicion seeped into my gut.

“I wasn’t always as fortunate as I am now. You know I grew up in Southie. A Black kid in a poor Irish neighborhood?” He shook his head. “I hung out with the kids I needed to hang out with to stay safe.” He downed the rest of his wine and stared into the empty glass. “But I was lucky. I had brains. I had a way out. Most of the neighborhood kids? They never left.” He placed the glass on the end table and folded his hands in his lap, picking at his thumbnail. “So, I made a few calls to old high school friends who knew where to go when you needed a loan. They knew cause, back in the day, they were runners for the Shaughnessys.” He lifted his eyes to meet mine. “Runners for the Irish mob.”

My jaw dropped. I’d never known how Jeff had expanded his company. He’d never told me. Apparently, he’d gotten a loan from the most ruthless gangsters in Boston. I stared at my best friend like I’d never seen him before, wondering what else he was keeping from me.

He eased Sophie off his lap so he could rest his elbows on his knees. “The thing is, the thing they don’t tell you, you have to pay it back on their terms and on their schedule. With interest. One of the Shaughnessy goons came to collect earlier than I anticipated, and…” He exhaled slowly, hanging his head. “The money was gone. I’d spent it all. Hiring consultants, marketing, renting office space, computers. It was going to be a year before I broke even, longer before I turned a profit. I put them off as long as I could, but after six months, they decided they were tired of waiting.”

He took a shaky breath, and I squeezed his leg, comforting myself as much as him, certain his story was about to get much worse.

“Marco was a client, although I didn’t know anything about him or who he was at the time. He’d hired us for cybersecurity. Even back then he would only deal with me, wanting to minimize the number of people who knew about our arrangement. We had a meeting. It was on a Monday.” Jeff’s voice cracked, and his eyes grew distant. “The Monday after the first time Shaughnessy’s goons shook me down.”

My hand flew to my mouth and tears burned my eyes. He met my horrified expression, his own eyes glassy with unshed tears.

“Marco didn’t say anything that first time, but he’d noticed. By our third meeting, things had escalated. I showed up with a broken arm, a cracked rib, and a black eye. He never asked what happened, just took it upon himself to investigate.”

“You told me you were in a car accident,” I whispered.

Memories of Jeff’s bruised and broken face resurfaced. In the weeks before the accident, he’d become distant, elusive. He’d pushed me and Michael away. We’d assumed he was overworked.

Silent tears fell down Jeff’s face and landed on his sad smile. He removed his glasses to wipe them away. “I’m sorry I lied, but… God.” He looked at the ceiling, and his throat bobbed through a swallow. “I felt so guilty, so ashamed. I was scared. For myself, for you, for Michael. I lied to protect you.” He reached for my hand, and I gave it to him, squeezing his shaking fingers. “It didn’t take Marco long to figure out what was happening. He came to my office a week later.

“Anna, what I’m about to tell you…”

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