A Vet Saved a Mafia Boss’s Dying German Shepherd at Midnight — Then Discovered the Owner Was the Boy Who Stole Her First Kiss and Vanished 14 Years Ago

Chapter 4

Lorenzo Calveti was one of New York’s wealthiest men, and like most of New York’s wealthiest men he had a library he never read, a fireplace he kept burning regardless of the season, and a very specific rule about phone calls after ten p.m. He took all of them. Tonight he was waiting for one in particular, on his second scotch, when the voice came through — a man Lorenzo kept precisely because he never editorialized.

“Ferraro, Brooklyn. A veterinary clinic on Clinton Street. He went in just before midnight with two men. Stayed close to an hour.”

Lorenzo worked the glass slowly between his fingers. “A veterinarian,” he said finally.

“Yes, boss. Small practice, two stories, residential street.”

Lorenzo set the glass down. “A vet clinic in Brooklyn. Small, innocent, the kind of place nobody looks at twice.” He nodded slowly, the nod of a man confirming something he already knew. “Brilliant. Hide in plain sight. Use something that makes people say aww.” He thought of the Ferraro men he’d known — the grandfather and his fish markets, the father and his flower shops. Different decade, different packaging, same instinct. “Did they bring anything in?”

“Packages, equipment.” A brief hesitation. “Just the dog, boss.”

Lorenzo’s eyes narrowed. “Just the dog. So the dog is the delivery.” Silence on the line. “Keep your men on it. Every time he goes back, find out what that clinic handles. X-rays, surgery, what comes in and out.” He picked up the glass. “The packaging always tells the truth.”

A knock came at the door.

Ruby Calveti walked in — red hair, green eyes, phone in one hand — and lowered it with the smile she used on everyone. “Uncle Lorenzo, I just came to say good night.”

Lorenzo looked at his niece, and something shifted behind his eyes, a man watching a solution walk through his door. “Ruby, sweetheart, come here. You’ve been saying for a while you want to help with the business.”

“Yes. And every time I ask, you say I’m still twenty-four.”

“You were. And now you’re not.”

“I’m twenty-five, Uncle Lorenzo.”

“Exactly.” He placed both palms on his knees, the tone of a man opening a negotiation he has already won. “I think the time has come.”

Ruby sat up straighter. “That’s incredible. Where do I start? Sales director? Management assistant?”

“Public relations,” Lorenzo said. “Actually—” He raised one finger, the energy of a man improving on his own plan. “I need to give you something more specific. More elite.” His voice dropped to a conspiratorial murmur. “Ferraro family relations.”

Ruby’s eyes lit up. “This sounds important, Uncle.”

“Oh, it is. This should be a role that not just anyone could do. You will be director of Dominic Ferraro relations.”

Ruby clapped her hands together once. “I’m starting directly as director?”

“Oh, absolutely.” Lorenzo smiled, the real one, the full version. “You already have, sweetheart. I genuinely trust your skills for this.” His eyes moved to the fire, his voice shifting to something older, quieter. “Especially the skills you inherited from your mother. Esmeralda always had a way of making someone feel like the only person in the room.”

“Mom’s always been so good with people.”

“Yes,” Lorenzo inhaled. “Let’s say that.”

Ruby leaned forward, ready. “As director of Dominic Ferraro relations, what exactly do I need to do?”

Lorenzo’s smile spread all the way across his face. “Stay well groomed. Dress beautifully.” He tapped the arm of the chair once. “And that smile of yours. Company image.”

Ruby threw her arms around him. “Uncle Lorenzo, this is exactly the job I always wanted.”

“I know, sweetheart.” He patted her arm. “Oh, one more thing. Do you have any pets?”

“Parakeets. Selena and Justin.”

Lorenzo’s face did something brief. “No, that won’t do. I’m getting you a dog for your birthday.”

“My birthday is three months away.”

“I felt like it.” He tilted his head, considering something small and fluffy. “It would suit you very well. Looks good in meetings.”

Ruby reacted as though she had just won something very large from a lottery she hadn’t known she’d entered. She walked out the way someone does when they’ve just gotten everything they wanted. The door clicked shut behind her.

Lorenzo’s eyes moved slowly toward the ceiling. Her mother’s charm. Her father’s — everything else. He picked up his glass, a smile still on his face, and drank.

Across the bridge, Jen pulled a sweater over her head, checked the mirror, and pulled it back off. Too much neckline. Way too much. She was a veterinarian. She was not going to stand in front of her own mirror at seven in the morning doing this. She did it twice more before going with the cardigan — buttoned, soft, a little décolleté if she left the top two undone, which she did, then immediately re-did one, then left it.

Professional, she told herself. This is a professional situation.

The morning patients came and went. She was present for all of them, hands steady, voice calm, while her mind kept drifting somewhere fourteen years back. She’d had her first kiss at sixteen. Nick Brown. The treehouse. A Tuesday in late October. His wire-rimmed glasses slightly crooked, both of them laughing nervously beforehand and not at all afterward. He’d spent the entire day walking into door frames. Then one morning, his house was just empty.

On the other side of the bridge, Nick stood in front of his bathroom mirror and thought about a girl with braces who had once faced down three boys twice her size and told them to find something better to do with their time. She’d been thirteen. He’d been walking home alone, same as every day. She’d said it the way she said everything, like it was obvious. Like why was this even a conversation.

Three years of treehouse conversations. Skateboarding in empty parking lots. The night everything changed. And then the morning after, when his father had died and his whole life had dropped into his hands overnight, and there was no version of events where he got to stay. He hadn’t called. He’d meant to. That was the truth. And it wasn’t enough.

He reached for the cologne. Then stopped. Then reached again. One more spray.

At the clinic, the door opened and Nick walked in wearing a suit, and whatever cologne he had on arrived before he did. Jen was behind the counter with Cleo in her lap when her face did the thing it kept doing lately — lit up fast, without asking her first.

“Morning.” He was already smiling as he crossed the room, easy, unhurried, as though the smile had been there before he’d even decided to come in. “Hey, Nick.” She scratched Cleo’s ears. “Here to pick up the big guy.”

“We’d gotten kind of used to having him around.” He was still crossing the room when he leaned down and pressed a kiss to her cheek. Easy. As if this were simply a thing they did now, as if the question of whether it was a thing they did had already been settled somewhere without her being formally notified.

God, she had absolutely no complaints. What she did have was Cleo, who chose that exact moment to voice a sharp, unambiguous opinion and drag one white paw across Nick’s forearm with the decisive energy of someone setting a boundary.

“Cleo. Easy.”

Nick straightened, one eyebrow up. “Possessive.”

“She has strong feelings about personal space.”

From the back, Caesar had heard the voice. He was barking before Jen had even moved. She opened the cage door and he launched himself forward, and Nick caught him easily, like muscle memory. They were facing each other over Caesar’s enormous delighted head, and Nick was shaking his head slowly, and there was a moment there that neither of them rushed.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing.” He was still smiling.

He shifted Caesar in his arms and was already turning toward the door when he stopped, Caesar still tucked against his side, not looking at her yet. “Maybe I’ll call you tomorrow. We could do something.”

“You could come here. Watch a movie. Low-key.”

Something moved across his face, almost surprised, like he hadn’t quite expected that — the simplicity of it, the complete absence of performance. “Are you serious?”

“Completely.” She tilted her head. “Why?”

“No reason.” He was moving toward her again. “Oh, and the ID.”

He nodded. And then he was crossing toward her, and by the time he stopped she was looking up at him, and the distance between them was not the distance of people talking about paperwork. She was still wearing the smile when he leaned in and touched his lips to hers. Barely. So briefly it was almost theoretical — a question that didn’t wait for an answer. He pulled back.

Jen stood exactly where she was, not entirely sure her lungs were working. “What was that?”

His voice was even, pleasant. “A sign that we’re picking up from where we left off.”

He took a few steps back, turned, and walked out with Caesar at his side. The door swung shut, and Jen stood in the middle of her clinic with her fingers pressed to her lips and the faint, impossible warmth of it still there.

“Oh, Nick Brown. Right where we left off.” She dropped her hand, frowned at the door. “Does this man not own an ID?”

She crossed to her desk, sat down, and typed Nick Brown into the search bar. Eleven million results stared back at her. She leaned back in her chair and stayed there, looking at all those Nick Browns who weren’t her Nick Brown.

In the back seat of the car, Dominic Ferraro’s expression shifted before the door was fully shut — back to the one he wore everywhere else, flat and certain. The face that ran operations across three states and didn’t get second-guessed. He stared at the street ahead. Nick Brown. She still thought that was his name. She thought he ran an export company and a pizza restaurant. She thought Tom and Jerry were his friends. She thought the worst thing about last night was a dog eating a condom.

At some point between now and dinner, he was going to have to explain that his name was actually Dominic Ferraro, that the pizza shop was not quite what she was picturing, and that the two men she’d met last night were not, technically speaking, his friends.