SHE TOOK A BULLET MEANT FOR THE MAFIA BOSS—WHEN SHE WOKE UP, HE WAS HOLDING HER HAND AND CRYING

For the first time since the shooting, Sophia felt truly afraid.

Not of Declan. Not of the men who carried weapons. Not even of the possibility that Kessler was still alive.

She was afraid that her life had been arranged around a secret she had never known existed.

The company registered in her name had been created seven years earlier, when she was twenty-one. It listed a mailing address she had never used and a signature that looked almost like hers.

Sophia stared at the documents.

“I've never owned a company.”

“I believe you,” Declan said.

“Why would someone use my name?”

“We'll find out.”

“No. Why my name? Why me?”

He didn't answer immediately.

That frightened her more than a lie would have.

The investigators traced the company to a business services office that had since closed. Its former records were stored in an archive facility, and a court order was obtained to examine them.

The file contained a copy of Sophia's identification, a forged signature, and an application for a business account. The identification had been issued after someone reported her wallet stolen during a trip to Indiana.

Sophia remembered that trip.

She had been helping her grandmother move into assisted living. Her wallet had disappeared for two days before a stranger returned it to the front desk of the hotel.

She had assumed she had misplaced it.

Now she wondered whether someone had taken it deliberately.

The account had been used to purchase vehicles, rent storage space, and pay several small invoices connected to the North Circle.

But there was another document.

A contract dated seven years earlier, signed by Victor Sloane and a man whose name had been blacked out.

It described Sophia as an “unconnected civilian contact” who could be used to move items without attracting attention.

She read the phrase twice.

“Unconnected civilian contact.”

Declan's face darkened.

“They planned to use you.”

“For what?”

“We don't know yet.”

The contract listed a second name in the margin: Eleanor Price, the retired tailor who had repaired Declan's mother's coat.

Sophia felt her stomach twist.

“Eleanor was involved?”

“Not necessarily. Her name may have been included because of the coat.”

They contacted Eleanor through her care facility. She remembered Victor Sloane visiting her shop once, years earlier, asking questions about the blue coat. She had refused to answer, and he had left without causing a scene.

“He was polite,” Eleanor told them over the phone. “That was what frightened me. He was the sort of man who didn't need to raise his voice.”

Sophia thought of the people who had entered her shop, searched her worktable, and left a message telling her she was never supposed to survive.

“What did they want me to carry?”

Eleanor paused.

“I don't know. But your mother may have.”

Sophia's heart stopped.

“My mother?”

Eleanor explained that Sophia's mother, Helen Bennett, had once worked in a bookkeeping office connected to a shipping company. She had left the job suddenly after discovering irregularities in the accounts. Years later, Eleanor had seen Helen speaking with Margaret Moretti outside the tailor shop.

Sophia had been told that her mother left the city because she wanted a quieter life. She had never known about any connection to the Moretti family.

“My mother died when I was sixteen,” she said quietly. “She never mentioned any of this.”

“Perhaps she was trying to protect you,” Eleanor replied.

Sophia sat motionless after the call ended.

Declan crouched beside her chair.

“You don't have to investigate every part of this tonight.”

“I do if the answers could explain why someone tried to kill us.”

“Why someone tried to kill me,” he corrected gently. “You were caught in it.”

She looked at him.

“Don't make me feel like an accident.”

His expression softened.

“You're not an accident.”