Chapter 9 - The Safehouse on Beacon HillBy two in the morning, Dante brought me not back to my drafty apartment in Southie, but to a secure historic brownstone townhouse tucked away on a gas-lit street in Beacon Hill. The interior was a breathtaking blend of exposed brick, velvet upholstery, and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves filled with rare leather-bound volumes.
“You can’t stay in your old apartment tonight, Clara,” Dante said as he poured two glasses of amber scotch from a crystal decanter on the mahogany sideboard, handing one to me. “Finch’s associates in the municipal licensing bureau might try to make a desperate move before the federal marshals secure the downtown offices at dawn.”
I took the crystal glass, letting the warmth of the alcohol burn the lingering chill out of my throat. My hands were still shaking slightly. I sank into a velvet armchair by the marble fireplace, staring at the leaping orange flames.
“You planned this all along, didn't you?” I murmured, looking up at him. “You didn't just happen to be sitting in that diner on Tuesday morning.”
Dante stopped halfway across the room, his glass halfway to his mouth. He turned slowly, his dark eyes studying me with an intensity that made my breath catch.
“No, Clara,” he answered honestly, his gravelly voice dropping to a low register. “I knew Arthur Finch was skimming the historical shipping grants. I knew his family was tied to the 1984 cover-up. But I didn't know you. I didn't know that a girl working sixty-hour shifts to keep her grandmother alive would risk her livelihood to pay fourteen dollars for a broken old sailor she had never met before in her life.”
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He walked over, setting his glass down on the mantelpiece, and stood just inches away from my chair.
“You broke the pattern, Clara,” Dante said softly. “In my world, people only move when there’s a profit to be made or a knife at their throat. You stepped into the fire for a stranger purely because it was right. That is something money can’t buy, and enemies can’t replicate.”
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