THE 7-YEAR-OLD GIRL WHO KNELT IN A MAFIA BOSS’S BLOOD CHANGED BOSTON FOREVER… BECAUSE WHEN EVERYONE ELSE LEFT HIM TO DIE, SHE MADE HIM ONE PROMISE HE COULDN’T BREAK

“Not your problem.”

“My mom used to say everything is everybody’s problem.”

She unwound the scarf from around her neck.

It was a yellow-and-orange striped scarf, faded by years and washing, soft at the edges from too much love. Her mother had worn it every winter until the week she died. Lily slept with it under her pillow when the house felt too quiet.

She folded it once and pressed it hard against the wound.

Dominic flinched. Not from pain. Pain was ordinary. Pain was weather. What made him flinch was the touch itself, the small hands, the lack of fear, the complete absence of calculation.

He stared at her. “You need to leave.”

“If I leave, you’re going to die.”

He almost laughed. It came out as a wet exhale.

“That’s not your concern.”

Lily tightened her grip on the scarf. “It is now.”

She leaned closer, her little face serious enough to look older than seven.

“I’m going to get my grandma. She knows medicine.”

“No.” His hand shot out and caught her wrist. Even half-conscious and bleeding out, his grip had iron in it. “No police. No hospital. No one can know.”

“Then you’ll die.”

Something in her voice, the simple, flat certainty of it, slid past the armor he had spent a lifetime building.

He let go.

Lily adjusted the scarf again and pressed down with both palms. “You have to do something for me while I’m gone.”

His vision was already fraying at the edges. He could feel the cold climbing in under his skin.

“What?”

“You have to count.”

“What?”