“It’s late, Pete. Why are we in a diner at two in the morning? I saw you three hours ago.” I sat across from Peter Panzavecchia. He was the man I mostly worked for, took out the trash for, and loved with my whole heart. He was more than my boss; he was my lover, and we lived that life in secret.

“Yeah, sorry, Duke, um.” He cleared his throat, and my annoyance over being woken up to meet him at a hole-in-the-wall diner after only a couple of hours’ sleep vanished.

Peter’s clothes were rumpled, and sweat beaded on his upper lip and hairline. I watched as he nervously tapped the fingers of one hand on the cracked Formica table, and judging by the slight vibration, he was bouncing his leg.

“Hey.” I reached across the table, desperate to grab his hand and calm him, but he jerked away so fast.

“Duke, no, just.” He took a breath. “I gotta tell you something, you gotta hear me, and what I’m about to say, it’s gotta die with you.”

I’d thought I knew everything about Peter there was to know. But as the cold chill slithered up my spine and spiderwebbed in my brain, I realized I’d been wrong.

“I promise, Pete.”

He nodded curtly. “After we left I got a call, had to go meet at the docks.” He shrugged; it wasn’t a big deal—oftentimes that was where he met other bosses, but he shouldn’t have gone alone. “I went with Tony and Phil. I’m not stupid.”

“Good.”

His laugh wasn’t filled with humor. “Yeah, well, Tony and Phil are dead, Duke. When I showed up, no one was there. It took me like a minute to figure out it was a setup.”

“What the fuck? Who called the meeting?”

“I thought it was Vince, but—”

“Thought? I don’t understand, Pete. How did you not know who you were meeting?”

“I was told Vince wanted to meet. Fuck, Duke, I know what I’m doing—”

“No, you don’t, ’cause Tony and Phil are fuckin’ dead!”

“I lowered my voice when the waitress peered over at me from the counter. Pete sighed and ran his fingers through his dark hair. When his hazel eyes met mine, all I could see was fear.

“Duke, I’m fucked.”