FOUR LITTLE GIRLS BEGGED CHICAGO'S MOST FEARED MAFIA BOSS TO PRETEND HE WAS THEIR FATHER—BUT HE NEVER EXPECTED TO FALL FOR THEIR MOTHER

The first sign that my quiet afternoon was over was a little pink shoe appearing beneath the linen hanging from my café table.

I had chosen the Bellwether because nobody there asked questions. Its marble tables were too expensive for students, its pastries were too expensive for anyone with good sense, and its owner understood that men like me paid generously for privacy. I was halfway through a bitter espresso and an even more bitter business report when a second shoe appeared. Then a third. By the time a fourth pair scrambled under my chair, I had put down the report.

Four little girls stared up at me. The oldest couldn't have been more than eight. Each wore a navy coat over a pastel party dress, as though someone had dressed them for a happy occasion that had taken a spectacular wrong turn. The smallest had a crooked cream bow and a face shining with unshed tears.

"Are you hiding from someone?" I asked.

The oldest pressed a finger to her lips. "Please don't be loud."

People had asked many things of Alexander Hayes. Politicians asked for donations. Competitors asked for mercy. My lawyers asked, at least once a week, that I stop making decisions without calling them first. Nobody had ever asked me to whisper in my own café.

"All right," I said softly. "I'm whispering. What's going on?"

"We need you to pretend you're our dad," the smallest girl blurted.

Her sisters looked horrified that she had said it so quickly. I looked toward the entrance. A woman in a dove-gray suit stood near the glass doors, speaking to a silver-haired man in an immaculate camel coat. Another man waited behind him with the stiff posture of hired security. The woman was beautiful, but it was the controlled desperation in her expression that held my attention. She kept looking toward the tables even as the older man's hand closed around her elbow.

"Is that your mother?" I asked.

Four small heads nodded.

"And the man?"

"Mr. Mercer," said the oldest. "I'm Ruby. That's June, Lily, and Poppy." She pointed efficiently from one sister to the next. "He's being horrible again."

"What does horrible mean?"

June leaned forward. "He said Mommy should marry him so people would stop thinking we're a broken family."

"He said we had to practice calling him Daddy," Lily added.

Poppy wrapped her little fingers around my trouser leg. "But I already had a daddy."

The sentence landed somewhere beneath my ribs. Three years earlier, my son Ethan had stood in our kitchen holding a cereal bowl and asked whether his mother would remember where we lived when she got to heaven. I had controlled shipping companies, bought buildings with a phone call, and frightened grown men who'd never frightened easily. I had not been able to give my child an answer.

I crouched beside my chair so that my face was level with the girls'. "Listen carefully. I'm not going to pretend to be your father without your mother's permission. But I can stand next to her while she tells that man to leave. Would that help?"

Ruby considered me with the suspicion of a child who had heard too many adults make promises. "He's rich," she warned.

"So am I."

"He has lawyers."

"Unfortunately, I have several."

June's mouth twitched. Poppy didn't smile. She was watching Mercer, whose grip on her mother's arm had tightened. I felt my own expression settle into a version that made my employees suddenly remember appointments elsewhere.

"What's your mom's name?" I asked.

"Claire Whitman," Ruby said. "Please. He told her he can take her company. She was crying in the car, but she said she was fine."

I straightened. My head of security, Ben Torres, stood near the coffee bar pretending to read his phone. A slight tilt of my chin brought his attention to the entrance. His hand stayed visible at his side; I had learned long ago that the best protection often looked like nothing at all.

"Stay behind me until your mother sees you," I told the girls. "Nobody is being dragged anywhere."

Poppy tugged my sleeve. "Will you say you're our daddy? Just for one minute?"

I remembered Ethan's face after his mother died, and how frightened he'd been of people who tried to fill her empty place too quickly. "I'll say I'm here for your family," I answered. "If your mom wants me to play along, I'll follow her lead. Deal?"

Four solemn nods. Then, without warning, Lily offered me half a butter cookie she had evidently smuggled into her coat. It was shaped like a heart, though she had already bitten off one side.

"For being brave," she whispered.

I took it. I was still holding that ridiculous half-cookie when Claire Whitman spotted us approaching.

The relief on her face came first. Then confusion, sharp as broken glass, when she saw whose hand Poppy was holding. Everyone in the café seemed to recognize me at once. Conversations softened. A waiter froze with a silver tray in midair. Mercer turned, took one look at my face, and abruptly let go of Claire's elbow.

"Alexander Hayes," he said. "What an unexpected pleasure."

"Can't say the same yet," I replied.

Claire knelt in front of her daughters. "Girls, where did you go? I was scared to death."

Ruby looked at me, asking permission for a lie she was too young to carry. I wouldn't make her carry it.

"They found a safe place to wait," I said to Claire. "Your youngest asked whether I could pretend to be their father. I told them that decision belongs to you."

Claire stared at me. The color drained from her face, then returned as something firmer. She stood, holding Poppy against her hip.

"For today," she said steadily, "I'd appreciate the help."

Mercer's smile looked as if it had been stapled into place. "Claire, surely you aren't serious."

She met his eyes. "For once, Gerald, I'm very serious."

I extended my free hand to Ruby. She took it immediately. I'd agreed to play a part for a few minutes in a stranger's life, and already I could feel how much the role might cost.

Then Mercer glanced at the half-cookie in my other hand and said something that turned a children's rescue into a business war.