The Devil in the Details

Catalina “Cata” Rosario has spent thirty-two years learning that there is a difference between knowing the criminal world and belonging to it. Born and raised in New Jersey in a Dominican American family with deep connections to organized crime, Cata grew up understanding the things polite society pretends not to see coded conversations, old loyalties, territorial disputes, favors that are never truly free, and men whose power exists far beyond their legitimate business cards. She chose something different. Now an accomplished historic preservation architect and project manager, Catalina has built a life and career entirely on her own. Then, during an elegant Boston charity event, she takes one wrong turn. A gunshot. A locked down corridor. A stranger holding a bloody gun. Catalina knows exactly what kind of situation she has walked into. She should scream. She should run. Instead, she looks at the blood splattered across her expensive cream heels and tells the terrifying stranger the first thing that comes to mind. “You’re getting blood on my shoes.” Tiernan Rafferty does not forget people often. At thirty-seven, the Irish American heir to one of Boston’s most powerful criminal families has spent his life surrounded by fear, obedience, and carefully disguised ambition. His family’s roots stretch from County Tyrone through the windswept coast of County Donegal before generations of Rafferty's built their name—and eventually their empire—in Boston. Tiernan knows loyalty. He knows about violence. He knows exactly what every person sitting across from him wants. The tiny, furious stranger complaining about her shoes is an exception. And instead of eliminating the problem she represents, he lets her leave. No names. No promises. No expectation that their paths will ever cross again. Weeks later, Catalina arrives in Boston to oversee the preservation work on one of the largest waterfront redevelopment projects of her career. The principal investor arrives late to their first major meeting. The room changes the moment he enters. Catalina immediately dislikes him. Tiernan Rafferty immediately wants to know why the five-foot-three architect across the table the only person in the room is willing to tell him no. Neither recognizes the other. Not yet. But as disagreements over historic staircases become late-night meetings, professional irritation becomes reluctant respect, and old family connections begin dragging the Rosarios and Raffertys into the same dangerous orbit, Catalina and Tiernan discover that their first encounter may have been the least complicated thing between them. The Rosarios have enemies. The Rafferty's have a history. And somewhere between an old betrayal that never made sense and a new rival determined to turn two powerful families against one another, Catalina and Tiernan become something neither family planned for. An alliance. A weakness. A threat. And eventually— Something far more dangerous than either of them knows how to control it. Because Tiernan Rafferty inherited an empire. Catalina Rosario built a life outside one. And when Rafferty and Rosario finally choose each other, everyone else may learn that the devil was never hiding in the blood. He was always hiding in detail.

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