**“GET ON YOUR KNEES AND APOLOGIZE, YOU LYING LITTLE MAID! YOUR FATHER WAS A THIEF, AND YOU'RE NO BETTER!” THE MAFIA BOSS'S FIANCÉE HUMILIATED HIS 25-YEAR-OLD HOUSEMAID IN FRONT OF FIFTY DINNER GUESTS—BUT WHEN A WEALTHY ITALIAN BUSINESSMAN HEARD HER FATHER'S NAME, HE STOOD UP AND ASKED LUCA MORETTI WHY THE DAUGHTER OF THE MAN WHO SAVED HIS LIFE WAS BEING TREATED LIKE GARBAGE.**

The heavy mahogany walls of the study seemed to spin around me.

Cousin.

I wasn't just the daughter of the maintenance man. I carried Moretti blood. The woman who had scrubbed the marble floors of this mansion for eleven months belonged to the family that owned it.

Luca held me tight as I sobbed against his chest, the sheer, crushing weight of nineteen years of lies finally breaking me.

“Why didn't she tell me?” I cried, my voice muffled against his expensive suit jacket. “Why did she let me come work here as a maid if she knew we were family?”

Luca gently pulled back, keeping his hands on my shoulders to steady me. His dark eyes were filled with a profound, sorrowful understanding.

“Because my father was a hard man, Emily,” Luca said quietly. “When Aunt Sarah left the family, he swore he would destroy any life she tried to build without him. If he had known you existed, if he knew Thomas Reed was his brother-in-law... he would have taken you from them. He would have raised you in this world.”

“She was protecting you,” Lorenzo added softly from behind the desk. “By staying poor, by staying invisible, Sarah kept you safe from the violence of the syndicate.”

“But she let me work here!” I argued, wiping my tears. “I applied for this job because we couldn't afford her surgery! She knew I was working for you!”

Luca’s expression darkened. “She didn't know you were working for me, Emily. She thought you were working for a corporate cleaning service downtown. You lied to her to protect her pride, didn't you?”

I swallowed hard, looking down at my shoes. I had told my mother I was working at a high-end hotel downtown. I didn't want her to know I was scrubbing toilets for the mafia to pay for her medical bills.

“If Sarah knew you were in this house, she would have dragged you out herself,” Luca said gently.

He turned back to the desk, his eyes hardening as he looked at the files.

“My father figured it out,” Luca said, picking up the handwritten letter again. “He realized who Thomas Reed was after the fire. He realized the man who saved my life, the man who kidnapped my sister to protect her... was the husband of the sister he had disowned.”

“Antonio was a proud man,” Lorenzo said, shaking his head. “He couldn't admit he was wrong. He couldn't publicly welcome Sarah back, not after he blamed Thomas for the fire to protect his pride.”

“So he set up the secret trust fund,” I realized, the pieces finally falling into place. “To take care of us quietly. To pay his debt to Thomas without anyone knowing.”

“And Richard Bellini stole it,” Luca snarled, his fist clenching around the letter. “He blamed Thomas for the fire to hide his embezzlement, and he stole the money meant for my aunt and my cousin.”

The door to the study suddenly flew open.

Marco, Luca’s head of security, stepped in, his scarred face tight with urgency.

“Boss,” Marco said, cutting straight to the point. “We have a situation.”

Luca instantly shifted from grieving cousin to ruthless syndicate boss. “What is it?”

“I sent a team to escort Richard and Vanessa Bellini back to their estate,” Marco reported, standing at attention. “They were supposed to pack their bags and leave the city by dawn.”

“And?”

“They didn't go home,” Marco said grimly. “They slipped my tail. They swapped cars in a parking garage downtown. And Boss... Vanessa’s phone pinged off a cell tower ten minutes ago.”

“Where?” Luca demanded.

Marco looked at me, a flicker of hesitation in his cold eyes.

“It pinged in the suburbs, Boss,” Marco said. “Right outside a small residential address. The address listed on Emily’s employment file.”

My heart stopped.

“My mother,” I gasped.

“They know,” Luca realized, the blood draining from his face. “Vanessa snooped through Emily’s locker today. She found out where she lives. If Richard Bellini realizes Emily is Sarah’s daughter... he’ll know she’s a Moretti.”

“He’s going to kill her to silence her,” Lorenzo said, terror bleeding into his voice. “If Sarah tells you the truth about the fire, Richard’s life is over.”

“Marco, get the cars ready. Now!” Luca roared, grabbing his suit jacket from the back of the chair.

“Already done, Boss. We have three SUVs out front.”

Luca turned to me, grabbing my hand. “Emily, come with me.”

I didn't hesitate. I ran with my cousin out of the study, down the grand staircase, and out the front doors of the mansion into the cool night air.

We piled into the back of a black, armored SUV. Marco jumped into the driver’s seat and slammed the gas pedal to the floor. The heavy vehicle tore down the long driveway, the tires screaming against the asphalt as we hit the main road.

“Call her,” Luca ordered me, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. “Call your mother.”

I fumbled with my phone, my hands shaking so badly I dropped it twice. I finally pulled up her contact and hit dial.

It rang once. Twice. Three times.

“Hello?”

Her voice was weak, groggy from the pain medication, but she was alive.

“Mom!” I cried, tears springing to my eyes. “Mom, are you okay? Is anyone in the house?”

“Emily? Sweetheart, what time is it? I was asleep.”

“Mom, listen to me very carefully,” I said, forcing my voice to stay level despite the panic tearing me apart. “Get up. Lock the front door. Go into the bathroom, lock that door, and do not come out until I tell you to. Someone is coming to hurt you.”

The line went dead silent for a second.

“Emily... what are you talking about?” Sarah asked, suddenly sounding very awake and terrified.

“Mom, please, just do it!” I begged.

Before she could answer, I heard a loud, violent CRASH through the phone speaker. The sound of splintering wood echoing in her small living room.

“Hey! What are you doing in my house?!” I heard my mother scream, her voice distant as if she had dropped the phone.

“Mom! Mom!” I screamed into the receiver.

I heard the sound of a scuffle, a heavy thud, and then... a familiar, cruel voice picked up the phone.

“Well, well,” Vanessa Bellini purred through the line. “If it isn't the lying little maid.”

“Vanessa, please,” I sobbed, gripping the phone so hard my knuckles turned white. “Don't hurt her. She’s sick.”

“She’s a Moretti,” Vanessa sneered. “And my father says Morettis don't get to live in peace.”

Luca snatched the phone from my hand.

“Vanessa,” Luca growled, his voice a low, terrifying hum of absolute violence. “If you touch one hair on my aunt’s head, I will burn you and your father alive.”

“Oh, Luca, darling,” Vanessa laughed, a manic, desperate sound. “You’re too late. We already found what we came for.”

Luca frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“The insurance policy,” Vanessa said. “My father thought Sarah might have kept proof of what really happened at the factory. And guess what? We found a locked safety deposit box under her bed.”

My stomach dropped.

“But we didn't find documents, Luca,” Vanessa continued, her voice turning cold and triumphant. “We found something much better.”

“What did you find, Vanessa?” Luca demanded.

“A plane ticket,” Vanessa smiled through the phone. “A one-way ticket to Montreal. Dated tomorrow. And a recent photograph of a beautiful, nineteen-year-old girl.”