**“MY DAUGHTER DOESN'T WANT A CRIPPLED MOTHER!” MY EX-HUSBAND HUMILIATED ME AT THE MAFIA BOSS'S DINNER AND THREW THE LITTLE YELLOW COAT I'D MADE FOR OUR SEVEN-YEAR-OLD ONTO THE FLOOR. BUT WHEN LUCA MORETTI ASKED WHY I HADN'T SEEN MY CHILD IN ELEVEN MONTHS, MY EX-HUSBAND WENT PALE—BECAUSE HE'D TOLD LUCA A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT STORY.**

The silence in the dining room shattered under the weight of Marco's words.

Luca froze, his grip on Marco's collar loosening slightly as shock radiated through him.

"Vanessa?" Luca breathed, the name barely escaping his lips. "Vanessa ran Claire over?"

Marco nodded frantically, desperate to save himself. "Yes! Yes, it was Vanessa! She called me that night, crying hysterically. She said she was driving your silver Honda, Claire. She said it was an accident!"

I stumbled backward, bumping into the heavy oak dining chair.

"Why would Vanessa be driving my car?" I demanded, my voice rising in disbelief. "I didn't even know her back then! Luca wasn't even engaged to her yet!"

Luca let go of Marco, letting his cousin drop back to the floor.

"Marco, if you are lying to me to save your own skin..." Luca began, his voice deadly quiet.

"I'm not!" Marco cried, scrambling backward away from Luca's boots. "Think about it, Luca! Why would I want to kill my own wife? We were having problems, yes, but I didn't want her dead! Vanessa offered me a way out."

"A way out of what?" I asked, my stomach churning.

Marco looked away, shame finally breaking through his cowardice.

"Debt," Marco confessed weakly. "I owed a lot of money to the wrong people. Gambling debts. Over two million dollars. Vanessa found out. She came to me a week before the accident."

Marco swallowed hard, looking back up at Luca.

"She knew you were starting to look at her, Luca. She wanted to marry into the Moretti family, but she knew you valued loyalty above all else. She needed to prove she was indispensable to you. She needed a tragedy to save you from."

"She ran Claire over to get to me?" Luca asked, absolute revulsion twisting his features.

"No," Marco said, shaking his head. "Claire wasn't the target. Claire was just collateral damage."

I felt the blood drain from my face. "What do you mean?"

Marco pointed a trembling finger at me.

"The night of the accident, Claire was wearing a long, tan trench coat, walking in the rain," Marco explained, his voice shaking. "Vanessa wasn't trying to hit Claire. She was trying to hit the woman walking ten feet in front of her."

Luca's eyes widened in horrifying realization.

"My sister," Luca whispered. "Elena."

"Yes," Marco choked out. "Elena was investigating Vanessa's background. She was getting close to finding out about Vanessa's ties to the Russian syndicate. Vanessa needed her silenced. She stole Claire's spare keys from my desk, took her car, and waited outside the dance studio where she knew Elena was meeting Claire for a class."

I gasped, covering my mouth with my hands.

Elena Moretti was the only reason I had ever met Luca. She took my adult ballet classes. We had walked out of the studio together that night. I remembered pausing to tie my shoe at the curb, letting Elena walk slightly ahead of me into the rain.

"Vanessa sped toward the intersection," Marco continued rapidly. "But you bent down, Claire. You stepped off the curb right into her path. She hit you instead. She panicked and drove off, calling me to clean up the mess."

"And you did," Luca stated, the cold fury returning to his eyes. "You paid Arthur Vance to scrap the car and stage a hit-and-run with a phantom truck. You sacrificed your wife's legs to protect Vanessa, so Vanessa would pay off your gambling debts."

"She paid them!" Marco defended himself pathetically. "And she promised she would never hurt Elena again if I kept quiet!"

I looked at the man I had married. The man who had held our daughter. He had traded my body, my health, and my sanity for money.

"You let me believe it was a random accident," I whispered, tears of pure anger spilling down my cheeks. "You watched me suffer for a year, and you blamed me for it. You used my injury to steal my child."

"I had to!" Marco cried. "If you were around, if you kept asking questions, Vanessa would have killed us all!"

"Vanessa is a socialite," Luca snarled, grabbing Marco by the throat again. "She doesn't have the power to kill a Moretti!"

"She doesn't," a calm, feminine voice echoed from the doorway. "But the people I work for certainly do."

We all turned.

Standing in the grand doorway of the dining room was Vanessa.

She was still wearing her fitted red silk gown, her diamond earrings sparkling maliciously. But the elegant, refined fiancée was gone.

In her right hand, she held a suppressed, compact pistol, aimed directly at Luca's chest.

Behind her stood four massive, heavily armed men. They weren't Luca's guards. They wore tactical gear with no insignia.

"Russian mercenaries," Luca observed quietly, releasing Marco and stepping slightly in front of me. "You didn't just sell us out, Vanessa. You brought the wolves inside the house."

Vanessa smiled, a cold, calculating expression.

"I tried to do this the easy way, Luca," Vanessa purred, stepping into the room. "I tried to marry you, slowly bleed the Moretti assets into the Volkov syndicate, and take over Chicago quietly. But your pathetic cousin couldn't even manage his own crippled wife."

She glared at Marco with absolute disgust.

"I told you to keep her away from the estate, Marco. I told you to keep her quiet."

"I tried!" Marco sobbed from the floor. "She wouldn't stop asking for the kid!"

"You're pathetic," Vanessa spat. She raised the gun and, without a second of hesitation, fired a single shot.

Phut.

The suppressed bullet struck Marco directly in the chest.

Marco gasped, his eyes widening in shock. He collapsed back onto the marble floor, blood rapidly pooling around him.

I screamed, instinctively covering my ears, backing away until I hit the dining table.

Luca didn't flinch. He didn't look at his dying cousin. He kept his eyes locked on Vanessa.

"You won't leave this estate alive, Vanessa," Luca said, his voice dangerously calm. "My men heavily guard the perimeter. You have four Russians. I have forty soldiers."

Vanessa laughed.

"Your soldiers are currently dealing with a massive fire in the west wing," Vanessa smirked. "And the guards at the front gate were very accommodating once we showed them the explosive vests we strapped to your precious sister, Elena, ten minutes ago."

Luca went rigid. The color completely drained from his face.

"Where is she?" Luca demanded, his voice dropping into a lethal, terrifying register.

"She's tied to a chair in the wine cellar," Vanessa smiled. "And the detonator is in my hand."

She held up a small, black remote control with her left hand, her thumb hovering over a red button.

"Now, Luca, darling," Vanessa mocked. "You are going to walk over to the wall safe in your study, open it, and hand over the bearer bonds your father left you. Or I press this button, and your sister becomes a memory."

Luca stared at the detonator, his jaw clenched so hard I thought his teeth would shatter.

"I need proof she's alive," Luca demanded.

"You don't get to make demands," Vanessa snapped. "Move!"

"No," I said loudly.

The room fell silent.

Vanessa turned her gun toward me, looking genuinely annoyed.

"Excuse me?" Vanessa sneered.

I stepped out from behind Luca, my hands shaking violently, but I forced myself to stand tall. I looked directly at the woman who had ruined my life.

"You don't have the detonator," I said, my voice echoing in the large room.

Vanessa frowned. "I'm holding it, you idiot."

"No, you're not," I said, pointing at the black remote in her hand. "That's a garage door opener."

Vanessa looked down at her hand.

For a fraction of a second, her confidence wavered.

It was a bluff. A desperate, terrified bluff. But I remembered what Marco had told me once about Vanessa—she was paranoid, always double-checking her own lies.

In that split second of hesitation, as Vanessa glanced down, Luca moved with terrifying, explosive speed.

He didn't go for Vanessa.

He grabbed the heavy, silver serving tray from the dining table and hurled it like a frisbee directly at the tactical guard standing closest to Vanessa.