PUT THAT CAKE BACK AND KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT! YOU'RE A HOUSEMAID, NOT A CHEF!” THE MAFIA BOSS'S FIANCÉE HUMILIATED THE YOUNG MAID IN FRONT OF FORTY GUESTS—

The flight back to Chicago was the longest nine hours of my life.

We flew on Luca’s private jet, leaving Leo safely in Tuscany surrounded by twenty armed guards.

I stared out the window at the dark ocean below, my hands twisted nervously in my lap.

My mother wasn't answering her phone. Daniel’s men had breached her townhouse, but it was empty. No signs of a struggle. Her purse and keys were still on the kitchen counter.

She had vanished.

“We’ll find her, Emma,” Luca promised, sitting across from me, his hand resting reassuringly over mine.

“Who could have taken her, Luca?” I whispered, fighting back tears. “Your enemies are dead.”

“In my world, enemies never truly die,” Luca said grimly. “They just change names.”

We landed in Chicago just before dawn. The city was shrouded in a thick, freezing fog.

Daniel was waiting for us on the tarmac with a fleet of armored SUVs.

“Boss,” Daniel greeted him, opening the door for us.

“Report,” Luca demanded as we climbed inside.

“We swept the townhouse completely. No forced entry. But we found something in her bedroom.”

Daniel handed Luca an evidence bag.

Inside the clear plastic was a heavy, antique gold pocket watch.

I recognized it instantly.

It was the same watch we had found in the kitchen on the night of the engagement dinner. The watch that had belonged to Luca’s deceased father.

“Why would my father’s watch be on her pillow?” Luca muttered, staring at the evidence bag.

“There’s an engraving on the back, sir,” Daniel pointed out.

Luca flipped the bag over.

Scratched crudely into the polished gold backplate was a single word.

Vincenzo.

Luca stopped breathing.

I looked at him. “Who is Vincenzo?”

“My uncle,” Luca whispered, horror dawning in his eyes. “The man your father assassinated thirty years ago.”

“But he’s dead,” I said, shivering. “My dad killed him.”

“Vincenzo had a son,” Luca said softly. “A boy who was sent away to boarding school in Europe right before the assassination. He was raised outside the family. Kept entirely separate from the syndicate.”

Luca looked at Daniel.

“His name is Lorenzo. He must have come back to claim the throne and avenge his father.”

The pieces fell together with sickening clarity.

Lorenzo hadn't just come for the syndicate. He wanted the people responsible for his father’s death to suffer. Since my father was already dead, he took the next best thing.

My mother.

“Where is he?” Luca asked.

“We tracked the GPS on your mother-in-law’s car,” Daniel said. “It was dumped at an old, abandoned meatpacking plant on the South Side.”

“Arm up,” Luca ordered coldly. “We’re ending this today.”

Thirty minutes later, we pulled up to the rusted gates of the meatpacking plant. The fog was thick, obscuring the massive brick buildings.

Luca handed me a Kevlar vest.

“Put this on. Stay in the center of the formation.”

I strapped the vest over my chest, my hands shaking. I wasn't going to wait in the car this time. I was getting my mother back.

We moved silently through the fog, a dozen heavily armed men sweeping the perimeter.

The heavy steel doors of the main plant were chained shut from the inside.

Daniel placed a breaching charge on the lock.

BOOM.

The doors blew open, smoke pouring into the dark warehouse.

We stepped inside.

The smell of old blood and rust filled the air.

In the center of the cavernous room, illuminated by a single spotlight, sat my mother. She was tied to a wooden chair, gagged, looking terrified but unhurt.

“Mom!” I screamed, stepping forward.

Luca grabbed my arm, yanking me back.

“It’s a trap, Emma.”

A slow, mocking applause echoed from the catwalk above us.

A man stepped into the light. He looked to be in his late thirties, wearing a sharp tailored suit that contrasted starkly with the rotting warehouse.

Lorenzo.

“Very good, cousin,” Lorenzo smiled down at Luca. “I knew you couldn't resist a rescue mission.”

“Let her go, Lorenzo,” Luca said, his rifle aimed directly at the man on the catwalk. “Your fight is with me. She’s an innocent.”

“Innocent?” Lorenzo laughed. “Her husband murdered my father in cold blood! He stole my birthright! I spent thirty years in exile because of that baker!”

Lorenzo raised a hand.

From the shadows of the warehouse floor, twenty heavily armed mercenaries stepped out, surrounding us completely.

We were outnumbered two to one.