PUT THAT LITTLE GIRL ON THE FLOOR! SHE DOESN'T BELONG AT MY DINNER TABLE!” THE MAFIA BOSS'S FIANCÉE SCREAMED, YANKING MY FIVE-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER OUT OF A CHAIR IN FRONT OF THIRTY WEALTHY GUESTS. I BEGGED HER TO STOP, BUT SHE ORDERED US BOTH OUT OF THE MANSION.

The explosion rattled my teeth, sending a cloud of plaster dust drifting down from the ceiling of my tiny servant’s room.

Sophie screamed, burying her face in my neck.

“Stay behind me,” Adrian ordered, instantly drawing a sleek black handgun from a holster beneath his suit jacket. His protective instinct was immediate, overriding thirty years of separation.

We rushed out of the room and hurried to the top of the grand staircase.

Thick gray smoke was billowing up from the first floor. The heavy mahogany doors of the dining room had been blown completely off their hinges, splintered wood scattered across the marble foyer.

Adrian’s two security guards were lying unconscious on the floor.

The wealthy dinner guests were screaming, scrambling out the front doors into the Chicago night.

But Vanessa and Uncle Carlo were gone.

Adrian holstered his weapon, his jaw tight with rage. “Carlo had an extraction team waiting. He blew the doors to escape.”

“He has the music box,” I panicked, holding Sophie tighter. “He’s going to find whatever my mother hid inside. He’s going to finish what he started twenty years ago.”

“No, he won't,” Adrian said, turning back to me. He held up the cracked silver pocket watch we had found in my room. “Because Carlo didn't search your room. The men who took the music box left this behind.”

“You said that watch was buried with your father,” I said, my voice trembling.

“It was,” Adrian confirmed. “Which means someone dug up my father’s grave to get it. Someone who wanted to send a very specific message.”

“Who?”

Adrian’s eyes darkened. “The only man in Chicago who hated Carlo as much as my father did. The man who raised me when my father was too sick to do it himself. Matteo.”

“Who is Matteo?”

“He was my father’s most trusted hitman,” Adrian explained, leading us quickly down the back servant stairs toward the underground garage. “He disappeared the day my father died. Everyone assumed Carlo had him killed to consolidate power. But if Matteo is alive, and he left this watch… he’s telling me he has the music box.”

Ten minutes later, we were in the back of an armored black SUV, speeding away from the Moretti mansion.

Sophie was sitting between us, playing with a button on Adrian’s jacket. Adrian kept looking at her, his expression a mix of awe and deep sorrow. He had spent his entire life believing he was the last of his family. Now, he had a sister and a niece.

“Elena,” Adrian said softly over the hum of the engine. “My mother… how did she die?”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Cancer. Eight months ago. She fought it for two years, but we didn't have the money for the experimental treatments.”

Adrian closed his eyes. The pain on his face was raw. “If I had known. If I had just looked harder…”

“She didn't want you to find us,” I said gently. “She changed our names. We moved every three years. She always told me that if the Morettis found us, we would die. She thought my father ordered the fire.”

“Carlo orchestrated the fire,” Adrian said bitterly. “He wanted control of the family. He knew my father would never step down as long as he had a wife and daughter to protect. But why would Matteo steal the music box before Carlo could?”

“Maybe Matteo wants to destroy Carlo too,” I suggested.

“Matteo doesn't care about revenge,” Adrian replied. “He cares about leverage. And if he took the box, he wants something from me.”

The SUV pulled into an abandoned industrial shipyard on the south side of the city. Rusting shipping containers loomed in the darkness like iron giants.

Adrian told his driver to wait. He helped me and Sophie out of the car.

We walked through the cold, damp air toward a dimly lit warehouse at the edge of the docks.

Adrian pushed the heavy metal door open.

Inside, the warehouse was vast and empty, except for a single metal folding table under a harsh overhead light.

Sitting on the table was my daughter’s wooden music box.

It had been violently smashed open. The tiny blue bird was crushed into splinters.

Standing behind the table was a man in his late fifties, his face scarred and weather-beaten. He wore a dark leather jacket and held a cigarette between two missing fingers.

Matteo.

“You’re late, Adrian,” the old hitman rasped, tossing his cigarette onto the concrete floor.

Adrian didn't reach for his gun. He stepped forward, shielding me and Sophie.

“You dug up my father’s grave, Matteo. You broke into my house. You terrified my sister.”

Matteo’s eyes flicked to me. He looked at the scar on my wrist. Then he looked at Sophie.

“I didn't terrify them, kid,” Matteo said gruffly. “I saved them. If Carlo’s men had gotten to that room first, your sister would be dead. I took the box so Carlo couldn't have it.”

“What was inside it?” Adrian demanded.

Matteo reached into his jacket pocket.

He didn't pull out a weapon. He pulled out a faded, folded photograph.

He tossed it onto the metal table.

“Your mother was a smart woman, Adrian,” Matteo said quietly. “She knew Carlo was planning to kill her. But she didn't just run. She took an insurance policy.”

Adrian picked up the photograph. I leaned in to look over his shoulder.

It was a picture of a young Uncle Carlo, standing in front of a bank vault. But he wasn't alone. He was shaking hands with a man wearing a police uniform. The man in the uniform was someone I recognized from the nightly news.

The current Mayor of Chicago.

But it wasn't the handshake that made Adrian gasp.

It was what they were standing over.

Lying on the floor of the bank vault, covered in a tarp, was the body of Adrian’s grandfather.

“Carlo didn't just try to kill your mother,” Matteo said, his voice echoing in the empty warehouse. “He murdered the old Don to start his rise to power. And the Mayor helped him cover it up.”

Adrian’s hands shook with rage.

“If we show this to the Mafia Commission,” Adrian whispered, “they will execute Carlo by dawn.”

“Exactly,” Matteo said. “But there’s a problem.”

Before Matteo could finish his sentence, the heavy metal doors of the warehouse slammed shut, plunging us into total darkness.

A chilling, familiar voice echoed from the catwalk above.

“The problem, my dear nephew, is that you are never leaving this warehouse.”