SHE ABANDONED THIS FAMILY FIFTEEN YEARS AGO. DON'T YOU DARE OFFER HER A SEAT!” THE MAFIA BOSS'S AUNT HUMILIATED HIS 25-YEAR-OLD MAID FOR HELPING A PO

The coatroom went dead silent.

Marcus instinctively placed his hand over the chest pocket of his tactical vest.

Luca didn't blink. He kept the shotgun leveled at Marcus’s chest.

“Take it out,” Luca ordered.

“Luca, it’s nothing. Just garbage.”

“Take. It. Out.”

Shaking uncontrollably, Marcus reached into his vest. He pulled out a crumpled, folded piece of paper and dropped it onto the floor.

I stepped forward and picked it up.

I carefully unfolded the paper under the dim red emergency light.

It was a child's drawing.

Crayon on thick, white construction paper.

At first glance, it looked like a crude, colorful map of a house. But as I looked closer, my blood ran cold.

It was a perfect, detailed floor plan of Luca’s mansion.

Every security camera was marked with a red ‘X’. Every guard patrol route was traced in blue crayon. The blind spots were shaded in black.

And in the bottom right corner, signed in neat, thirteen-year-old cursive, was the name: Grace.

I gasped, looking up at the little girl trembling in the back of the coatroom.

“Grace?” I whispered. “Did you draw this?”

Grace burst into tears, covering her face with her hands.

“I didn't know!” she sobbed. “He told me it was a game!”

Luca lowered the shotgun slightly, staring at his niece in absolute shock.

“Grace, what do you mean?” Luca asked gently, though his eyes were wild with betrayal.

“He called me on my secret phone,” Grace cried, pointing at Marcus. “The one Grandma gave me. He said he was trapped far away and needed a map of my castle to find his way back to me. He said I had to draw where the ‘dragons’ couldn't see him so he wouldn't get hurt!”

The room seemed to drop ten degrees.

Marcus hadn't just faked his death and abandoned his adopted daughter.

He had manipulated a traumatized child into drawing a tactical map of a mafia fortress to orchestrate a hit.

“You used her,” Anna wept from the floor, staring at Marcus with pure revulsion. “You used a little girl to bypass the security.”

“It was the only way!” Marcus shouted, desperate. “Luca changes the camera codes every week! I needed to know the blind spots!”

Luca handed the shotgun to me.

“Hold this, Emma.”

I took the heavy weapon, my hands shaking, but I kept the barrel pointed safely toward the ground.

Luca didn't draw his sidearm. He didn't yell.

He simply walked up to his cousin.

Marcus tried to step back, but his shoulders hit the wall of the coatroom.

“Luca, please—”

Luca’s fist collided with Marcus’s jaw with a sickening crack.

Marcus collapsed to the floor, spitting blood, his hands covering his face.

Luca grabbed him by the tactical vest and hauled him back to his feet, slamming him against the wood paneling.

“You used my niece to map my house for cartel mercenaries,” Luca growled, his face inches from Marcus’s. “You endangered every person in this family to save your own pathetic skin.”

“My mother promised me you wouldn't get hurt!” Marcus choked out, blood dripping from his chin. “She said they only wanted the vault! She said she would distract you at dinner so I could take the money and leave!”

I stared at Marcus.

“Celia didn't know you were taking Grace?” I asked.

“No!” Marcus spat. “My mother thinks I’m here for the cash. She doesn't know the cartel doesn't want money anymore. They want leverage.”

He looked at Luca with a twisted, desperate smile.

“They want you, Luca. They want the Don of Chicago on his knees. Taking the girl was the only way to get you out of the house.”

Before Luca could hit him again, a heavy, metallic click echoed from the doorway.

We all turned.

Standing in the doorway, illuminated by the flashing red lights of the hallway, was one of the cartel mercenaries. He was covered in tactical gear, holding a suppressed submachine gun.

But he wasn't aiming it at Luca.

He was holding Celia by the hair, pressing the barrel of the gun against her temple.

Celia looked terrified, her diamond necklace torn, her immaculate dress ruined.

“Well, well,” the mercenary smiled, his voice thick with a Colombian accent. “It seems the rat found his cheese.”

Marcus froze. “Javier. I have the girl. Just like we agreed.”

“Plans change, Marcus,” Javier sneered.

He looked at Luca.

“Mr. Moretti. Your men are very good. My team is currently pinned down in the west wing. But I managed to find this lovely lady trying to sneak out the back door.”

Javier pressed the gun harder against Celia’s head. She whimpered.

“Drop the weapons. All of them. Or I paint the hallway with her.”

Luca didn't flinch. He looked at his aunt—the woman who had stolen his sister’s baby, lied to him for fifteen years, and helped orchestrate the very attack that was destroying his home.

“Shoot her,” Luca said coldly.

Celia gasped. “Luca!”

“You betrayed this family, Aunt Celia,” Luca said, his voice completely devoid of emotion. “You don't get the protection of the Moretti name anymore.”

Javier frowned, clearly not expecting a mafia boss to sacrifice his own aunt.

The hesitation lasted only a second.

But in that second, Marcus reached into his tactical vest.

He pulled out a heavy gold pocket watch.