“SMILE, EMILY. THESE PEOPLE PAID GOOD MONEY TO SEE WHAT CHARITY LOOKS LIKE!” THE MAFIA BOSS’S FIANCÉE HUMILIATED HIS 25-YEAR-OLD HOUSEMAID BY READING HER MOTHER’S EVICTION NOTICE ALOUD AT THEIR ENGAGEMENT DINNER—BUT WHEN EMILY REFUSED TO THANK HER FOR A DONATION THAT NEVER EXISTED, LUCA MORETT

I stared at the heavy black rosary in Luca’s palm.

“Whose is it?” I asked, my voice trembling.

“Carlo Bellini,” Luca said, his jaw locked. “Vanessa’s father. He’s known in the underworld as ‘The Priest’ because he always leaves a rosary behind when he issues a final warning.”

“A warning?” I stood up, panic tightening my chest. “So he was here. He threatened her!”

“He was here, but she got away,” Luca corrected, standing up and scanning the destroyed room. “Look at the floorboards, Emily. Look at the sofa. They didn’t just trash the place to scare her. They were searching for something specific. Something small enough to hide.”

I looked at the chaos. My mother, with her severe arthritis, barely moved fast on a good day. How had she escaped Carlo Bellini’s men?

“She must have known they were coming,” I realized. “But how?”

“Because of the engagement dinner,” Luca said smoothly, holstering his weapon. “Vanessa was supposed to keep you quiet, keep you in your place. But tonight, Vanessa got arrogant. She put your mother’s eviction notice on public display. Your mother must have had a contact inside the house who warned her that Vanessa broke the rules.”

My mind raced. Who inside the Moretti estate would warn my mother?

Then it hit me.

“Margaret,” I whispered.

Luca turned to me sharply. “Margaret Ellis? The social worker?”

“Yes! She’s the one who brought me the housing applications for the 28 women. She’s been in contact with my mother for months. They used to talk on the phone late at night, but my mom always said it was just about medical bills.”

“Margaret was at the dinner tonight,” Luca noted, his eyes narrowing. “She stood up for you. She confronted Vanessa about the housing fraud. If she texted your mother during the dinner…”

“My mom would know the Bellinis were making their move.” I grabbed Luca’s sleeve. “We have to find what she hid! If she knew they were looking for something, maybe she left a clue for me.”

I ran into the small, cramped kitchen. The flour and sugar canisters were smashed. The cheap plates were shattered.

“Think, Emily,” Luca said, standing close behind me. “Where would she hide something important? A place only you would know.”

I closed my eyes. A place only I would know.

When I was seven, I got a terrible fever. My mother stayed up for three days straight, rocking me. She used to sing a lullaby about a bird hiding its treasure in the belly of a clock.

I opened my eyes and looked at the wall.

Hanging above the shattered refrigerator was a cheap, plastic cuckoo clock. It was the only thing in the apartment that hadn’t been smashed.

I dragged a dining chair over, climbed up, and pulled the clock off the wall.

“Careful,” Luca warned.

I turned the clock over. The battery compartment was taped shut with thick black duct tape. My hands shook as I peeled it away.

Inside, there were no batteries.

There was a small, silver safety deposit box key.

And wrapped tightly around it was a faded, folded piece of paper.

I stepped down from the chair and handed the key to Luca. Then, I unfolded the paper.

It wasn’t a letter. It wasn’t a will.

It was a child’s drawing. Done in thick, clumsy crayons.

It showed a tall man in a dark suit falling backward, red crayon scribbled over his chest. Standing over him was another man holding a gun.

But what made my blood run cold were the words written at the bottom of the page, scrawled in a child’s messy handwriting:

“The bad man shot Daddy. I saw him.”

I gasped, covering my mouth.

Luca gently took the paper from my shaking hands. He stared at the drawing, his face turning entirely pale.

“Luca?” I whispered.

“I drew this,” he said, his voice entirely hollow. “I was seven years old. The night my father died.”

I stared at him in shock. “You drew this? But you said your father died of a heart attack.”

“That’s what they told me,” Luca murmured, his thumb tracing the crude red crayon marks. “My uncle, the police, Arthur... everyone told me it was a heart attack. They told me I had a nightmare. They put me in therapy for years until I believed that what I saw wasn’t real.”

He looked up at me, his dark eyes blazing with a sudden, ferocious clarity.

“Your mother was there, Emily. She didn’t just witness my father’s murder.” Luca looked back at the drawing. “She took the only piece of evidence that proved I wasn't crazy.”