SMILE, SWEETHEART. HE'S AN IMPORTANT GUEST

The armored SUV came to a screeching halt.

The headlights cut through the pouring rain, illuminating Vanessa.

She wasn't wearing her designer gown anymore. She wore a dark trench coat, drenched in the downpour.

In her right hand, she held a small, black detonator with a glowing red light.

“Reverse!” Luca barked at the driver.

The driver shifted gears, but the sound of heavy engines roared from behind us. Two massive black trucks pulled across the highway, boxing us in entirely.

We were trapped.

Luca didn't panic. He checked his sidearm.

“Stay in the car. Get down on the floor,” he ordered me and Katie.

He pushed his door open and stepped out into the freezing rain.

I couldn't stay down. I peered over the edge of the window.

Luca walked slowly toward Vanessa, stopping ten feet away.

“It’s over, Vanessa,” Luca said, his voice carrying over the storm. “Richard is in my vault. The Commission has the photos. You have nowhere to run.”

Vanessa laughed. It was a sharp, broken sound.

“I don't need to run, Luca. I planned for this.”

She held up the detonator.

“The bridge half a mile up this road? The one leading to the cabin? It’s wired with C4. If I press this button, the bridge drops into the gorge. You’ll never reach Leo.”

Luca’s jaw clenched. “What do you want?”

“I want my freedom,” Vanessa stated. “I want a plane waiting at O'Hare. I want fifty million transferred to my offshore accounts. And I want her.”

She pointed a long, manicured finger directly at the SUV.

At me.

My blood ran cold.

“Why do you want Emma?” Luca asked, stepping slightly to block her line of sight to the car.

“Because Richard is a fool,” Vanessa sneered. “He wanted her for a weekend. But I know who she really is.”

Luca frowned. “She’s a housemaid trying to support her family.”

“She is the daughter of Arthur Sullivan!” Vanessa screamed over the rain.

Luca froze.

Arthur Sullivan. My father. The man I thought was a mild-mannered accountant who died of a heart attack two years ago.

“Arthur Sullivan was the only man who knew the passwords to the encrypted hard drives my father left behind,” Vanessa said. “He hid them before he died. I know Emma has the key.”

I gasped, looking at Katie. Katie’s eyes were wide with terror.

My father wasn't just an accountant. He was the money launderer for the Chicago syndicate.

Luca didn't turn around. He kept his eyes locked on Vanessa.

“She doesn't know anything, Vanessa.”

“Then I’ll torture her sister until she remembers!”

Vanessa’s thumb moved over the red button.

“Hand her over, Luca! Or the boy starves in that cabin!”

Luca slowly raised his hands in surrender.

“Okay,” he said softly. “You win.”

He turned toward the SUV.

He walked to my door and opened it.

“Mr. Moretti, please,” I whispered, terrified.

Luca leaned in close. He didn't grab my arm. He reached into his coat and slipped something small and cold into my hand.

A heavy, silver pocket watch.

“When you get out,” Luca whispered so softly only I could hear, “throw the watch at her feet. Don't hesitate.”

I gripped the watch. I nodded.

I stepped out of the SUV into the freezing rain.

Vanessa smiled triumphantly.

“Good girl. Now walk toward me.”

I walked past Luca. I felt his presence, a solid wall of dangerous calm right behind me.

I stopped five feet from Vanessa.

“Where is the key, Emma?” she demanded.

I looked her in the eyes.

“Right here.”

I threw the silver pocket watch directly at her feet.

It hit the wet asphalt with a loud crack.

The watch didn't just break.

It exploded in a blinding flash of white light and deafening noise. A flashbang grenade disguised as a timepiece.

Vanessa screamed, dropping the detonator as she was temporarily blinded and deafened.

Luca moved like lightning.

He lunged forward, kicking the detonator off the bridge and into the darkness below. He grabbed Vanessa by the throat and slammed her onto the hood of the SUV.

“Marco! Secure her!” Luca roared.

Guards poured out of the backup vehicles, swarming the blocked trucks behind us.

The ambush was broken in seconds.

Luca stood over Vanessa, who was gasping for air.

“You’re going to spend the rest of your life in a concrete box,” Luca promised her.

He turned back to me.

I was shaking from the adrenaline and the cold.

Luca took off his heavy trench coat and draped it over my shoulders.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“My father,” I stammered. “He was one of you?”

Luca looked at me with deep sympathy.