**“STOP MAKING THOSE HAND SIGNS. YOU’RE EMBARRASSING HIS FAMILY!” THE MAFIA BOSS’S FIANCÉE GRABBED MY WRIST IN FRONT OF THIRTY DINNER GUESTS—BUT WHEN HIS DEAF SISTER STARTED CRYING, I RISKED MY JOB TO TELL HIM WHAT SHE WAS REALLY SAYING.**

The mansion was suffocatingly quiet as Luca and I walked down the long, shadowed hallway toward the guest wing.

Luca didn’t call Marco. He didn’t wake the guards. He walked with a terrifying, predatory silence, holding the leather ledger in one hand and his father’s heavy silver revolver in the other.

I followed closely behind him, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.

Silas. The man who always brought me a box of chocolates on Christmas. The man who patted my shoulder and told me I was a good, hard worker. He had stolen my father’s hearing, stolen our future, and then smiled in my face while making my disabled father run drugs for his enemies.

Luca reached the heavy oak door of the guest suite. He didn’t knock. He turned the brass handle, pushed the door open, and stepped inside.

The room was dark. Silas, a silver-haired man in his late sixties, was sitting up in bed, reading a book by the light of a small bedside lamp.

He looked up, surprised but completely calm.

“Luca? It’s past three in the morning, son. Is everything all right with the boy?”

Luca didn’t answer. He walked to the foot of the bed and threw the leather ledger onto the mattress.

It landed with a heavy, accusatory thud.

Silas looked at the book. For a fraction of a second, the grandfatherly warmth vanished from his eyes, replaced by a cold, calculating panic. But he covered it quickly.

“Your father’s journal,” Silas said, adjusting his reading glasses. “I haven’t seen that in years. What brings this up tonight?”

Luca raised the silver revolver, pointing it directly at Silas’s chest.

“David Collins,” Luca said softly.

Silas froze. He looked past Luca and saw me standing in the doorway. His face drained of color.

“Luca, put the gun down. You’re exhausted. You’re not thinking clearly.”

“Where is the money, Silas?” Luca asked, his voice dead and emotionless. “Two million dollars. Entrusted to you twenty-five years ago to care for the man who saved my father’s life. The man whose hearing was destroyed protecting our family.”

Silas swallowed hard. He looked at the gun, then at me.

“I didn’t steal it, Luca,” Silas lied, his voice trembling slightly. “David refused the money! He was proud. He didn’t want mob money. I put it into offshore investments to let it grow, waiting for a day he might need it.”

“You are a liar,” I said, stepping into the room.

My voice surprised even me. It didn’t shake. It was filled with twenty-five years of watching my father struggle to read lips, watching him get mocked by customers, watching him work until his hands bled.

Silas glared at me. “Watch your tone, maid.”

“She is the Head of this Household,” Luca roared, stepping closer and pressing the barrel of the gun against Silas’s forehead. “And she is the daughter of a hero. You stole her life.”

Silas closed his eyes, his breathing ragged. The facade crumbled.

“It was a waste!” Silas shouted, sudden anger flaring in his eyes. “Two million dollars to a glorified mechanic? Your father was soft, Luca! The family needed that money to rebuild after the war with the Rossis! I used it to buy the docks! I used it to secure our shipping routes! I built this empire with that money!”

“And what about forcing him to run packages for the Rossis?” Luca demanded.

Silas laughed bitterly. “He owed us! He was a loose end! I made an arrangement with Dante. We used the deaf mute as a courier because nobody looks twice at a cripple. It kept the peace!”

A tear of pure rage slipped down my cheek. He called my father a cripple.

Luca’s finger tightened on the trigger. His eyes were black with fury. He was going to kill him right here in the bed.

“Mr. Moretti, stop,” I said softly.

Luca didn’t look at me. “He betrayed my father. He enslaved yours. He dies.”

“No,” I said, walking up to Luca and gently placing my hand on his arm holding the gun. “Don’t do it. Not like this. If you shoot him in this bed, you prove Vanessa right. You prove you’re just a monster. Leo is sleeping two rooms away. Audrey is sleeping. Don’t bring blood into the house tonight.”

Luca’s jaw clenched. He stared at Silas, who was sweating profusely, waiting for the bullet.

Slowly, agonizingly, Luca lowered the gun.

“You are lucky she has a better heart than either of us,” Luca whispered to Silas.

Luca grabbed Silas by the collar of his silk pajamas and hauled him out of bed, throwing him onto the hardwood floor.

“You have five minutes to open your personal safe,” Luca commanded. “Transfer the deeds to the docks, the shipping routes, and every cent in your offshore accounts into a trust under Emily Collins’s name.”

Silas looked up in horror. “Luca, that’s everything I own. That’s my entire life’s work.”

“It was never yours,” Luca spat. “Transfer it now. Or I let Marco take you to the basement.”

Ten minutes later, it was done. Silas sat at his laptop, trembling as he hit the final authorization key. The wealth he had built on my father’s stolen blood money was gone.

“Get out of my house,” Luca said, pointing to the door. “Leave Chicago. If I ever see your face in this city again, I won’t listen to Emily next time.”

Silas didn’t say a word. He grabbed a coat and practically ran out of the room.

I stood there, staring at the laptop screen.

Millions of dollars in assets. Shipping companies. Real estate. All legally transferred into my name.

I looked at Luca.

“Mr. Moretti… I can’t accept this.”

“It’s not a gift, Emily,” Luca said softly, placing his hand on my shoulder. “It’s a debt repaid. Twenty-five years late. But paid in full.”