**“STOP READING TO HIM, HANNAH! HE'S A GROWN MAN, NOT A LITTLE BOY!” THE MAFIA BOSS'S FIANCÉE HUMILIATED HIS 26-YEAR-OLD MAID FOR HELPING HIS FATHER READ THE DINNER MENU—BUT WHEN THE OLD MAN WHISPERED, “I ALREADY SAID I'D STAY HOME FROM THE WEDDING, LUCA. YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE ASHAMED OF ME,” HIS SON SLOWLY PUT DOWN HIS GLASS.**

The grand foyer descended into instant, chaotic silence.

Dozens of police officers and detectives turned their eyes toward me, their hands dropping to their holsters.

“She’s lying!” I screamed, clinging to Luca’s arm. “He’s the one who shot Frank! He was chasing me in the wine cellar!”

Victor hurried down the sweeping marble staircase, playing the role of the grieving, frantic uncle perfectly.

“She has the lockbox right there in her hands!” Victor cried, pointing at the steel box Luca was holding. “She stole it from Vanessa’s suite! Search her! I guarantee she has Vanessa’s jewelry in her pockets!”

A female police officer stepped forward, her hand resting cautiously on her weapon. “Miss, I need you to step away from Mr. Moretti and raise your hands.”

“She doesn't have a weapon!” Luca roared, pulling me behind him, shielding my body with his own.

“She has blood on her apron, sir,” the detective said, his voice hard.

I looked down.

My white maid’s apron was smeared with dark, fresh blood. I gasped. It must have happened when Frank grabbed my arm in the dining room after he was shot, or maybe from crawling on the cellar floor where a rat had been caught. I didn't know, but it looked damning.

“Luca, listen to me,” Victor pleaded, stopping at the bottom of the stairs, his eyes wide with fake sorrow. “I know you liked this girl, but she’s a thief. She manipulated Frank to get close to the family. She killed Vanessa for her diamonds, and when Frank caught her, she killed him too. Let the police do their job.”

Luca looked at his uncle. The dark, terrifying intensity of the mafia boss had vanished, replaced by a cold, calculating emptiness that was far more dangerous.

“You think a twenty-six-year-old maid overpowered my father, a retired mechanic who spent forty years working with his hands?” Luca asked quietly.

“She had a gun!” Victor insisted.

“If she had a gun,” Luca said, his voice dropping to a whisper that carried across the silent foyer, “why did she run to me instead of running out the back door?”

“Because she’s trying to play you!” Victor shouted. “Open the box, Luca! It’s probably filled with Vanessa’s cash!”

Luca looked at the steel lockbox in his hands.

He didn't hand it to the police. He set it down on a small marble accent table near the stairs.

“Marco,” Luca said calmly.

“Yes, boss.” Marco stepped forward, glaring at Victor.

“Shoot the lock.”

The police detective immediately protested. “Mr. Moretti, that is evidence—”

“It’s my property, in my house,” Luca interrupted, his voice laced with absolute authority. “Shoot the lock, Marco.”

Marco drew his weapon, aimed at the heavy padlock securing the steel box, and fired. The deafening crack echoed through the foyer, making several officers flinch. The rusted lock shattered.

Luca opened the lid.

There was no cash inside. There were no diamonds.

There were three thick, leather-bound ledgers, yellowed with age.

Luca carefully pulled the top ledger out and opened it. He flipped through the pages, his eyes scanning the faded ink.

Victor’s face went completely pale. The confident, grieving uncle facade cracked, revealing the terrified coward underneath.

“Those… those are old records,” Victor stammered, taking a small step backward toward the stairs. “They don't mean anything.”

“These are the financial records from thirty years ago,” Luca said, his voice eerily steady. “The year my mother died.”

Luca looked up, his dark eyes locking onto his uncle’s pale face.

“You told my father that Lorenzo Rossi ordered the hit on my mother because she refused to sell her shares of the shipping ports,” Luca said, reading from the ledger.

“He did!” Victor insisted. “Rossi was a monster!”

“According to these ledgers,” Luca continued, turning the book so Victor could see the ink, “the shipping ports were sold three days before my mother was murdered. And the three million dollars from the sale wasn't deposited into the family accounts.”

Luca stepped away from the table, walking slowly toward his uncle.

“It was deposited into an offshore account in the Cayman Islands,” Luca said coldly. “An account registered to a shell corporation owned by you, Victor.”

The police officers in the foyer exchanged uneasy glances. The murder investigation was suddenly turning into a massive federal conspiracy case.

“That’s forged!” Victor yelled, pointing at me. “She forged it! She’s trying to frame me!”

“She forged thirty-year-old ink while she was running from you in a wine cellar?” Luca asked, his voice dripping with venom.

He pulled the silver lighter from his pocket. The one Frank had kept hidden for three decades.

“My father kept this lighter,” Luca said, holding it up. “He told Hannah that you gave it to him thirty years ago as a threat. To remind him that you could kill a boss’s wife, and you could easily kill him if he ever talked about the missing money.”

“Frank was lying!” Victor screamed, panic fully setting in. “He hated me! He always hated me!”

“Why would my father lie, Victor?” Luca asked softly, stopping inches from his uncle’s face. “He’s dead.”

Victor realized he had backed himself into a corner. He looked at the police, who were now looking at him with deep suspicion. He looked at Marco’s men, who had quietly positioned themselves between Victor and the front door.

Victor made a desperate, fatal mistake.

He reached into his suit jacket and pulled the suppressed pistol he had used to murder Frank.

“Get back!” Victor screamed, grabbing a young female police officer by the collar and pulling her in front of him as a human shield, pressing the gun to her head.

Chaos erupted. Dozens of guns were instantly drawn and aimed at Victor.

“Drop the weapon, Victor!” the detective yelled.

“I’m leaving!” Victor roared, backing toward the front doors, dragging the terrified officer with him. “If anyone follows me, I kill her! I killed the mechanic, I killed the stupid fiancée, and I’ll kill a cop!”

He had just confessed to a room full of police officers.

But Luca didn't draw his gun.

He didn't shout.

He simply looked at Marco.

Marco, standing near the grand staircase, didn't hesitate. He didn't aim for Victor’s chest, knowing he might hit the officer.

Marco aimed low.

He fired a single shot from his heavy tactical pistol.

The bullet shattered Victor’s right kneecap.

Victor screamed in agony, his leg collapsing under him. He dropped the officer and fell to the marble floor, writhing in pain, the suppressed pistol skittering away across the tiles.

The police swarmed him instantly, pinning him to the ground and slapping handcuffs on his wrists.

“You’re a dead man, Luca!” Victor shrieked as they dragged him away, his blood smearing the pristine marble floor. “The Commission will execute you for shooting your own blood!”

Luca watched his uncle being hauled out the front doors, his face a mask of absolute, terrifying calm.

“You stopped being my blood thirty years ago,” Luca whispered.

The foyer fell quiet again as the police secured the scene and began moving toward the dining room to investigate the murders.

Luca didn't follow them.

He turned around and walked back to me.

I was leaning against the marble accent table, trembling violently, the adrenaline finally leaving my system, leaving me feeling hollow and exhausted.

Luca stopped in front of me. He didn't say a word. He just reached out and gently pulled me into his arms.

I collapsed against his chest, burying my face in his ruined suit jacket, sobbing for Frank, for the terrifying night, for the sheer relief of surviving.

He held me tight, one hand resting on the back of my head, his chin resting on my hair.

“You saved my family’s legacy tonight, Hannah,” Luca whispered fiercely into my hair. “You are the bravest woman I have ever known.”

I pulled back slightly, looking up into his dark, grief-stricken eyes.

“I couldn't save Frank,” I cried softly.

Luca’s jaw tightened, a fresh wave of sorrow washing over his face. “You gave him peace, Hannah. You let him stand up for himself one last time. You gave him his dignity.”

Before I could answer, a loud, sharp crash echoed from the upper floor of the mansion.

It sounded like a heavy glass vase shattering in the hallway near Vanessa’s suite.

Luca froze, his eyes darting toward the grand staircase.

“Marco,” Luca said, his voice instantly dropping back into command mode. “I thought you said Vanessa’s floor was secured.”

“It is, boss,” Marco frowned, drawing his weapon again. “My men have the hallway locked down.”

Another crash echoed from upstairs, followed by the muffled shout of one of Marco’s guards.

“Stay here,” Luca ordered me, drawing his own weapon.

He sprinted up the marble stairs, Marco right behind him.

I didn't stay. I couldn't. I grabbed the heavy iron key Frank had given me from my apron pocket—my only makeshift weapon—and ran up the stairs after them.

When I reached the top of the landing, I stopped dead in my tracks.

The hallway outside Vanessa’s suite was a disaster zone. Two of Marco’s massive security guards were lying unconscious on the expensive Persian rug.

And standing in the open doorway of Vanessa’s suite, holding a heavy bronze statue she had just used to bludgeon the guards, was Vanessa Bellini.

She was covered in blood, but she wasn't dead.