THE ASHES OF A FATHER'S LEGACY

The silence in the coach house was deafening.

Daniel stepped fully into the room, kicking the door shut behind him.

The gun in his hand didn’t waver.

“Put the jewelry and the book on the floor, Boss,” Daniel said.

His voice was calm. Too calm.

Luca didn’t stand up.

He remained kneeling beside the open safe, the bloody diamond bracelet still resting in his palm.

“You told me the demolition crew was hired by Vanessa,” Luca said, his tone dangerously flat.

“They were,” Daniel replied.

“But you were the one who told her where to look.”

Daniel gave a tight, apologetic shrug.

“She pays better, Luca. And her father pays best of all.”

Answer one. Open two.

Vanessa wasn’t acting alone.

Her father, Carlo Bellini—the head of a rival syndicate that Luca was supposed to merge with on Saturday—was pulling the strings.

But why did a billionaire mob boss care about an old mechanic’s floor safe?

“What’s so important about this bracelet, Daniel?” Luca asked.

“You know whose it is.”

“Yes,” Luca said. “It belonged to Vanessa’s mother. The woman Carlo claimed was killed in a random home invasion twenty years ago.”

My heart hammered against my ribs.

I looked at the dried blood on the diamonds.

“It wasn’t a home invasion,” I whispered.

Daniel’s eyes shifted to me.

“Smart girl. Pity you had to come back out here tonight.”

He cocked the pistol.

“Carlo killed his own wife,” Luca said, piecing it together aloud. “And my father found the proof. He hid it here to keep the Bellinis from destroying our family.”

Daniel sighed.

“Antonio was a fool. He should have used it to blackmail Carlo. Instead, he just sat on it. And now, you’re going to hand it over.”

“Or what?” Luca asked.

“Or I shoot the maid.”

Daniel aimed the gun squarely at my face.

“And then I shoot you, and tell Carlo I caught you two stealing from the estate.”

My knees trembled.

I was twenty-nine years old. I had a father who relied on my paycheck. I couldn’t die in a dirty coach house.

I looked at the heavy crowbar we had used to pry up the floorboards.

It was lying two feet from my left hand.

Luca saw where I was looking.

He met my eyes for a fraction of a second.

“Okay, Daniel,” Luca said, slowly rising to his feet and holding out the journal and the bracelet. “You win. Take them.”

Daniel smiled and stepped forward to take the items.

“Duck,” Luca snapped.

I threw myself flat against the dusty floor.

Luca didn’t hand the items over. Instead, he hurled the heavy, black leather journal directly into Daniel’s face.

The heavy spine struck Daniel’s nose with a sickening crunch.

The gun went off, the bullet burying itself in the brick wall above my head.

Before Daniel could recover, I grabbed the iron crowbar and swung it as hard as I could at his shins.

Daniel screamed and collapsed.

Luca was on him in an instant, pinning him to the ground and stripping the gun from his grip.

He pressed the barrel of the pistol against Daniel’s chest.

“Who else knows we’re out here?” Luca demanded.

Daniel spat blood onto the floor.

“No one. Vanessa is asleep.”

Luca grabbed him by the collar, hauling him up and dragging him toward the heavy support beam in the center of the room.

Using zip ties from my discarded cleaning cart, Luca bound Daniel’s hands and feet to the pillar.

“You’re going to sit here until I figure out what to do with you,” Luca said coldly.

He picked up the journal and the bloody bracelet.

Then he turned to me.

His eyes were entirely different now.

The polished, detached billionaire was gone. The man standing before me was a protector who had just been backed into a corner.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

“No,” I breathed, shaking violently.

“Anna, you need to pack your things. I’m having a car take you and your father to a safe house. It isn’t safe for you here.”

I looked at him.

I thought about the sixty-eight dollars in my bank account.

I thought about my father.

And then I thought about Vanessa, sitting in her silk dresses, treating people like garbage, burning a dead man’s legacy to protect a murderer.

“No,” I said.

Luca stopped.

“What?”

“I said no. If I run, Carlo Bellini will eventually find us. He has the money and the men.”

I stood up, wiping the brick dust from my skirt.

“If you want to stop this wedding and destroy them, you need to know exactly what’s in that journal. And you can’t read it while hosting a rehearsal dinner tomorrow.”

Luca stared at me.

“What are you suggesting?”

“I’m suggesting I stay,” I said. “I’ll serve the dinner. I’ll keep an eye on Vanessa and Carlo. And while they think you’re completely oblivious, you translate your father’s book.”

For a long moment, Luca just looked at me.

“You could be killed.”

“I was almost killed tonight,” I replied. “At least tomorrow, I’ll be getting paid time-and-a-half.”

A tiny, incredulous smile broke across Luca’s face.

“Alright,” he said softly.

He reached out and gently brushed a smudge of dirt from my cheek.

“But if Carlo Bellini looks at you the wrong way, the wedding is off, and we go to war.”

I nodded.

But we were already at war.

Because as we walked back to the mansion, I noticed a single red silk thread caught on the rose bushes near the coach house path.

Vanessa hadn’t been asleep.

She had followed Daniel.