THE MAFIA BOSS CALLED MY NAME THREE TIMES WHILE I WAS SERVING HIS ENGAGEMENT DINNER—THEN HIS FIANCÉE SAID, “SHE HIT HER HEAD ON THE SERVICE DOOR,” BEFORE HE EVEN ASKED WHY I COULDN’T HEAR HIM. For three seconds, everyone at the table thought I was deliberately ignoring Luca Moretti. I wasn't.

I didn't stay in my room.

I was supposed to. Mrs. Carter had led me up the back staircase, handed me an ice pack wrapped in a linen towel, and told me to wait for the private physician. But the ringing in my left ear had morphed into a dull, rhythmic thumping that matched my racing heart.

I couldn't sit still. The memory of Vanessa Bellini’s cold, calculated smile as she lied to the man she was going to marry made my stomach turn. She knew exactly what was behind the music room door. And she knew that I knew.

I crept out of my bedroom and walked silently down the carpeted hallway, stopping at the landing of the grand staircase.

From the shadows, I watched Luca Moretti.

He was standing outside the service corridor with Daniel, his head of security. I watched as Daniel inserted the master key into the old music room door.

"Open it," Luca commanded.

When the heavy wooden door finally swung outward, the smell of stale air, dust, and something undeniably metallic wafted into the hallway.

Luca didn't flinch. He stepped into the doorway, his broad shoulders blocking most of my view.

"Isabella," Luca breathed, his voice dropping an octave, completely devoid of its usual terrifying command. It was the voice of a man whose reality had just fractured.

The woman stepped into the sliver of light spilling from the hallway.

I pressed a hand over my mouth to stifle a gasp.

It was Luca's younger sister. She had been the darling of the Chicago tabloids until six months ago, when Vanessa publicly announced that Isabella had checked herself into an exclusive Swiss rehab facility following a severe mental breakdown.

She wasn't in Switzerland.

Isabella looked entirely broken. She wore a faded silk nightgown that hung off her gaunt frame. Her dark hair, once famous for its glamorous blowout, was matted and dull. But it was her eyes that chilled me to the bone. They were wide, frantic, and filled with absolute terror as she looked at her own brother.

"You promised," Isabella whispered, her voice trembling violently. She backed away from him. "Vanessa said if I stayed quiet, if I didn't try to leave the wing, you wouldn't hurt him. She said you just needed me out of the way for the wedding."

Luca froze.

The most ruthless man in the city, a man who controlled politicians and unions with a single phone call, looked entirely helpless.

"Isabella, look at me," Luca said softly, holding his hands out, palms open. "I didn't do this. I thought you were in Geneva. I have been paying the clinic every month. Vanessa told me you refused to take my calls."

"No!" Isabella shrieked, pressing her hands over her ears. "Stop lying! I read the letters, Luca! I saw your signature! You signed the papers transferring my trust to Vanessa! You told her to keep me locked in the east wing!"

Answer one: Vanessa hadn't just hidden Isabella; she had convinced the poor woman that Luca was the mastermind behind her captivity.

"East wing?" Daniel, the security head, stepped forward, his hand resting instinctively on his holster. "Mr. Moretti, the east wing has been sealed off for renovations since the spring."

"Vanessa moved me today," Isabella sobbed, her knees giving out as she collapsed onto the dusty hardwood floor of the music room. "She said the contractors were coming. She forced me into the service corridor. She locked the door."

Luca knelt slowly in front of his sister. He didn't reach out to touch her, sensing she would flinch.

"Isabella," Luca said, his voice terrifyingly calm, the kind of calm that precedes a hurricane. "I have never written you a letter. I have never signed away your trust. I would burn this entire city to the ground before I let anyone lock you in a room."

Isabella looked up at him, her chest heaving. The sheer, unadulterated sincerity in his dark eyes seemed to pierce through months of psychological torture. She blinked, her lip trembling as the realization hit her.

Her brother hadn't betrayed her. The woman sleeping in his bed had.

But the relief on Isabella's face lasted only a fraction of a second before it was entirely wiped away by a panic so visceral it made my own chest ache.

"Luca," Isabella gasped, grabbing the lapels of his custom suit. "Luca, if you didn't know I was here... if you didn't order this..."

"I swear to you, I didn't."

"Then where is he?" she screamed, the sound tearing through the quiet mansion.

Luca’s brow furrowed. "Where is who?"

Isabella’s shaking hands dropped from his suit. She reached into the pocket of her faded nightgown and pulled out an object, clutching it to her chest as if it were a lifeline. Slowly, she extended her trembling hand toward her brother.

It was a small, blue canvas shoe. A toddler's shoe.

My breath caught in my throat.

"Matteo," Isabella sobbed, rocking back and forth. "When Vanessa moved me this afternoon... she didn't bring Matteo. She took him from me, Luca. She took my son."

The reversal hit me like a physical blow. Isabella hadn't just been locked away. She had been raising a child in the shadows. A child that Vanessa had now separated from his mother.

Luca stared at the tiny shoe, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle ticked beneath his skin.

He slowly stood up. The brother who had knelt in the dust was gone. The ghost of Chicago had returned.

"Daniel," Luca said, his voice entirely dead. "Lock down the estate. No one enters. No one leaves. Not the guests. Not the staff."

Daniel nodded, pulling his radio. "Yes, sir."

"And Daniel?" Luca turned his head, his eyes burning with a lethal fire. "Find my nephew. Now."

I didn't wait to hear another word. I turned and practically ran down the hallway back toward the servant's quarters. If Vanessa had moved the child this afternoon while she was directing the staff to prepare for the engagement dinner, she couldn't have taken him far.

I pushed open the door to my small bedroom, intending to grab my flashlight to search the unused servants' passages.

But as I closed my door, I heard it.