THE MAFIA BOSS NOTICED I WAS SERVING DINNER WITHOUT EVER TURNING MY LEFT SIDE TOWARD THE TABLE—AND THE MAN BESIDE HIM STOPPED EATING. At first, I thought nobody had noticed.

“Don’t scream,” Leo breathed against my ear.

His grip on my arm was tight, desperate, but not violent. I could feel him trembling. I nodded frantically against his hand, and slowly, he released my mouth.

I spun around in the shadows of the hallway.

It had been three years since I’d seen a photograph of Leo Romano in the estate’s archives, but the man standing in front of me looked like a ghost. His face was battered, a dark purple bruise blooming across his cheekbone. His white shirt was torn at the collar, and his left arm hung uselessly at his side.

“You’re alive,” I whispered, my heart hammering against my bruised ribs.

“For now,” Leo gritted out, leaning heavily against the flocked wallpaper. He looked down at the blood-soaked wool coat by my feet. “That’s not my blood. It’s Anthony’s driver’s.”

From the study, a flashlight beam cut through the darkness.

“Secure the perimeter!” Marco’s voice roared. “Boss, are you hit?”

“I’m fine!” Luca shouted back. The sound of his voice sent a wave of overwhelming relief through me. He was alive. “Where is Anna? Find Anna!”

I took a step toward the study, but Leo caught my wrist.

“No,” he whispered fiercely. “You can’t go back in there. If Anthony didn't lock the gates, it means the rat is still in the security room. They’re listening to everything.”

“Luca needs to know you’re here,” I pleaded, keeping my voice barely above a breath. “Anthony said they took your daughter. He said they’re at St. Jude’s.”

Leo closed his eyes, a look of profound agony washing over his beaten face.

“Anthony is a fool,” Leo rasped. “Elara isn’t at St. Jude’s. I didn't hide my daughter in an orphanage.”

I stared at him, the pieces shifting in my mind. “Then where is she?”

Leo opened his eyes and looked at me with a startling intensity.

“She’s in your apartment, Anna.”

The floor seemed to drop out from beneath me.

“What?” I gasped, stepping back. “No. No, that’s impossible. I live alone. My sister is in the care facility. My apartment is empty.”

“It’s not empty,” Leo said, his voice urgent. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, crumpled piece of paper. He pressed it into my hand.

I unfolded it in the dim moonlight.

It was a child’s drawing. Crayon on lined notebook paper. It showed a tall, dark building with a yellow door. My building. Next to it was a stick figure of a little girl with curly hair, holding hands with a woman in a black and white dress.

A maid’s uniform.

“How?” I whispered, staring at the drawing. “How did she get there?”

“Because I put her there three days ago,” Leo said, pushing himself off the wall. “When I realized Anthony was closing in on us, I needed a place he would never look. He looks down on the staff. He considers you invisible. So I picked the one person in this house who works the most double shifts, the one person whose apartment is empty fourteen hours a day.”

“You broke into my home?” I asked, anger finally piercing through my fear.

“I picked the lock,” Leo corrected, wincing as he held his ribs. “I stocked your fridge. I told Mia—that’s her real name, Mia—to stay in the closet during the few hours you were home to sleep. She’s terrified, Anna. She hasn't made a sound in two years.”

I thought back to the last three days.

The strange draft in the kitchen. The milk carton slightly moved. I thought I was losing my mind from exhaustion. Instead, I had been living with a ghost of a child.

“But Anthony knows,” I said, panic rising in my chest. “He told Luca she was at St. Jude’s.”

“A lie to buy time,” Leo said grimly. “The men he works for—the Chicago syndicate—they don't know where she is yet. But they will soon. If they get her, they control me. If they control me, they take the Romano empire from Luca.”

Footsteps pounded down the hall. Flashlight beams swept across the floorboards.

“Anna!” Luca’s voice was closer now, frantic.

Leo looked at me, his blue eyes pleading. “You have to get to her before they do. Luca can’t leave the estate, not while it’s locked down. The syndicate is watching the walls. But you… you’re a maid. You can slip out through the old prohibition tunnels under the wine cellar. You have the keys to your apartment.”

“I can’t just leave without telling Luca,” I said, shaking my head. “He promised to protect me. He promised.”

“If you tell Luca, Marco finds out. If Marco finds out, it goes on the radios. And whoever locked those gates will hear it.” Leo reached out and gently touched my shoulder. “Please, Anna. She’s only five years old.”

I looked down at the child’s drawing in my hand.

I thought of my own little sister, lying in a hospital bed, entirely dependent on people doing the right thing.

I took a deep breath, the pain in my ribs a sharp reminder of the stakes.

“Tell me where the tunnel exit is,” I said.

Ten minutes later, I was standing in the freezing dampness of the wine cellar, a heavy iron key in my hand.

I pushed the hidden stone door open. The night air hit my face, smelling of rain and wet asphalt. I was outside the estate walls.

I started to run down the alleyway, clutching the child’s drawing to my chest.

I was two blocks away when a pair of headlights suddenly flashed on at the end of the narrow street, blinding me.

The car engine roared.

I froze, trapped between brick walls.

The driver’s door opened, and a man stepped out into the rain.