**THE MAFIA BOSS’S FIANCÉE TOLD THE MAID TO THROW AWAY HIS DEAD WIFE’S PHOTOGRAPH—BUT WHEN THE BACK OF THE FRAME CAME LOOSE, SOMETHING FELL ONTO THE MARBLE FLOOR THAT MADE HIM STAND UP.** At 7:42 on Friday evening, I was carrying a silver picture frame toward the trash when Adriana Voss called me back in front of twenty-six guests.

The phone nearly slipped from my fingers.

Your father was there. He helped cover up the murder.

“You’re lying,” I gasped, staring at the shattered face of the silver pocket watch. “My father was a good man. He wouldn’t—”

“He was a coward who wanted to protect his precious daughter,” Adriana interrupted, her voice devoid of any pity. “My father caught Elena trying to escape at the docks. Your father was there to give her the forged passports. When my father killed her, he told Arthur that if he didn’t help sink the boat and stage the accident, you would be next.”

A violent shudder ripped through me. The timeline. The late nights. The way my father had jumped at every sudden noise during the last few years of his life. He hadn’t been stressed about the mortgage. He had been terrified of the Voss family.

“He lived the rest of his life as our ghost,” Adriana continued smoothly. “And now, you are going to finish his job. Bring me the brass key, Emma.”

“I don’t have it,” I said, tears spilling hot over my cheeks. “Marco has it.”

“Then you better get it from him,” Adriana warned. “Because if you don’t bring that key to the old shipyard on Pier 39 by midnight, I’m sending this audio recording to the Chicago Police. And to Marco. How long do you think you’ll survive in that house when Marco finds out your father helped murder the love of his life?”

The line went dead.

I lowered the phone, my hands shaking uncontrollably.

I looked at the broken pocket watch. It was his. I remembered the heavy weight of it. I remembered the way he used to let me wind it when I was a little girl.

He had compromised his soul to keep me alive.

The heavy study door suddenly rattled as someone tested the handle.

“Emma. Open the door.”

It was Marco.

I shoved the broken pocket watch deep into my apron pocket. I wiped my eyes furiously, taking a deep breath to steady my voice.

I walked over and threw the deadbolt.

Marco stepped into the room. He looked furious. The cold, calculating boss had been replaced by a man realizing a viper had been sleeping in his bed for three years.

“She’s gone,” Marco stated, holstering his weapon. He looked at Daniel, who was sitting quietly on the sofa. Marco’s face softened instantly. He walked over and knelt in front of his son. “Are you okay, Danny?”

“I’m okay, Dad,” Daniel whispered. “Did she run away?”

“Yes,” Marco said gently. “And she’s never coming back. I promise you.”

Marco stood up and turned to me.

“She slipped past my perimeter guards,” Marco said, his dark eyes analyzing my flushed face. “She had a car waiting. This was planned. She was ready to run the moment she was exposed.”

“What does she want, Mr. DeLuca?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.

Marco reached into his pocket and pulled out the tiny, rusted brass key with my last name engraved on it.

“She wants whatever this opens,” Marco said. “And she wants it because it proves her father destroyed my family.”

He looked at me closely. He noticed the red rim around my eyes. He noticed my trembling hands.

“What did you find in the desk, Emma?”

My heart stopped. “Excuse me?”

“You’re a terrible liar,” Marco said softly. “You’ve been shaking since I walked in. You checked the desk. What did she leave behind?”

I closed my eyes. The threat Adriana had made echoed in my ears. How long do you think you’ll survive when Marco finds out your father helped murder her?

If I lied, I was betraying the man who was currently protecting me. If I told the truth, Marco might put a bullet in my head right here in the study.

I reached into my apron pocket.

I pulled out the broken silver pocket watch and held it out to him.

Marco took it. He inspected the shattered glass, the frozen hands.

“This is my father’s watch,” I whispered, a tear slipping free. “Adriana called me. She said she left it here. She said…” I choked on the words, unable to force them out.

“She said your father was at the docks the night Elena died,” Marco finished for me.

My head snapped up. “You knew?”

Marco didn’t look angry. He looked profoundly tired.

“I knew Arthur provided the passports,” Marco said, walking over to the window and looking out over the dark lake. “I knew he was the last person to see her alive. But I also knew Arthur Bennett wasn’t a killer. I spent six years tearing this city apart trying to find out who forced his hand. Now I know. It was Thomas Voss.”

He turned back to me.

“Your father didn’t betray my wife, Emma. He tried to save her. And he lived with the guilt of failing every day of his life.”

A massive, crushing weight lifted off my chest. My father wasn’t a monster. He was a victim.

“She wants the key,” I told Marco, the truth pouring out of me. “She told me to steal it from you and bring it to Pier 39 by midnight. If I don’t, she’s going to release a recording framing my dad for the murder to the police.”

Marco’s eyes darkened into black obsidian. The mafia boss was back.

“She’s getting desperate,” Marco said. “Which means we are running out of time. She doesn’t just want the key. She needs it tonight.”

“But what does it open?” I asked, staring at the small piece of brass in his hand. “My dad’s shop was sold three years ago. The new owners gutted the place. If he hid something there, it’s gone.”

“He didn’t hide it in his shop,” Daniel’s small voice piped up from the sofa.

Marco and I both turned to the eight-year-old boy.

Daniel reached into the front pocket of his dress shirt. He pulled out a heavy, tarnished silver bracelet. It was thick, carved with intricate roses.

My mouth fell open.

I recognized that bracelet instantly. It was my mother’s. She had died when I was a teenager, and my father had kept it locked in his bedside drawer my entire life.

“Where did you get that?” I gasped.

“Mom gave it to me the night she left,” Daniel said, holding it out to Marco. “She told me that if I ever needed to find the truth, I had to give this to the lady with the matching necklace.”

I touched my collarbone. Resting against my skin, hidden beneath my uniform collar, was a small silver rose pendant. The exact match to the bracelet.

Marco took the heavy bracelet from Daniel. He turned it over in his large hands.

He didn’t look for a hidden compartment. He looked at the clasp.

“Emma,” Marco said, his voice taut with sudden realization. “This isn’t just jewelry.”

He pressed the edge of the rusted brass key against a tiny, almost invisible slot on the side of the heavy silver bracelet.

He turned the key.

With a sharp click, the entire face of the bracelet popped open like a locket.