**THE MAFIA BOSS WATCHED HIS MAID STRUGGLE TO LIFT A DINNER TRAY—THEN ASKED WHY HER LEFT ARM WAS TREMBLING UNDER HER UNIFORM.** I had practiced that movement all day.

"What are you talking about?" Gabriel demanded, stepping back, his brow furrowing in deep confusion.

I couldn't tear my eyes away from the cracked silver face of the watch on his wrist. It was a physical anchor to a nightmare I had buried twenty years ago.

"My father didn't die in a random shootout," I said, my voice trembling with a mix of grief and rising anger. "He was murdered. I was ten years old. I remember the police coming to the door. They said he owed money to the wrong people. They said he was made an example of."

I looked up, locking eyes with the powerful mafia boss standing before me.

"You said your father ruined my family's business," I challenged, tears finally spilling over. "Did he also order the hit on my father? Is that why you have his watch? A trophy?"

Gabriel’s face went completely slack. The realization hit him with the force of a freight train.

"Anna, no," Gabriel swore, his voice frantic, shedding all pretense of control. He tore the leather strap from his wrist and held the silver watch out in his palm. "I swear to you on my son's life, I didn't know this was your father's watch. I didn't know."

"Then how did you get it?" I demanded, pressing my back against the cold concrete wall.

"I told you," Gabriel insisted, pacing the small space of the bunker. "Ten years ago, there was an ambush. Vincenzo's rivals tried to take me out outside a restaurant. A man—a stranger—pushed me out of the way of the gunfire. He took two rounds to the chest. He died before the ambulance arrived. I took the watch from his wrist because he had no ID, and I wanted to find his family to compensate them. But Vincenzo’s crew cleaned the scene. They told me the man was a vagrant. Nobody."

Answer One, Open Two.

My father hadn't been executed for debts. He had sacrificed himself to save a young Gabriel Bellini. But why was he there? And why did Vincenzo's men cover it up?

Before I could ask, a violent, deafening explosion rocked the safe room.

The concrete walls shuddered, sending dust raining down from the ceiling. Leo screamed, covering his ears and burying his face into my side. Gabriel instantly threw himself over both of us, shielding us with his broad shoulders as a second explosion rattled the heavy steel door.

"They're using shaped charges," Gabriel yelled over the ringing in our ears. "They're blowing the hinges!"

The safe room was impenetrable to normal weapons, but Vincenzo hadn't sent street thugs. He had sent professionals.

"We need a way out!" I shouted, coughing on the concrete dust filling the small room.

"There isn't one!" Gabriel yelled back, drawing his Glock and aiming it at the buckling steel door. "This room is a dead end. Stay behind me. Do not look at the door."

A third explosion ripped through the air, completely obliterating the electronic locking mechanism. The massive steel doors groaned, then slowly, agonizingly, were pried open by crowbars from the other side.

Harsh tactical lights pierced the darkness of the bunker, blinding us.

Gabriel fired blindly into the light, but a voice echoed from the hallway, stopping him cold.

"Shoot again, nephew, and I blow Adrian's head off."

The tactical lights lowered slightly.

Standing in the doorway, surrounded by four heavily armed mercenaries, was Vincenzo Bellini.

He was a man in his late sixties, impeccably dressed in a tailored charcoal suit, leaning elegantly on a silver-tipped cane. His silver hair was slicked back, and his smile was as cold as a morgue slab.

Kneeling on the floor in front of him, bloodied and trembling, with a gun pressed to the back of his head, was Adrian.

Gabriel lowered his weapon, his chest heaving. "Let him go, Vincenzo. This is between you and me."

"It has always been between you and me, Gabriel," Vincenzo sighed, stepping gracefully into the ruined bunker. "You grew weak. You tried to turn our beautiful empire into a corporation. You stopped commanding fear. And now, you hide in a concrete box with a maid and a terrified child."

Vincenzo’s eyes flicked to me. He smiled, a sickening, knowing smile.

"Ah. Sarah's daughter. I wondered when Gabriel’s guilty conscience would finally bring you into the fold."

My blood ran cold. He knew who I was.

"You killed her father," Gabriel growled, gripping his gun tighter. "Ten years ago. He didn't just happen to be at the restaurant. You lured him there."

"Of course I did," Vincenzo chuckled, leaning on his cane. "Your father wanted him ruined; I wanted him dead. He was asking too many questions about our real estate acquisitions. I arranged the hit to look like a crossfire. It's a shame you survived it, Gabriel. Would have saved me a lot of trouble tonight."

Vincenzo waved his free hand. One of his mercenaries stepped forward, dropping a thick leather briefcase onto the bunker floor. It popped open, revealing stacks of legal documents.

"Sign the transfer of power," Vincenzo ordered smoothly. "Sign over the ports, the casinos, the union contracts. Relinquish your claim as the head of the Bellini family."

"And if I don't?" Gabriel challenged.

"Then I kill the maid. Then I kill Adrian. And then," Vincenzo’s eyes darkened, landing on Leo, "I take the boy. I will raise him in the old ways. I will teach him how to be a real Bellini. He will forget you ever existed."

Gabriel’s resolve didn't break. "You won't leave this house alive, Uncle."

"I think I will," Vincenzo smiled.

He reached into his pocket and pulled something out. He tossed it casually onto the floor, right at Gabriel’s feet.

It was a delicate, sparkling diamond tennis bracelet.

Gabriel looked down at it. All the fight instantly drained out of him. The gun in his hand lowered until it was pointing at the floor.

"I took that off Elena's wrist before I ran her car off the bridge seven years ago," Vincenzo said quietly, the words dripping with absolute malice. "She was running to the police with evidence to destroy me. I stopped her. I can stop you too, Gabriel."