THE MAFIA BOSS WATCHED ME HELP HIS SEVENTY-FOUR-YEAR-OLD CHAUFFEUR OUT OF THE RAIN DURING HIS ENGAGEMENT DINNER—THEN HIS FIANCÉE SAID, “HE WAS FIRED FOR STEALING,” BEFORE HE EVEN ASKED WHY THE MAN WHO HAD DRIVEN HIS FAMILY FOR FORTY YEARS WAS HOLDING A SMALL BIRTHDAY CAKE.**

My heart stopped.

I stood in the gasoline-soaked study, my hand frozen inside my coat pocket, fingers wrapped around the bloodstained police badge.

My mother’s terrified eyes darted to Luca, then back to me, pleading for silence.

Luca lowered his weapon, stepping over to Arthur and helping the old man to his feet.

"Let's get you to a hospital, old friend," Luca said gently.

He didn't see the badge. He didn't see my mother's panic.

"Luca," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "What happened at the pier?"

Luca turned to me, the harsh lines of his face softening slightly in the dim light.

"I handled it," he said quietly. "Marco underestimated how much loyalty my father bought over the years. When I offered his guards double their salary and full amnesty, they turned on him. I brought your mother out. Marco won't be a problem anymore."

He sounded so calm. So protective.

But my mother was shaking violently beside me.

"Rebecca," my mother rasped, clutching her chest. "My medicine. I need it."

"I'll get it," Luca said immediately, turning toward the hallway. "I'll call my private doctor to meet us at the safe house. We can't stay here with the fumes."

As soon as Luca’s footsteps faded down the hall, I pulled the badge from my pocket.

It was a Chicago PD detective's badge.

Badge number 4092.

"Mom, whose is this?" I hissed, wiping the fresh blood with my thumb.

My mother leaned against the desk, gasping for air.

"The detective," she wheezed. "The one who came to the pier to save me."

"A detective came to the pier?"

She nodded, tears spilling down her cheeks. "Marco had me tied up. The detective broke in. He untied me. But then... then Luca arrived."

I felt a cold sweat break out on the back of my neck.

"Luca saved you, Mom. He killed Marco."

"No," my mother sobbed, grabbing my arms. "Luca didn't kill Marco. The detective did. The detective saved me."

"Then whose blood is this?" I asked, staring at the badge.

My mother looked me dead in the eyes.

"The detective's. Luca shot him."

The floor seemed to drop out from beneath me.

"What?"

"Luca walked into that warehouse and shot the cop in the back," my mother cried softly. "Then he paid off Marco's men and told me if I ever said a word, he would kill you too. He slipped the badge into my pocket to remind me."

I stumbled backward, the ledger at my feet forgotten.

Luca Moretti. The man who had gently helped an old chauffeur out of the rain. The man who had rushed into the storm to save my mother.

He wasn't a protector. He was a monster.

He had played me perfectly.

"Well, well," a weak, mocking voice croaked from the floor.

Vanessa was still leaning against the bookshelves, clutching her bleeding shoulder.

She was smiling.

"You really thought the great Luca Moretti grew a conscience?" Vanessa laughed, coughing up blood. "His father murdered our father, Rebecca. The apple doesn't fall far from the rotting tree."

I stared at her, my mind racing.

"If Luca is just as ruthless as his father," I asked, "why didn't he just kill you in the dining room?"

Vanessa’s smile faltered.

"Because of the Swiss accounts," she muttered. "Our father, Carlo Bellini, left eighty million dollars in a blind trust in Zurich. The only way to access it is with the biological signatures of both his heirs."

I froze.

"Both heirs?"

Vanessa nodded, grimacing in pain. "Me. And you. Luca needs both of us alive to drain the accounts. That's why he broke off the engagement. He couldn't marry me if the public found out I was a Bellini. But he can use us. He’s going to force us to sign the money over, and then he’s going to bury us in the same hole."

Heavy footsteps echoed in the hallway.

Luca was coming back.

"Hide the badge," my mother whispered frantically.

I shoved it deep into my pocket just as Luca walked into the room, holding a glass of water and a pill bottle.

"Here," Luca said, handing them to my mother with a warm, comforting smile.

It made my stomach violently churn.

"Thank you, Mr. Moretti," my mother lied flawlessly, swallowing her pill.

Luca looked at me. "Are you ready to go, Rebecca?"

I looked at the man who had ordered my life for eighteen months. The man who had just murdered a police officer to protect his empire.

"Yes," I lied.

Luca stepped forward to help Arthur up. As he turned his back, I noticed something sticking out of the pocket of his torn suit jacket.

A folded piece of child's drawing paper.