THE MAFIA BOSS WATCHED ME PICK UP A CRUMPLED BLUE ENVELOPE FROM BESIDE HIS EIGHT-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER AT HIS ENGAGEMENT DINNER—THEN HIS FIANCÉE SAID, “IT'S JUST AN OLD LETTER FROM HER DEAD MOTHER,” BEFORE HE EVEN ASKED WHY THE LITTLE GIRL WAS CRYING.

My hands shook so violently I nearly dropped the phone.

My husband.

Arthur was in a rehabilitation facility across town, recovering from his stroke. He was paralyzed on his left side. He couldn't fight back. He couldn't even run.

Tears blurred my vision as I stared at the text message. Anthony Bellini’s men must have figured out Katherine left evidence behind, and they were using the one vulnerability Luca had left in this house to get it.

Luca had taken the silver key and gone to the pier alone. He was trading his own freedom, his own life, to save my husband.

"Mrs. Carter?"

I spun around. Emily was standing in the doorway, rubbing her sleepy eyes. She was holding Mr. Bear.

"Where did Daddy go?" she asked, looking around the empty room.

I wiped my face frantically, trying to force a reassuring smile. "He had to run a very important errand for Mommy, sweetheart. But he'll be right back."

"Is he going to get the box from the bank?"

I froze. "How did you know about the bank box, honey?"

Emily walked over to her pink suitcase and pulled out a small, plastic hospital bracelet. It was Katherine's admission band from four years ago.

"Mommy told me before she went to heaven," Emily whispered. "She said if Daddy ever got in trouble, I had to remind him about the silver key. But Miss Vanessa found it yesterday."

My heart ached at the heavy burden this child had carried for four years.

"Your daddy took the key to save someone very important to me, Emily," I said gently. "But the bad men might hurt him."

Emily's blue eyes widened in terror. "We have to help him!"

"We can't," I cried, the reality of my helplessness setting in. "I don't know how to drive his cars, and the police won't get there in time. It's too late."

But Emily shook her head. She marched over to Luca's bedside table, opened the bottom drawer, and pulled out a heavy black walkie-talkie.

It was the secure comms unit Luca used to communicate with his loyal lieutenants across the city.

"Daddy showed me how to use this," Emily said with fierce determination. She pressed the side button and spoke into the microphone.

"Uncle Marco is a bad guy now," Emily's small voice echoed over the encrypted channel. "But Daddy needs help at the downtown pier. Please, he's in trouble."

I stared at her, stunned.

For a agonizing ten seconds, there was nothing but static.

Then, a deep, gruff voice crackled through the speaker. It was Silvio, Luca's second-in-command, a man who had sworn a blood oath to Luca's father decades ago.

"We hear you, little princess," Silvio's voice rumbled. "We're on our way."

I fell to my knees and hugged Emily so tightly she squeaked. "You are just as brave as your mother, Emily."

Meanwhile, at the downtown pier, the freezing morning wind whipped off Lake Michigan.

Luca walked alone down the wooden docks, his coat flapping around his legs. He was unarmed. He had dropped his weapons at the house in his rush to leave.

At the end of the pier, a black SUV was parked with its headlights shining directly at him.

Standing in front of the vehicle were two massive men in trench coats. Between them, sitting in a wheelchair, was Arthur. My husband looked terrified, his frail hands gripping the armrests.

"Let him go," Luca demanded, stopping ten feet away. "He has nothing to do with this."

The driver's side door opened.

To Luca's absolute shock, it wasn't one of Anthony's men who stepped out.

It was Vanessa.

She had a crude bandage wrapped around her bleeding hand, and her makeup was smeared down her face, making her look deranged. She held a revolver in her good hand.

"The police are looking for you, Vanessa," Luca said, keeping his voice dangerously calm. "You won't get far."

"I don't care about getting far," Vanessa spat. "I care about finishing this. Give me the key to the deposit box, Luca. If the Feds get that evidence, my father dies in prison. Give it to me, and the old man lives."

Luca reached into his pocket and pulled out the silver key. He held it up in the glare of the headlights.

"Let Arthur go first," Luca bargained.

"Throw the key, or I shoot him in the head," Vanessa countered, pressing the gun to Arthur's temple.

Luca didn't hesitate. He tossed the silver key onto the wooden planks.

It slid to Vanessa's feet.

She smiled, a broken, manic grin. She kicked the key behind her and raised the gun toward Luca's chest.

"You really thought I was going to let you walk away, Luca?" Vanessa sneered. "You ruined my life. You chose a dead woman over me."

She pulled the hammer back on the revolver.

Luca didn't flinch. He just looked at her with pure pity.

"I never chose her over you, Vanessa," Luca said quietly. "Because you were never even in the competition."

Vanessa screamed in rage and squeezed the trigger.

CLICK.

The gun didn't fire.

She looked down in shock, pulling the trigger again and again. Click. Click. Click.

"Revolvers are tricky, Vanessa," a voice echoed from the shadows.

Silvio stepped out from behind a stack of shipping crates, holding a smoking cigar. "Especially when my boys intercepted your driver ten minutes ago and emptied the cylinder while you were ranting in the backseat."