THE MAFIA BOSS WATCHED ME PUSH THE DESSERT CART AROUND HIS ENGAGEMENT DINNER WITH ONE ARM—THEN HIS FIANCÉE SAID, “THE FREEZER DOOR CAUGHT HER,” BEFORE HE HAD EVEN ASKED WHY I WAS HURT.** I had made it through appetizers. Then dinner. Then twenty-three plates being cleared. All I had left was dessert.

I carried Leo down the hallway, running as fast as my legs could move.

Behind me, the sounds of a brutal struggle echoed from my small bedroom. The crash of a lamp. The heavy thud of bodies hitting the wall.

Dante was buying us time, but I didn’t know how long he would last against a trained federal agent.

“Hold on tight, baby,” I gasped, clutching Leo’s small body to my chest.

He buried his face in my neck, crying silently.

We reached the grand staircase.

The marble steps stretched down into the shadows of the foyer. The house was too quiet down here.

Where was Luca?

“Luca!” I screamed as I started down the stairs, my voice echoing off the vaulted ceilings.

Suddenly, the heavy doors of the study burst open below us.

Luca stumbled out into the foyer.

He looked terrible. The bleeding in his shoulder had worsened. He was leaning heavily against the doorframe, his pistol drawn, scanning the shadows.

He looked up and saw us on the stairs.

“Nora! Get down here!”

Before I could take another step, a voice rang out from the top of the landing behind me.

“Stop right there.”

I froze, trapped halfway down the massive staircase.

I turned my head slowly.

Agent Miller was standing at the top of the stairs. His grey suit was torn, his lip was bleeding, but he was holding his suppressed pistol perfectly steady.

Dante hadn’t stopped him.

Miller aimed the gun down the stairs.

Straight at me.

Straight at the child in my arms.

“Put the gun down, Luca,” Miller called out, his voice echoing in the cavernous space. “Or the maid and the boy don’t make it to the bottom step.”

Luca froze at the bottom of the stairs, his gun aimed upward at Miller.

“You’re out of your jurisdiction, Miller,” Luca snarled, his voice vibrating with rage. “You shoot a woman and a child in my house, there isn’t a badge in the world that will protect you from what I’ll do to you.”

“I’m doing my job,” Miller spat back. “The Moretti family ends tonight. I want the key to the ledger.”

“I threw it out the window!” I yelled, clutching Leo tighter. “It’s gone!”

“I don’t believe you,” Miller said coldly. He took a step down the marble stairs. “I think you have it in your pocket. I think you’re going to walk back up here and give it to me.”

“She doesn’t have it,” Luca said, his voice suddenly very calm.

He took a step away from the doorframe, moving into the center of the foyer, completely exposing himself to Miller’s line of fire.

“The key she threw out the window was the spare key to the wine cellar,” Luca lied smoothly, his eyes locking onto Miller’s. “The real key to the ledger is in my pocket. You want it? Come down here and take it from me.”

I stared at Luca in shock.

He was drawing the fire away from us. He was sacrificing himself.

Miller’s eyes shifted from me down to Luca.

The FBI agent weighed his options. The boss of the family, holding the key, versus a maid and a child.

Miller smirked.

“Drop the gun, Luca. Kick it over to the stairs.”

Luca didn’t hesitate.

He dropped his pistol. It clattered loudly on the marble floor. He kicked it away.

He stood completely unarmed, bleeding, at the bottom of the stairs.

“Now, reach into your pocket,” Miller ordered, keeping his gun aimed squarely at Luca’s chest. “Slowly.”

Luca reached into his right pocket with his good hand.

I watched, my heart stopping, as his hand emerged.

He wasn’t holding a key.

He was holding a small, silver object.

It was the silver lighter Vanessa had been using to burn the theater ticket earlier that evening.

Luca flicked the lid open with his thumb.

“Do you know what happens when you cut the brake lines on a car, Miller?” Luca asked softly.

Miller frowned. “What?”

“The brake fluid pools on the floor of the garage,” Luca said. “It’s highly flammable. Just like the chemical solvent my cleaning staff uses to polish these marble floors every night.”

Miller’s eyes widened as he finally looked down at the floor at the bottom of the stairs.

I hadn’t noticed it in the panic.

But the marble floor between Luca and the bottom of the stairs was slick, coated in a thin, shimmering layer of industrial chemical polish. The bottle was lying empty near the study door.

Luca had poured it out before he stepped into the foyer.

“Tell Vanessa she’s fired,” Luca said.

And he dropped the lit silver lighter onto the floor.

WHOOSH.

A wall of blue and orange flames erupted instantly across the bottom of the staircase, creating a massive, blazing barrier between Miller and us.

The heat was intense.

Miller stumbled backward, shielding his face, firing two wild shots blindly through the smoke and fire.

The bullets shattered a vase near my head.

“Nora! Jump!” Luca roared through the flames.

I didn’t think. I couldn’t see him.

I just held Leo tight, closed my eyes, and leaped through the wall of fire.

We didn’t hit the hard marble.

We hit Luca.

He caught us with his good arm, the impact knocking all three of us backward into the study, away from the flames.

Luca slammed the heavy oak doors shut and locked them, sealing the fire and Miller out in the foyer.

I lay on the rug, gasping for air, checking Leo frantically.

“I’m okay, Mommy,” Leo coughed, his face smeared with soot, but completely unburned.

I looked over at Luca.

He was lying on his back, breathing heavily, his white shirt completely ruined, his shoulder bleeding worse than before.

But he was smiling.

“Are you crazy?” I sobbed, crawling over to him. “You could have killed us!”

“I knew I’d catch you,” Luca rasped, coughing from the smoke.

He reached up with his good hand and gently touched Leo’s cheek.

“You’re a brave kid, Leo,” Luca whispered.

Before Leo could answer, the heavy study doors shuddered.

Someone was trying to break through.

“The fire suppression system will kick in any second and put out the flames,” Luca said, his smile fading. “Miller will break through that door.”

“What do we do?” I panicked.

Luca looked up at the massive portrait of his father above the fireplace.

“We do what Marco wanted,” Luca said softly. “We end it.”

He looked at me.

“Open the wall safe again, Nora. Code is 4-4-7-2-1-9.”

I scrambled up, pulled the lever, and punched in the code.

The safe opened.

“Reach all the way to the back,” Luca instructed, his voice growing weaker. “Behind the false panel.”

I reached my hand deep into the cold steel safe, pushing past the empty space where the fake ledger had been.

My fingers brushed against a small, hidden latch. I pulled it.

A panel popped open.

Inside was a single, thick manila envelope.

I pulled it out.

“What is this?” I asked.

“The real evidence,” Luca breathed. “Marco didn’t just hide the ledger in a deposit box. He made copies of the worst of it. The federal bribes. The judges we own. He hid them here, just in case Vanessa got to the box.”