THE MAFIA BOSS WATCHED ME STRUGGLE TO CARRY HIS ENGAGEMENT DINNER WITH ONE ARM PRESSED AGAINST MY RIBS—THEN HIS FIANCÉE SAID, “SHE FELL IN THE SERVICE COURTYARD,” BEFORE HE HAD EVEN ASKED WHY I COULDN’T STAND STRAIGHT. Four more steps.

The library doors clicked shut, plunging Leo and me into the warm, silent sanctuary of Luca’s private study.

Daniel stood outside the glass doors, arms crossed, a massive shadow standing guard.

I wrapped Luca’s oversized wool coat tighter around Leo, who was now sitting in a leather wingback chair, his feet dangling miles above the Persian rug.

My ribs were screaming in agony, every breath sharp and shallow, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the terror gripping my throat.

"Mommy, did I do something bad?" Leo whispered, clutching his stuffed dinosaur.

"No, sweetie." I knelt in front of him, forcing a smile I didn't feel. "You were very brave. Tell me about the lady. Did she hurt you?"

He shook his head. "Sarah was sleeping on the couch. The lady knocked really quiet. She smiled and said she worked with you, and that you needed the drawing for a... a presentation."

My blood boiled. Vanessa had used my child.

"And the wooden rosary, baby? Why did she take that?"

Leo looked down at his sneakers. "It fell out of my backpack. The one you said belonged to my dad. The lady picked it up. She looked really scared when she saw it. She put it in her pocket and left super fast."

I sat back on my heels, the room spinning slightly.

My late husband, Mark.

Mark had been a good man. A mechanic. He died in a hit-and-run three years ago. The police never found the driver. All I had left of him was Leo, a stack of unpaid medical bills, and a cheap wooden rosary he always kept on his dashboard.

Why would Vanessa, a wealthy Chicago socialite, care about a mechanic’s cheap wooden beads?

And how was it connected to the cartel locket around my neck?

Before I could unravel the thought, the library doors flew open.

Luca strode in.

His eyes were pitch black. The knuckles on his right hand were bruised and beginning to swell.

He didn't look at me. He walked straight to his mahogany desk, opened the top drawer, and pulled out a heavy, matte-black handgun.

My breath hitched. I instinctively pulled Leo against my chest.

Luca paused, glancing at us. His expression softened instantly, though the lethal energy radiating from him remained.

He tucked the weapon securely into the holster at his hip and buttoned his suit jacket over it.

"Is the lady in trouble?" Leo asked innocently.

Luca walked over, crouching down so he was eye-level with my son.

"The lady is leaving Chicago tonight, Leo. She won't ever bother you again."

He looked at me, and I read the unspoken truth in his eyes: Vanessa had confessed everything. Or at least, enough to ruin her.

"What did she say?" I asked, my voice trembling.

Luca stood up. "The blackmail wasn't just about my father's watch. The man on the phone told her he knew exactly who paid for the hit-and-run that killed your husband."

I stopped breathing.

The library seemed to tilt on its axis.

"Mark was killed by a drunk driver," I whispered.

"No, Emily. He wasn't." Luca’s voice was gentle, but the words were a sledgehammer. "He was targeted. And Vanessa found out who ordered it. That’s why she went to your apartment today. She wanted to find out what Mark had left behind. She wanted leverage."

"Leverage against who?" I cried.

"Against my mother."

Reversal.

My mind completely short-circuited. Eleanor Moretti? The frail, seventy-two-year-old woman who insisted on sending me home early when I had a cold? She ordered a hit on a mechanic?

"That makes no sense," I gasped, holding Leo tighter. "We didn't even know you back then. Mark was just a mechanic!"

"A mechanic who worked at the West Side Shipyard," Luca corrected. "The same shipyard my mother was just taken to."

The puzzle pieces violently clicked together.

Thomas’s dying words. He wants his locket back.

The drawing left in the car.

The rosary Vanessa stole.

"We have to go," Luca said, pulling me up by my elbow. His grip was strong, anchoring me to reality. "Daniel is staying here with Leo. He’ll guard this room with his life. I promise you."

I looked at Leo, panic warring with logic. "I can't leave him."

"If you want to know who killed your husband, and why a dead cartel boss gave you that locket, you need to come with me right now." Luca’s eyes were fierce, begging me to trust him. "My mother is at that shipyard. And I think the man holding her is Marco Falcone."

"Marco is dead," I argued. "You said he died eleven years ago."

Luca’s jaw clenched. "I thought he did. But Vanessa just handed me the rosary she took from your apartment."

He pulled the cheap wooden beads from his pocket.

Only, they weren't cheap.

As Luca turned the cross over, I saw a tiny, hidden hinge I had never noticed in three years. He popped it open.

Inside the hollow cross was a tiny microchip.

"Mark wasn't just a mechanic, Emily," Luca said quietly. "He was a ledger keeper for the Falcone cartel. He hid their money. And the man who killed him to get it… was my mother."

My heart stopped.

"And right now," Luca finished, "Marco Falcone wants his money back. And he’s using my mother as bait to get to you."

"Why me?" I choked out.