THE MAFIA BOSS WATCHED ME SWITCH OFF THE MICROPHONE WHILE HIS TEN-YEAR-OLD SON STOOD CRYING IN FRONT OF THIRTY DINNER GUESTS—THEN HIS FIANCÉE SAID

I stared at the photographs scattered on the blood-stained marble.

Luca paying off a dirty cop. Luca covering up the crime that had left my mother in agony for four years.

I felt a sickening, hollow betrayal twisting in my gut. Bellini was right. I had been a pawn. A guilty conscience Luca had tried to buy off with a maid’s salary.

"Where is he, Emma?" Bellini repeated, the barrel of the gun inches from my forehead.

I looked up at Bellini. I looked at the cold, calculating eyes of a man who murdered a mother just to force a business merger. A man who let his own daughter torment a stuttering ten-year-old boy.

Luca had lied to me. Luca had protected his brother.

But Luca hadn't told his son to stop loving his dead mother.

Luca hadn't pointed a gun at a child.

And Luca had taken a bullet for me upstairs just ten minutes ago.

"He's in the basement," I lied, my voice steady, my eyes locked on Bellini's. "He has a panic room behind the wine cellar. That's where he took the boy."

Bellini studied my face. For a long, agonizing moment, the silence in the foyer was deafening.

Then, he smiled.

"The wine cellar," Bellini repeated. He lowered the gun slightly. "You see? Was that so difficult? Survival is simply a matter of making the right choice."

He turned to his two massive enforcers.

"Go to the basement. Breach the panic room. Bring me the boy alive. Kill Luca."

"Yes, Boss." The men racked their weapons and sprinted toward the kitchen hallway that led down to the cellar.

Bellini looked back down at me. "You’re a smart girl, Emma. Smarter than Caroline was. You can go now."

He turned his back to me, walking slowly toward the grand double doors of the dining room.

He thought I was broken. He thought I was just a frightened maid who had sold out her boss to save her own skin.

He didn't realize I still had something in my apron pocket.

When the thug had dragged me out of the study, he had picked up the ledger and the manila envelope. But he hadn't noticed the flat, rectangular object I had shoved deep into my apron the moment I heard the door open.

Luca's cell phone.

I didn't run for the front door.

I stayed on my knees. I slid my hand into my pocket.

I unlocked the screen. The photos of the ledger pages were still queued up in the email app, addressed to the federal prosecutor's secure tip line.

I just had to press send.

But I needed cellular service, and the mansion's thick stone walls were blocking the signal in the foyer. The little 'No Service' icon mocked me from the top corner of the screen.

I needed to get closer to the shattered front windows.

I quietly pushed myself up. Bellini was distracted, looking at the damage in the dining room.

I took one silent step toward the front door. Then another.

The cold night air blew in through the broken glass.

I glanced at the screen. One bar of service.

Come on, I prayed.

I took another step. Two bars.

The send button turned blue.

I raised my thumb to press it.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

A cold, hard object pressed directly against the back of my skull.

I froze.

I didn't have to turn around to know who it was. The heavy scent of expensive cologne and gunpowder gave him away.

It was Bellini's third man. The one who had stayed behind in the shadows.

Bellini turned around, leaning on his cane. He saw the phone in my hand.

His smug smile vanished, replaced by a mask of absolute fury.

"You little rat," Bellini spat. "You thought you could send the ledger photos right in front of me?"

He walked toward me, raising his cane, and struck me hard across the face with the heavy silver wolf's head.

I collapsed onto the marble, dropping the phone. Blood poured from a gash above my eyebrow, blinding my right eye.

Bellini picked up the phone. He looked at the screen, saw the queued email, and laughed.

"You failed, Emma," he said softly. He pressed the 'Delete' button, erasing the photos permanently. Then he dropped the phone and crushed it beneath the heel of his shoe.

"And you lied about the basement, didn't you?" Bellini asked, his voice deadly quiet. "You sent my men on a wild goose chase. He's upstairs."

He pointed his gun at my head again.

"This time, Emma, you die."

I closed my eyes. I had tried. I had really tried.

"Daddy!"

A small, terrified voice echoed from the top of the grand staircase.

My eyes flew open.

Standing on the landing, clutching the wooden banister, was Daniel.

He had left the safe room.

Bellini looked up. His eyes widened with dark delight.

"Well, well. The little prince," Bellini sneered.

"Daniel, run!" I screamed, struggling to get up, but the thug kicked me back down to the floor.

Daniel didn't run. He stood at the top of the stairs, trembling, holding something in his small hands.

It was a heavy, silver picture frame.

"Leave her alone," Daniel said, his voice surprisingly loud, the stutter completely gone.

Bellini laughed. "Or what, boy? You'll throw a picture at me?"

"No," Daniel said. "I'll show them what's inside it."

He turned the frame around. It wasn't a picture of Caroline. It wasn't a family portrait.

It was a photograph of a younger Marcus Bellini, shaking hands with a man who looked exactly like Luca.

But it wasn't Luca.

"Do you know who that is, Mr. Bellini?" Daniel asked, his chin quivering but his eyes fierce. "Daddy told me about him. That's my Uncle Marco."

Bellini’s face went pale.

"Put that down, boy."

"Daddy found it in Mommy's things," Daniel continued, his voice echoing in the silent foyer. "Mommy found out that you didn't just hate Daddy. You paid Uncle Marco to crash his car into Miss Emma's mommy."

My breath caught in my throat.

"That's a lie!" Bellini roared.

"No, it's not," a deep, bleeding voice said from the shadows of the second-floor balcony.

Luca Moretti stepped into the light, holding his shotgun with one arm, his white shirt now completely crimson.

He looked down at Bellini with the wrath of a god.

"You paid my brother to orchestrate the hit-and-run, Marcus," Luca rasped, pointing the barrel of the shotgun down at the old man. "You used my own family to create leverage against me. You thought if I was busy covering up my brother's crimes, I wouldn't notice you poisoning my wife."

Luca racked the shotgun. The sound was deafening.

"You ruined Emma's life. You killed Caroline. And you tried to take my son."

Bellini grabbed me by the hair, hauling me up and pressing his pistol to my temple.

"Shoot me, Luca, and the maid dies!" Bellini screamed, using me as a human shield.

Luca didn't blink. He didn't lower his weapon.

"Emma," Luca said quietly, his eyes locking onto mine from the balcony. "Do you trust me?"

I looked at the man who had lied to me, who had protected his brother, but who was bleeding out to protect his son.

I thought about the way he had held Daniel at dinner.

I closed my eyes.

"Yes."

"Then drop."

I let my legs go completely limp.