**THE MOMENT THE MAFIA BOSS’S FIANCÉE CALLED ME “A DESPERATE LITTLE SERVANT,” I HAD JUST PULLED HIS CHAIR AWAY FROM THE DINNER TABLE—ONE SECOND BEFORE HE SAT DOWN.** Twenty-eight people stopped eating.

The silence that followed Ethan’s words was heavier than the stone walls surrounding us.

Aunt Elena isn’t a DeMarco. She’s a Moretti.

Luca stared at his twelve-year-old son, his face a mask of rigid, terrifying control. The only sign of his internal shock was the slight tremble in the hand holding his gun.

“Ethan,” Luca said, his voice completely hollow. “What exactly did Camille hear?”

Ethan wiped his nose with his sleeve, taking a brave step toward his father. “Camille was hiding in the library. She heard Aunt Elena tell Vance that tonight was the night. She said once you opened locker seventeen, the family would shatter, and she would finally take her rightful place as the head of the Moretti bloodline.”

I looked at the silver teardrop necklace resting in Luca’s other hand.

“The necklace,” I breathed, the realization hitting me like a physical blow. “Elena planted it here. She broke into the locker, put Camille’s necklace inside the Moretti rosary, and left the door open. She wanted you to find it. She wanted you to think Camille was the Moretti spy who killed your father.”

Luca stood up slowly. The pieces were finally locking into a horrific, bloody picture.

“Elena sent the white box to the study,” Luca reasoned, his eyes darkening with a lethal fury. “She sent Camille the photo of my father to blackmail her into stopping me from coming down here. Elena knew Camille would panic and do something stupid—like sabotage a chair.”

“So when you found out Camille sabotaged the chair,” I finished for him, “you would come down here, find the locker open, find the necklace, and assume Camille was a traitor.”

“And I would have killed my own fiancée,” Luca said, his voice dropping to a whisper that chilled me to the bone. “Leaving Elena as the only remaining heir to my empire.”

Ethan tugged on Luca’s sleeve. “Dad. Camille isn’t bad. She was just scared. She gave me the ticket to save me.”

Luca reached down and pulled his son into a fierce, desperate hug. He buried his face in the boy’s hair, letting out a jagged breath.

“You did good, Ethan,” Luca whispered. “You did so good.”

I stood a few feet away, watching them, clutching my mother’s silver bracelet in my pocket. My mind was spinning. If Elena was orchestrating this entire collapse, how did my father fit into it? Why was my childhood drawing in a dead mafia boss’s coat?

Suddenly, the heavy iron door at the top of the cellar stairs slammed shut with a deafening, metallic CLANG.

The sound echoed through the cavernous room like a gunshot.

Luca pushed Ethan behind him instantly, raising his pistol toward the dark staircase.

“Vance!” Luca’s voice boomed, carrying the full, terrifying authority of a mafia don. “Open that door!”

A voice echoed down the stone steps. But it wasn’t Vance.

It was Elena.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, little brother,” her voice drifted down, smooth and dripping with aristocratic venom.

“Elena,” Luca warned, stepping in front of me and Ethan, creating a human shield. “You don’t want to do this. You’re family.”

Elena laughed. It was a cold, humorless sound. “Family? We haven’t been family since the day Dad brought me home and pretended I was his own flesh and blood. He slaughtered my real parents, Luca. The Morettis. He took me as a trophy, a peace offering to the city. But he always loved you more.”

“You killed him,” Luca stated, his voice devoid of a single tremor.

“I did,” Elena confessed easily through the thick oak and iron door above. “I stabbed him in the chest when he wouldn’t give me the combination to locker seventeen. But he was a stubborn old bastard. He died bleeding out on that coat you’re looking at, and he took the secret to the grave.”

I looked at the heavy wool coat hanging in the locker. The jagged tear in the chest suddenly looked much more sinister.

“So why frame Camille?” Luca yelled back. “Why now?”

“Because the families are getting restless, Luca,” Elena replied. “They see you softening. Marrying a commoner. Letting your staff speak back to you.” I knew she meant me. “If you executed your own fiancée for treason tonight, the families would have turned on you. I would have stepped in to restore order. The Moretti bloodline reclaiming its throne.”

“And what about the waitress?” Luca asked, glancing back at me. “Why send Sarah’s mother’s bracelet in the box?”

There was a pause at the top of the stairs.

“Ah, yes. The little carpenter’s daughter,” Elena’s voice sneered. “Her father, David Bennett, was the only man who knew the truth. He was Dad’s favorite enforcer. He built those lockers, and he hid the real ledger for Dad the night I killed him.”

My blood ran cold. David Bennett. My gentle, quiet father.

“I hit her mother with my car twelve years ago to send him a message,” Elena continued casually, as if she were discussing the weather. “I told David if he didn’t give me the ledger, his daughter was next. But he ran like a coward. He’s been hiding ever since. So I brought the daughter here tonight. I figured finding her corpse in the cellar alongside yours might finally flush him out.”

Tears streamed down my face. My mother didn’t die in an accident. She was murdered. And my father had spent his entire life working in a dusty furniture shop, not because he loved wood, but because he was terrified of the woman standing at the top of the stairs.

Suddenly, the sound of a heavy metal deadbolt sliding into place echoed through the dark.

“Enjoy the cold, Luca,” Elena said. “Vance will pump carbon monoxide through the ventilation shafts in about ten minutes. It will look like a tragic accident. A faulty boiler.”

Footsteps retreated up the stairs.

We were trapped.

Luca didn’t panic. He turned to me, his dark eyes assessing the heavy, steel-reinforced door of locker seventeen.

“Sarah,” Luca said, his voice entirely calm. “Your father built these lockers. Which means he built a way out. Look at the door.”

I wiped my tears, forcing my mind to stop reeling. I had to focus. I was a carpenter’s daughter.

I walked over to the massive steel door of locker 17. I ran my fingers along the heavy iron hinges. They were massive, bolted directly into the stone.

But as my fingers brushed the bottom hinge, I felt it.