The most powerful mafia boss in Texas watched me feed his trembling mother while an entire restaurant pretended not to notice her struggle. When he started walking toward me with two armed-looking men behind him, I was certain I had crossed a line I didn't understand. Instead, he placed a black business card in my hand and said quietly, “Tomorrow, your old life ends.”

“Don't look at it, Maya,” I whispered, pressing her face against my shoulder as we stepped over the unconscious men in my living room.

Gabriel Vance stood in the hallway, his presence completely dominating the cramped, flickering corridor of my apartment building. He didn’t offer an explanation. He just turned and began walking down the stairs, expecting me to follow.

I had no choice. I gripped my father’s silver pocket watch so tightly the metal cut into my palm.

A sleek black SUV was idling at the curb. Gabriel’s bodyguard opened the door, and I climbed into the leather interior with Maya still clinging to my neck.

Gabriel slid into the seat opposite us. He poured a glass of water from a small console and held it out to Maya.

“Are you hurt?” Gabriel asked. His voice wasn’t cold like it had been at the diner. It was surprisingly gentle.

Maya peeked at him, then shook her head and took the glass with trembling fingers.

I glared at him. “You orchestrated this. You set me up at the diner, didn't you?”

Gabriel met my eyes, unblinking. “I did not send those men to your apartment, Emily. But I knew they were coming.”

“You said my father was murdered.” My voice cracked, betraying the tough exterior I had spent years building. “The police said he fell asleep at the wheel. They gave me his ashes. I was thirteen.”

“The police in this city belong to whoever pays them the most,” Gabriel said flatly. “Your father, Thomas, was an accountant. But he didn’t work for standard firms. He kept the books for the Cartel out of Juarez. And he was skimming from them to pay for your mother’s hospital bills before she passed.”

I felt physically sick. The quiet, gentle man who used to read me bedtime stories was stealing from a cartel?

“When they found out, they took him,” Gabriel continued. “He hid the master ledger—the book containing every dirty politician, judge, and shell company the cartel owned. Without it, their Texas operations are paralyzed. They’ve been searching for it for ten years.”

“And they think I have it?” I asked, panic rising in my throat. “I don't have anything! I can barely pay for electricity!”

“They don't think you have it,” Gabriel corrected softly. “They know you know where it is. You just don't realize it yet.”

The SUV glided through a set of massive wrought-iron gates, pulling up to a sprawling, fortress-like estate on the edge of the Texas Hill Country.

Once inside, Gabriel’s staff moved quickly. A kind older woman took Maya to the kitchen for warm milk, leaving Gabriel and me alone in his massive, fire-lit study.

“Why are you helping me?” I demanded, crossing my arms to stop my hands from shaking. “You’re not the police. You’re a crime boss.”

“Because my mother asked me to,” Gabriel said. He walked over to a crystal decanter and poured a dark amber liquid. “She has Parkinson’s. Most people treat her like she’s already dead. You treated her with dignity. In my world, loyalty and respect are the only currencies that matter.”

He handed me the glass. I didn't drink it.

“But there's another reason, isn't there?” I pushed.

Gabriel’s jaw tightened. Before he could answer, Maya wandered into the study, clutching a piece of paper and a crayon.

“Auntie Em?” Maya said softly. “I drew a picture of the bad man.”

I knelt down, taking the paper from her small hands. “The man with the crowbar, sweetie?”

“No,” Maya said innocently. “The man who stands by the tree outside our window at night. The one with the missing finger. He told me it was our secret.”

My blood ran cold. Someone had been watching us. Speaking to a six-year-old through her ground-floor bedroom window.

I looked at the drawing. It was messy, but the missing index finger on the man's hand was drawn with stark, deliberate red crayon.

Gabriel snatched the drawing from my hand.

The color drained completely from his face. The untouchable mafia boss looked genuinely terrified.

“Where is he?” I asked, my voice rising in panic. “Gabriel, who is that?”

“That,” Gabriel whispered, staring at the drawing, “is my Uncle Victor. And he’s supposed to be dead.”

He looked up at me, his eyes dark with a sudden, violent realization.