TURN OFF THAT LIGHT, ELEANOR. HE DOESN'T COME HOME TO YOU ANYMORE.” THE MAFIA BOSS'S MISTRESS SAID IT WHILE HOLDING HIS HAND IN FRONT OF HIS WIFE—BUT WHEN THE WIFE FINALLY SWITCHED OFF THE LAMP SHE'D KEPT BURNING FOR THIRTY YEARS, HER HUSBAND DID SOMETHING THE YOUNGER WOMAN NEVER EXPECTED.

Bianca’s face drained of all color.

"What are you talking about?" she whispered, her voice suddenly trembling. "Of course he’s yours. He has your eyes."

"He has my sister’s eyes," Vincent corrected softly.

The room plunged into an absolute, suffocating silence.

I grabbed the back of the sofa to steady myself. Vincent’s sister? Maria had disappeared fifteen years ago. She had run away with a low-level enforcer from the Russo family. We had spent years searching for her, assuming she was dead.

"Maria is alive?" I breathed, my heart hammering against my ribs.

Vincent finally looked at me, the heavy burden of a decade of secrets breaking him apart.

"She was," Vincent said quietly. "Until ten years ago. When she died giving birth to Leo in New York."

Bianca was shaking her head violently. "No. No, my father said—"

"Your father is a liar," Vincent interrupted, taking a step toward her. "Your father found out Maria had a child with his son. A boy with Moretti and Russo blood. The ultimate leverage to take over my territory."

Vincent pulled the crayon drawing from my trembling hand and held it up.

"This drawing?" Vincent said, his voice thick with grief. "Leo didn't draw this for me. He drew it for Marco. Marco tried to run away with the boy to keep him safe from your father. Your father had Marco killed. And then he took the child."

I felt physically sick. Bianca’s father had murdered his own son to secure a pawn in a mafia war.

"No," Bianca stammered, backing toward the front door. "My father told me you forced yourself on me at that party... he told me Leo was the result... he told me I was protecting my son!"

Vincent stared at her. "He manipulated you, Bianca. He used you to play the role of the scorned mistress. He needed me to look guilty so my men wouldn't question why I was signing over my estate to you. If I refused, he promised to put a bullet in my ten-year-old nephew's head."

I stared at the man I had married.

He hadn't been cheating on me. He hadn't abandoned me at the hospital ten years ago for another woman. He had been in New York, frantically trying to find his murdered sister's baby before the Russo family could hide him forever.

He had carried the weight of this blackmail for a decade, letting me believe he was a cold, distant husband, all to keep a child alive.

Suddenly, a sharp, heavy knock echoed from the front door.

Bianca jumped.

Vincent immediately moved in front of me, shielding me with his body.

"They're here," Bianca whispered, tears of real terror spilling down her cheeks. "My father's men. They said if you didn't sign the deed by midnight, they were going to kill you both."

The knock came again. Louder. More insistent.

Vincent reached behind him, his hand slipping into the hidden holster at the small of his back. He drew his weapon, the metallic click of the safety releasing sounding deafening in the quiet room.

"Ellie," Vincent whispered without looking back. "Get behind the fireplace."

"Vincent—"

"Do it!"

I scrambled behind the heavy stone hearth, clutching my mother's rosary against my chest.

Vincent walked slowly toward the heavy oak door. He didn't bother looking through the peephole. He gripped the brass handle, raised his gun, and pulled the door open.

Standing on our front porch wasn't a hitman.

It was a woman in a ragged grey coat. She was soaked from the rain, shivering violently, her face bruised and pale.

In her arms, tightly wrapped in a heavy wool blanket, was a ten-year-old boy.

Vincent lowered his gun, his mouth falling open in sheer disbelief.

"Maria?" he choked out.

The woman looked up. She had Vincent’s eyes.