SHUT UP! YOU’RE JUST A MAID!” THE MAFIA BOSS’S FIANCÉE SCREAMED WHEN I HUMMED AN OLD LULLABY—BUT THE MOMENT HE HEARD IT, HIS GLASS SLIPPED FROM HIS HAND.

My brain couldn't process what I was seeing.

Leo DeLuca was dead. Everyone knew that. Ben had cried himself to sleep over his father's grave. Celeste confessed to poisoning him.

Yet there he stood, very much alive, the barrel of his rifle aimed dead center at Marco's head.

“Leo?” Rafael breathed, his voice barely a whisper. For the first time all night, the ruthless mafia boss looked completely shattered.

“I told you to drop it, Marco,” Leo repeated, his voice echoing off the metal walls. He looked thinner, paler, but the fierce, protective fire in his eyes was unmistakable.

Marco’s hands shook, but he didn’t lower his weapon. “You’re dead. I went to your funeral.”

“You went to an empty casket,” Leo said coldly. “Now step away from my son.”

“Daddy!” Ben screamed, thrashing against the ropes binding him to the chair. The little boy’s face lit up with a blinding, desperate hope. “Daddy, you came back!”

“I’m here, buddy. Close your eyes,” Leo said gently, before his voice hardened. “Last warning, Marco.”

Marco panicked. He swung his gun toward Ben.

BANG.

The rifle shot from the catwalk was deafening. Marco dropped his gun, screaming as he clutched his shattered shoulder, collapsing to his knees.

The other three men immediately raised their weapons toward the catwalk, but Rafael was already moving. He fired three times in rapid succession. Two men dropped, clutching their legs. The third threw his gun down and threw his hands in the air, terrified.

I didn't wait for the smoke to clear.

I sprinted from behind the crates, sliding on my knees across the dusty concrete until I reached Ben. I pulled a pocket knife I had grabbed from my apartment and slashed through the ropes.

“I got you, sweetheart,” I sobbed, pulling the trembling boy into my arms. “I got you.”

Ben buried his face in my neck, crying uncontrollably.

A moment later, heavy footsteps clanged down the metal stairs. Leo ran across the warehouse floor and dropped to his knees beside us.

“Ben,” Leo choked out, wrapping his arms around both of us. He buried his face in his son’s hair, his shoulders heaving with silent sobs. “I’m so sorry, baby. Daddy’s so sorry.”

“You were asleep for a long time,” Ben cried, holding onto his father’s coat as if he let go, Leo would vanish again.

Rafael walked over, his gun still drawn but lowered. He stared at his younger brother, tears mixing with the rain on his face.

“How?” Rafael asked, his voice cracking. “I washed your body, Leo. I saw the coroner’s report.”

Leo stood up slowly, keeping one hand firmly on Ben’s shoulder. He looked at Rafael with deep regret.

“You saw what I needed you to see, Rafe,” Leo said quietly. “Celeste did poison me. Five months ago. I collapsed in the study. But I didn't die. The doctor who treated me was an old friend of Vincenzo’s. He told me the poison was a slow-acting Whitmore family concoction.”

“Why didn't you tell me?” Rafael demanded, anger and hurt warring in his eyes.

“Because Celeste had half your crew on her payroll!” Leo shot back. “Marco, the guards, the accountants. If I survived, she would have just tried again. And next time, she might have targeted Ben. I had to play dead so I could operate in the shadows. I had to find out exactly how deep the Whitmore rot went in our family.”

“You let me mourn you,” Rafael said, his voice breaking. “You let your son think he was an orphan.”

Leo looked down at Ben, his expression agonizing. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But it kept him alive. I’ve been watching over him. Watching you. When Nora came into the house... I had her vetted. I knew who she was three days ago.”

I stood up, shocked. “You knew I was Vincenzo’s daughter?”

Leo nodded. “Evelyn Carter was brilliant. She covered her tracks perfectly. But when you hummed that lullaby at the party... it triggered the endgame. Celeste realized she was losing control of Rafael. She made her move tonight.”

“Where is Celeste?” Leo asked, looking around.

“Tied up in the medical wing,” Rafael said bitterly. “With Vincenzo holding a gun on her.”

Leo smiled grimly. “Good. The police are on their way to the estate right now. Real police. Federal agents I’ve been working with for the past five months.”

Rafael stiffened. “Feds? You ratted out the family?”

“I ratted out the Whitmores, Rafe,” Leo corrected. “I gave the Feds every piece of dirty money Celeste funneled. I gave them proof her father ordered the fire twenty-nine years ago. Our family is clean in this. The Whitmores are going to federal prison for the rest of their lives.”

Sirens began to wail in the distance, growing louder.

Rafael looked at his brother, then at me, and finally at Ben. The empire of lies his father had built, the betrayal of his fiancée, the ghosts of the past—it was all finally crumbling.

“It’s over,” Rafael whispered, almost unable to believe it.

Leo nodded. “It’s over, brother.”

But as the police cars screeched into the warehouse parking lot, red and blue lights flashing through the dusty windows, Marco let out a wet, raspy laugh from the floor.

“You think it’s over?” Marco coughed, blood spilling from his lips. He looked at me with a sickening grin. “Ask her what was really in the sewing box.”

I froze.

“I didn't just check her apartment for the rosary,” Marco wheezed, smiling a bloody, horrific smile. “Evelyn Carter didn't just steal a baby, Nora. She stole something else from Vincenzo.”

Rafael aimed his gun at Marco’s head. “What did she steal?”