SMILE, SWEETHEART. HE'S AN IMPORTANT GUEST, AND YOU DON'T GET TO EMBARRASS HIM!” THE MAFIA BOSS'S FIANCÉE HUMILIATED HIS 25-YEAR-OLD MAID WHEN SHE REFUSED TO DANCE WITH A WEALTHY BUSINESSMAN—BUT WHEN LUCA MORETTI SAW THE MAN'S HAND ON HER WAIST, HE SET DOWN HIS DRINK AND ASKED, “DID SHE SAY YOU COULD TOUCH HER?”

For three seconds, nobody breathed.

The only sound in the kitchen was the rain lashing against the window above the sink.

Marco held his gun steady. He had been Luca’s shadow for five years. He knew how Luca moved, how he fought, how he thought.

“Put the gun down, Marco,” Luca said. His tone wasn’t panicked. It was conversational. It was terrifying.

“Hand over the brass key, Boss. Just slide it across the table.” Marco’s eyes darted to me. “And the girl comes with me.”

“No,” Luca said simply.

“I have the old woman in my trunk!” Marco yelled, his nerve cracking just a fraction. “You think I won’t put a bullet in her?”

“I know you won’t,” Luca replied. “Because if you do, your leverage is gone. And the second your leverage is gone, I put a bullet through your right eye.”

Marco swallowed hard. His hand trembled slightly.

That was all Luca needed.

With blinding speed, Luca kicked the heavy wooden kitchen table upward. It flipped, crashing into Marco’s chest just as his gun went off.

BANG.

The bullet shattered the kitchen window, showering the sink in glass.

I screamed, dropping to the floor.

Luca vaulted over the overturned table, tackling Marco into the hallway.

The two men crashed into the drywall, framed family photos raining down around them. Marco was big, but Luca fought with a primal, terrifying rage.

Luca drove his elbow into Marco’s jaw. There was a sickening crack. Marco dropped his weapon, groaning in pain.

Luca grabbed Marco by the collar, hauling him up and slamming him against the wall. He pressed the barrel of his gun directly under Marco’s chin.

“Where is Vanessa?” Luca snarled.

Marco spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor. “She’s… she’s meeting Richard at the airfield. Palwaukee. They’re leaving the country.”

“And my mother?” I yelled, scrambling to my feet.

“She’s outside,” Marco wheezed. “Black sedan. Here are the keys.”

He weakly tossed a set of car keys onto the floor.

Luca didn’t let him go. “Why, Marco? After everything I did for your family?”

Marco laughed, a wet, ugly sound. “Because Vanessa is pregnant, Luca! She’s having your kid. The board is going to back her, not you, the second they find out. You’re done.”

Luca froze.

The gun wavered for a fraction of a second.

Vanessa. Pregnant.

I felt a sudden, sharp ache in my chest that had nothing to do with fear. It was an entirely different kind of heartbreak.

Luca struck Marco with the butt of his pistol, knocking him unconscious.

He stood up, his chest heaving. He didn’t look at me.

“Go get your mother,” he said quietly.

I grabbed the keys and ran out the front door into the pouring rain. The black sedan was parked across the street.

I unlocked the trunk and threw it open.

“Mom!”

My mother was bound with zip-ties, a piece of duct tape across her mouth. She was soaked and shivering, but her eyes were fierce.

I ripped the tape off and grabbed a pocket knife from my apron to cut the ties.

“Emma,” she gasped, pulling me into a desperate hug. “Thank God. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I sobbed.

Luca jogged up behind us, holstering his weapon. He helped my mother out of the trunk with surprisingly gentle hands.

“Mrs. Sullivan,” Luca said. “I am profoundly sorry for this.”

My mother looked at him. She didn’t look afraid of the mafia boss. She looked him dead in the eye.

“You look just like your father, Luca,” she said. “He was a good man. But he didn’t know how to control the vipers in his own house.”

She turned to me. “Do you have the key?”

I nodded, pulling it from my pocket.

“Good. We need to get to St. Jude’s before Richard realizes Marco failed.”

“Wait,” Luca said, his voice heavy. “Marco said Vanessa is pregnant. If she leaves the country with my child…”

My mother stopped walking.

She reached into her soaked cardigan pocket.

“Vanessa Bellini isn’t pregnant, Luca,” my mother said.

She pulled out a crumpled piece of medical letterhead and handed it to him.

“She was at the clinic where I work the front desk. She paid the doctor ten thousand dollars to falsify a sonogram. She’s infertile. She has been for years.”

Luca stared at the paper.

The betrayal on his face morphed into something cold and absolute.

“Get in my car,” Luca said softly. “We’re going to the church. And then I’m going to end this.”

As I climbed into the backseat with my mother, my shoe brushed against Marco’s discarded jacket on the driveway.

A piece of paper had fallen out of the pocket.

I picked it up.

It was a boarding pass. First class. Chicago to Zurich.

But it didn’t have Marco’s name on it. It didn’t have Vanessa’s name on it.

The ticket was printed with the name Katie Sullivan.

My blood ran cold.

I looked at Luca as he got into the driver’s seat.