The night Brooklyn’s most feared mafia boss walked into my restaurant, I was sitting beside his elderly mother, helping her cut her dinner because the arthritis in her hands had become too painful. When he saw me holding her fork and noticed the tears in her eyes, his expression turned so cold that I was certain I had done something terribly wrong. I had no idea that a small act of kindness toward a lonely woman was about to bring me face-to-face with a man everyone in Brooklyn was afraid to disappoint.

"Put the gun down, Olivia," Gabriel rasped, blood dripping from a cut on his forehead. "He'll kill you."

"I'll kill all of you," Marcus corrected, pushing Gabriel forward so he stumbled to his knees. Marcus kept his weapon aimed at Gabriel's head, but his dead eyes were locked on the leather ledger on the desk next to me. "That book contains every offshore account, every bribe, every dirty secret my son-in-law here has been hoarding for five years. Give it to me."

My hands shook violently. The heavy wool coat lay draped over the chair next to me. The gun in my hand felt impossibly foreign. I was a waitress. I poured wine. I didn't hold people at gunpoint.

But I looked at Leo, cowering behind my legs, clutching the little wooden bird his father had carved. And I looked at Gabriel, the man who had terrified Brooklyn, kneeling in defeat to protect his son.

I swallowed the bile rising in my throat. "Let him go, Marcus. Or I'll shoot."

Marcus laughed, a dry, rasping sound. "You don't even have the safety off, little girl. You're just like your mother. Weak. Sentimental."

He stepped forward.

Suddenly, from the hallway behind Marcus, a shadow moved.

"She is nothing like her father," a voice rang out, sharp and lethal.

Marcus turned.

Bella stood in the doorway. She was no longer wearing the cream cardigan. She stood perfectly straight, the arthritis seemingly vanished, replaced by an iron rod of pure willpower. In her hand, she held the antique silver pocket watch Gabriel had shown me at the restaurant.

"Isabella," Marcus mocked. "Coming to watch your false son die?"

"No," Bella said. She pressed the top of the pocket watch.

A deafening alarm shrieked through the entire estate.

Marcus flinched, distracted for half a second.

Gabriel didn't waste it. With terrifying speed, he swept his leg out, sweeping Marcus off his feet. Marcus’s gun fired wildly into the ceiling, showering plaster over the books.

"Olivia, the ledger!" Gabriel shouted, wrestling with the massive older man on the floor.

I grabbed the thick leather book. "What do I do with it?"

"Burn it!" Bella screamed, stepping into the room. She kicked the heavy oak door shut behind her, sliding the iron bolt into place just as Marcus's men began pounding on the other side.

"If you burn it, you lose all the leverage!" Marcus roared, struggling against Gabriel's grip. He threw a brutal punch to Gabriel's ribs, causing Gabriel to groan in pain. "That book is your only protection against the Commission, Gabriel! Without it, you're dead!"

I stood by the roaring fireplace at the end of the study. The flames licked at the iron grate.

"He's right, Ma," Gabriel choked out, pinning Marcus's arm. "If we destroy it, we have no money. No power to stop them."

Bella walked toward me, her eyes locked on mine. She didn't look at the brawling men. She looked at the daughter she had given away twenty-seven years ago.

"We don't need their money, Olivia," Bella whispered, taking my free hand. "We need our family. We need peace."

She reached out and placed her hand over mine on the ledger.

"Do it," she said.

I looked at Gabriel, bleeding on the floor, fighting for his life. I looked at Leo, holding the wooden bird.

I tossed the thick leather ledger directly into the roaring fire.

The flames caught instantly, devouring the dry pages. Marcus screamed in absolute fury. With a surge of adrenaline, he threw Gabriel off him and lunged toward the fireplace, desperate to save his empire.

But he didn't make it.