THE MAFIA BOSS WATCHED ME CARRY A HEAVY SOUP TRAY PRESSED AGAINST MY HIP—THEN HIS FIANCÉE SAID, “HER HAND GOT CAUGHT IN THE LINEN CLOSET,” BEFORE HE HAD ASKED WHY I COULDN’T HOLD IT NORMALLY.** I almost made it to the table. Six more steps.

The room spun.

My knees hit the cheap carpet of the bedroom. The silver rosary slipped from Luca’s fingers, landing on the floor with a soft, metallic clink.

“She took him,” I gasped, the air completely leaving my lungs. “Vanessa took my baby.”

I couldn’t breathe. The walls of the tiny apartment were closing in. Leo was only six. He was afraid of the dark. He always slept with a small blue nightlight shaped like a rocket ship. The thought of him in the cold night, in the hands of a woman who had crushed my fingers without blinking, shattered my mind.

Luca knelt in front of me.

He didn’t offer empty platitudes. He didn’t tell me to calm down.

He grabbed my shoulders with both hands, his grip grounding, demanding my focus.

“Claire. Look at me.”

I forced my tear-filled eyes up to his.

“She won’t hurt him,” Luca said, his voice an anchor in a hurricane. “She needs leverage. The boy is the only thing keeping you from going to the police, and he’s the only thing that will force me to bring her what she wants.”

“What does she want?” I choked out, a sob tearing at my throat. “What is the ledger?”

Luca stood up, pulling me with him.

“The Moretti family ledger. It isn’t a book of accounts, Claire. It’s a journal. My father kept a detailed, handwritten record of every bribe, every hit, every corrupt politician and judge in Chicago for thirty years.”

He looked toward the shattered window.

“If Vanessa turns that ledger over to the FBI, the entire Chicago syndicate burns to the ground. She isn’t trying to take over my empire. She’s trying to destroy it.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” Luca said softly. “But we’re going to find out.”

He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed a number.

“Marcus. Bring the SUV to the back gates. No headlights. Tell nobody. If anyone tries to stop you, shoot them.”

He hung up and looked at me.

“Get your coat. It’s freezing out there.”

I moved mechanically. I walked to the small closet in the hallway and reached for my heavy wool coat.

But as I pulled it off the hanger, I stopped.

Hanging right next to mine was Leo’s coat.

The heavy, bright blue winter parka I had bought him for Christmas. The one he never left the house without when it was cold.

If Vanessa had taken him out the shattered window and dragged him into the freezing Chicago night, why was his coat still here?

I touched the blue fabric.

I looked down at the floor of the closet.

Leo’s favorite sneakers were gone.

A memory clicked in my mind.

A reversal.

Vanessa hadn’t kidnapped Leo through the window. The shattered glass was on the inside of the room. Someone had broken the window from the outside, yes. But Leo hadn’t gone out that way.

“Mr. Moretti,” I said, my voice suddenly sharp.

Luca turned from the hallway.

“Leo isn’t with Vanessa,” I said.

Luca frowned. “The note—”

“The note is a lie,” I said, my maternal instinct suddenly cutting through the panic with razor-sharp clarity. “Leo’s winter coat is here. But his shoes are gone. If Vanessa had snatched him out of bed and dragged him through a broken window, she wouldn’t have stopped to let him put on his laced sneakers. And she certainly wouldn’t have left his coat.”

Luca stepped closer, his eyes narrowing as he processed the logic.

“He dressed himself,” I said, hope flaring in my chest like a match. “He heard the window break. He put on his shoes, but he was too rushed to grab his coat. He ran.”

“Where would a six-year-old run in the middle of the night?” Luca asked.

“He wouldn’t run outside,” I said. “He knows the estate grounds are dark and scary. He would run to the only place he feels safe. The place where I work.”

The main house.

Luca didn’t hesitate. He drew Julian’s 9mm handgun from his waistband.

“Let’s go.”

We left the carriage house, sprinting back through the manicured hedges toward the massive stone mansion. The engagement party was still winding down in the front of the house, music drifting faintly over the lawns.

We slipped back through the pantry doors.

“Where does he hide when he visits you?” Luca whispered, keeping his gun angled toward the floor as we moved down the servant corridor.

“The laundry room,” I said quickly. “Behind the massive industrial dryers. It’s warm, and it’s a blind spot for the cameras.”

We hurried down the concrete stairs to the basement level. The hum of the massive washing machines vibrated through the floor.

I pushed the heavy laundry room door open.

It was dark, smelling of bleach and hot cotton.

“Leo?” I whispered, terrified of speaking too loudly.

Silence.

I walked past the first row of folding tables. Luca stayed by the door, watching the hallway.

I reached the massive, silver industrial dryers. I dropped to my knees, peering into the narrow gap between the machines and the concrete wall.

A small figure was huddled in the dark.

He was shivering violently in only his pajamas and sneakers, his arms wrapped tightly around his knees.

“Leo,” I sobbed, reaching into the gap.

My son looked up. His eyes were wide with terror, his face streaked with tears.

“Mommy?”

“I’ve got you, baby. I’ve got you.”

I pulled him out and crushed him against my chest. He was freezing. I wrapped my heavy wool coat around his small shoulders, burying my face in his hair.

He was safe. Vanessa didn’t have him.

“A lady broke my window, Mommy,” Leo whispered against my neck. “She had a shiny hammer. I hid under the bed. When she climbed in, I ran out the front door.”

“You did so good, brave boy,” I wept, kissing his forehead. “You did so good.”

Luca stepped forward, his expression softening immensely as he looked at the boy.

But the relief in his eyes was short-lived.

“Claire,” Luca said softly. “Vanessa thinks she has him. She thinks one of her men grabbed him when he ran. If she realizes he’s missing, she’ll assume he’s dead or in the police’s hands. She’ll panic.”

“Let her panic,” I spat, holding Leo tighter.

“If she panics, she won’t go to the boathouse to wait for the ledger,” Luca said, his voice hardening. “She’ll run. She’ll disappear. And Julian will never see his daughter again.”

I looked at him.

Luca wasn’t just a mafia boss protecting his empire. He had given Julian his word that he would bring a twelve-year-old girl home. And Luca Moretti did not break his word.

“I have to go to the boathouse,” Luca said. “I have to bring her the ledger.”

“You said your father hid it,” I said. “Do you even know where it is?”