SECRETS IN THE SYNDICATE

Luca stared at the monitor, his blood running cold.

DO IT BEFORE HE SAYS I DO.

His best man. His fiancée. A document stolen from his private desk.

He didn’t throw the monitor. He didn’t shout. He did what he had done for fifteen years to survive at the top of the Chicago underworld: he went perfectly, terrifyingly still.

“Boss?” the security chief, Dante, asked through the speaker. “What do you want me to do?”

“Nothing,” Luca said, his voice a low scrape of gravel. “Wipe that footage from the main server. Keep a hard copy only you have access to. Do not let Julian or Vanessa know we are watching.”

He cut the connection.

Downstairs, the engagement party was still humming. He could hear the faint sound of the string quartet playing a waltz. They were celebrating a wedding that was suddenly looking more like a funeral.

Luca bypassed the main stairs and took the servant’s corridor to the second floor.

He found Claire in the small medical room at the end of the hall. Dr. Harris was just finishing wrapping her hand in white gauze.

Claire looked up as Luca filled the doorway. Her face was pale, her dark hair slipping from its neat bun. She looked exhausted. And yet, she didn’t look away. Most of his staff couldn't hold his gaze for more than two seconds. Claire held it, her chin tilting up just a fraction.

“Dr. Harris,” Luca said softly. “Give us a minute.”

The doctor packed his bag with nervous speed and hurried out, closing the door behind him.

The room was silent except for the ticking of a wall clock.

Luca stepped closer. He looked at the stark white bandages against her pale skin. He remembered the bruising on her wrist. The parallel marks.

“Vanessa did that,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

Claire looked down at her lap. “I told you, Mr. Moretti. The door closed on—”

“Stop.” His voice wasn’t angry, but the command was absolute. “The lies are over, Claire. Security searched your locker. We found the memory card.”

Her breath hitched. For the first time all night, true panic flashed in her eyes. She instinctively pulled her injured hand closer to her chest.

“You were spying,” Luca continued, his dark eyes studying her every micro-expression. “You photographed Vanessa taking a document from my desk and handing it to Julian. Why?”

Claire swallowed hard. “I wasn’t spying on you.”

“Then who?”

“I was trying to protect him.”

Luca frowned. “Protect who?”

“Leo.”

The name hit Luca like a physical blow. Leo was his five-year-old nephew. His late sister’s child. The boy lived in the quietest part of the west wing, shielded from the syndicate, shielded from the violence.

“What does Leo have to do with this?” Luca’s voice dropped an octave, the protective uncle instantly replacing the mafia boss.

“I heard them,” Claire whispered, her voice trembling but resolute. “Two days ago. Vanessa and Julian were in the conservatory. They didn’t know I was watering the ferns behind the trellis. They were talking about the wedding. Julian said the transition needed to happen before the vows, or the boy’s trust would legally lock them out.”

Luca’s mind raced. Leo’s parents had left behind a massive, multi-million dollar trust. Luca was the sole guardian. If Luca died before the wedding, the guardianship—and the money—went to a court-appointed proxy. But if he married Vanessa, and then something happened to him…

Vanessa would become the boy’s legal mother.

She would control the fortune.

“I took the pictures to prove they were working together,” Claire explained, her breathing shallow. “But Vanessa caught me in the hallway today. She realized my phone was syncing to a card. She dragged me into the closet. She twisted my arm, crushed my hand in the door hinge, and demanded the card. I told her I swallowed it.”

Luca stared at the brave, foolish woman sitting on the examination table. “She tortured you for it, and you didn’t give it up.”

“I couldn’t,” Claire said. “If she gets rid of you, Leo is next. I couldn't let that happen.”

Luca felt a strange, tightening sensation in his chest. This maid, making minimum wage, had risked her life for a child that wasn't hers.

“You took a massive risk, Claire.”

“I know.”

“But you made a mistake,” Luca said, his eyes narrowing. “The pictures on the card… they don't show what the document actually is. They just show the back of it.”

Claire slowly stood up. She reached into the pocket of her black uniform apron.

“I know,” she said quietly. “Because when she was crushing my hand in the door… I reached into her purse with my other hand.”

She pulled out a crumpled, heavy piece of parchment paper and held it out to him.

“I didn't just photograph the document, Mr. Moretti. I stole it.”

Luca took the paper. He unfolded it.

At the top, stamped in official red ink, were the words: CERTIFICATE OF GUARDIANSHIP TRANSFER.

But that wasn't what made Luca’s blood run cold.

It was the signature at the bottom.