THE LITTLE GIRL SHOUTED “MY MOM DIDN’T STEAL ANYTHING!” AT A MAFIA BOSS—THEN ONE NOTEBOOK PAGE CHANGED EVERYTHING

The cold, dark water began to seep through the grated floorboards of the engine room, rising with terrifying speed. It wrapped around Rosa’s ankles, icy and unforgiving.

"Help!" Rosa screamed, beating the butt of the rifle against the reinforced glass of the control room door, but it didn't even leave a scratch. "Somebody help us!"

Imelda fell to her knees in the rising water, clutching her rosary, her lips moving in a frantic blur of Spanish prayers.

Pia did not panic. She waded through the calf-deep water, her eyes glued to the massive electronic keypad next to the blast doors. "It's a biometric lock, Mama. But it has a manual override keypad. It requires a six-digit code."

"We don't know the code, Pia!" Rosa sobbed, the water now reaching her knees. The two burned guards were struggling to stay above the water, groaning in terror.

"Everything has a pattern," Pia insisted, her fingers hovering over the keypad. "Mr. Vance is arrogant. Arrogant people use codes that mean something to them. Dates. Numbers of significance." She squeezed her eyes shut, filtering through every piece of data she had collected that night.

"What did he say?" Pia muttered to herself. "He said, 'Thieves rarely recognize what they steal.' He knew the exact weight of the watch. He managed the safe." Pia opened her eyes, looking at her mother. "The watch, Mama! The pocket watch Mr. Marchetti put in the safe. Do you remember what it looked like?"

"It was gold! It had vines on it!" Rosa cried, lifting Pia up as the water reached her waist.

"Ivy," Pia corrected. "And the hands on the clock... I saw them when Mr. Marchetti set it down. It was broken. The hands were frozen. What time was it?"

Rosa racked her brain, the adrenaline making it hard to think. "I don't know! I wasn't looking at the time!"

"I was," Pia said, her eyes burning with intense focus. "The big hand was on the four. The little hand was on the eight. Eight-twenty. 0820."

"That's only four numbers, Pia!"

"The weight!" Pia shouted. "The weight of the watch! I told them it was 145 grams. If Mr. Vance set the code based on the bait he used to frame you... 082045... no, that's not right. The watch was an antique. An 1885 model. 1-8-8-5. And the time was 8:20."

Pia reached out, her small fingers punching the wet keypad. 1... 8... 8... 5... 2... 0.

A sharp buzzer sounded. ACCESS DENIED.

The water was now at Rosa's chest. Imelda was standing on a metal crate, shivering violently.

"Think, Pia, think!" Rosa pleaded, holding her daughter high above the freezing water.

"He's an accountant," Pia said rapidly. "He calculates value. He told the man the chain was 14 karat. He told Mr. Marchetti the event was 8 hours. 800 cash. He likes eights. But the safe code... Adrian Marchetti pressed his thumb to open the safe. Vance didn't have the thumbprint. Vance used the master override for the ship's systems."

Pia looked at the two guards thrashing in the water. "Hey!" she yelled at them. "What is Vance's employee ID number? The one he uses to sign off on payroll?"

One of the guards, choking on saltwater, coughed violently. "Six... six... zero... four... two... one."

Pia punched the numbers into the keypad. 6-0-4-2-1. It required six digits.

"One more number!" Pia screamed.

"The tip pool!" Rosa suddenly remembered the phone call that brought her to this nightmare. "He said eight hundred cash plus the tip pool. He always takes a cut. Ten percent!"

Pia hit the number 1. Then she hit the green ENTER button.

The heavy steel doors groaned, the hydraulic locks releasing with a massive hiss of air. The doors parted just enough for the pressure of the water to blow them wide open, washing Rosa, Pia, and Imelda out into the adjacent, dry corridor in a massive tidal wave.

They lay on the carpeted floor of the lower deck, coughing and gasping for air as the water drained away down the corridor grates.

Rosa pulled Pia to her chest, kissing her wet face a hundred times. "You did it, baby. You did it."

But their relief was short-lived. The intercom crackled to life again.

"Your five minutes are up, Rosa," Vance said, his voice echoing eerily. "Say goodbye to the last Marchetti."

A single gunshot rang out through the speakers, echoing off the steel walls of the corridor.

Rosa froze. The world seemed to stop spinning. Adrian was dead. The man who had promised to protect them, the only family her husband had left, was gone.

"No," Imelda wept, burying her face in her hands.

Rosa slowly stood up. The fear that had gripped her all night suddenly vanished, replaced by a cold, hollow fury. Royce Vance had murdered her husband. Now, he had murdered her brother-in-law. He had tried to frame her, drown her, and kill her child.

She reached down and picked up the heavy assault rifle from the wet floor. She checked the safety, just like Pia had taught her.

"Mama," Pia said softly, looking at her mother’s hardened eyes. "The gun weighs eight point five pounds. When it's loaded, it pulls to the right."

Rosa looked at her brilliant, strange, beautiful daughter. "Stay here with Imelda. Hide in the linen closets."