THE MAFIA BOSS WATCHED ME STRUGGLE TO CARRY A HEAVY SILVER CENTERPIECE—THEN HIS FIANCÉE MADE A FATAL SLIP OF THE TONGUE

I didn't remember running to the garage.

The next thing I knew, I was strapped into the passenger seat of Luca's matte-black Mercedes AMG, the twin-turbo engine roaring like a caged beast as we tore onto the Kennedy Expressway at over a hundred miles an hour.

Daniel was in the back seat, shouting orders into his encrypted phone, dispatching two cars to Pier 42 to watch for movement while we headed northwest toward Fullerton Avenue.

My left hand was gripping the leather door handle so hard my fingers were numb.

"Why my house?" I cried, the streetlights flashing across my wet cheeks in amber blurs. "I'm nobody! I just iron sheets and polish silver! I have sixty-eight dollars in my bank account!"

Luca kept one hand on the steering wheel, his eyes locked on the highway as he wove between late-night traffic with terrifying precision.

"Think, Sophie," Luca said, his voice firm, grounding me before I could spiral into hysteria. "You've worked in my house for ten months. Who hired you?"

"Mrs. Carter," I stammered. "Through the staffing agency on Wabash."

"And who recommended that agency when my old housemaid retired last winter?" Luca glanced into the rearview mirror at Daniel.

Daniel's face was grim. "Miss Bellini. She said her family used them for their Lake Forest estate."

"I didn't know her!" I protested fiercely, turning in my seat to face Luca despite the sharp tearing sensation in my bruised back. "I swear to God, Mr. Moretti, I had never seen Vanessa Bellini before my first day at the mansion! I needed the job because Maya had pneumonia last winter and the hospital bills wiped us out!"

"I believe you," Luca said.

And the strangest part was, when he briefly looked at me, I could see he actually did.

"Look at the hospital where your daughter was treated," Luca said, his mind working like a steel trap. "Was it St. Jude's on the south side?"

I blinked, stunned. "Yes. How did you know?"

"Because Dr. Arthur Harris sits on the board of directors at St. Jude's," Luca said darkly. "He didn't pick you because you knew Vanessa, Sophie. He picked you from the hospital's charity care applications because you were a desperate single mother with the exact same height, hair color, and build as my sister Elena."

A horrific chill washed over me.

"They needed a double," Daniel muttered from the back seat. "If the plan tonight was to fake Elena's death all over again—or get Elena out of the country using a clean passport..."

"They needed a woman's body in the river wearing Elena's clothes," Luca finished, his jaw clenching until a vein throbbed at his temple. "Or they needed your passport and your daughter's birth certificate to move Elena and Leo across the border."

The car screeched around the corner onto Fullerton Avenue, tires smoking against the damp asphalt.

My neighborhood was quiet, lined with old brick three-flats and rusted chain-link fences.

Two doors down from my building, a dark green sedan was parked under a broken streetlamp.

"That's Dr. Harris's car," I gasped, reaching for the door handle before the Mercedes had even come to a complete stop.

Luca caught my left wrist in an iron grip.

"Stay in the car," he commanded. "The glass is bulletproof. If anyone comes out that door who isn't me or Daniel, lay on the floor."

"That's my little girl in there!"

"And I am going to bring her out," Luca said, his dark eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that stole the breath from my lungs. "Stay put."

He and Daniel moved like ghosts. Guns drawn, they slipped down the concrete steps leading to my front basement entrance.

I couldn't stay in the car. The second they disappeared into the subterranean stairwell, I popped the door open with my good hand and hurried down the narrow gangway along the side of the building, heading for my kitchen window at the back.

Crouching behind the trash cans, I peered through the barred basement window.

My mother was sitting at our small laminate kitchen table, her hands tied behind the chair with a roll of white medical tape from Dr. Harris's bag.

Maya was sitting on the counter in her pink dinosaur pajamas, holding her stuffed rabbit, watching Dr. Harris rummage through the tin coffee can where I kept our important papers.

"Where is the girl's passport, Mrs. Bennett?" Dr. Harris snapped, dumping my rent receipts onto the linoleum floor. "I don't have time for this!"

"Sophie doesn't have a passport," my mother said, her voice shaking but defiant. "We've never left Illinois in our lives, you bastard."

Dr. Harris cursed and grabbed Maya by the arm, lifting her off the counter. "Then the girl comes with me as leverage until your daughter brings me that Saint Christopher medal!"

Maya whimpered, dropping her rabbit.

Before I could scream, the front apartment door burst inward with the sound of splintering wood.

Dr. Harris spun around, pulling a snub-nosed revolver from his coat pocket and aiming it toward the narrow hallway—using my five-year-old daughter as a shield in front of his chest.

"Stop right there, Moretti!" Harris screamed into the hallway. "One step closer into this kitchen and I put a bullet in the kid!"

From the hallway shadows, Luca froze. He couldn't take the shot without risking Maya.

Dr. Harris didn't know I was outside the back window.

And he was standing right in front of the old, single-pane glass above the kitchen sink.

Without a second thought, I grabbed the heavy iron lid off the metal trash can beside me with my left hand, swung my body around, and smashed it straight through the kitchen window.

Glass exploded inward over the sink.

Dr. Harris flinched violently, turning toward the window in shock.

That half-second was all Luca needed.

He didn't fire a gun in front of my daughter. He crossed the tiny kitchen in two blinding strides, caught Dr. Harris by the throat with his left hand, and slammed his right fist into the doctor's jaw with a sickening crack.

The revolver clattered across the linoleum.

Daniel scooped Maya up in one arm before the doctor's unconscious body even hit the floor.

I scrambled through the back door, which Daniel kicked open from the inside, and collapsed onto my knees, pulling Maya out of his arms and burying my face in her soft curls.

"Mommy, you broke the window!" Maya cried, wrapping her tiny arms around my neck, accidentally bumping my sling.

"I know, baby. Mommy's sorry," I sobbed, kissing her cheeks over and over while Daniel cut the medical tape off my mother's wrists.

Luca was kneeling over Dr. Harris, ripping open the man's coat pockets.

He didn't find a passport.

Instead, he pulled out a brass locker key stamped with the logo of the Union Station baggage claim, and a small glass vial filled with a clear liquid labeled Succinylcholine.

A paralytic drug used to stop a patient's breathing within sixty seconds.

Luca stared at the vial, then looked down at Dr. Harris's ringing cell phone on the floor.