THE MAID, THE MATRIARCH, AND THE MAFIA BOSS

Dominic didn’t flinch at the sound of the violence downstairs. He moved with practiced, lethal efficiency.

He reached under his heavy oak desk, pressing a hidden panel. A drawer popped open, revealing a matte black handgun. He checked the chamber, holstered it at the small of his back, and turned to Skylar.

“Take Leo. Go through the servant’s corridor to my mother’s suite. Lock the door. Do not open it for anyone but me.”

Skylar picked up the six-year-old boy. Despite her size and clumsiness, adrenaline made her movements fluid. “What are they doing here? Bianca just left.”

“She didn’t go home,” Dominic said grimly. “She went to her brother. Vincenzo Moretti has been looking for an excuse to start a war for five years. A broken engagement is his perfect justification.”

Skylar held Leo tighter. The little boy buried his face in her neck, trembling.

“Go,” Dominic commanded.

Skylar ran. She moved through the hidden hallways built into the walls of the massive estate, pathways meant for staff to remain unseen. For once, the floorboards didn’t squeak under her weight. Fear made her light.

When she reached Carmela’s suite, the two guards outside quickly ushered her in and locked the heavy double doors behind her.

Carmela was sitting by the fireplace, wrapped in a blanket, looking terribly fragile. When she saw Leo, she opened her arms. Skylar set the boy down, and he ran to his grandmother.

“Skylar, what is happening?” Carmela asked, her voice tight with fear. “I hear shouting.”

“The Morettis are downstairs,” Skylar said, pacing the room.

Her mind was racing. Bianca’s trap was perfectly laid. If the Morettis took the estate tonight, they would claim Dominic was unhinged, that he had broken the alliance without cause.

We have proof, Skylar thought. The ledger.

But the ledger only proved the father’s murder ten years ago. It didn’t prove what Bianca had done to Carmela last month. Vincenzo would claim the ledger was forged. They needed concrete proof of Bianca’s actions to strip her family of their remaining allies.

Skylar looked down at Leo’s drawing, which she had stuffed into her apron pocket.

The greenhouse.

She locked her out there. She made it look like dementia.

“Mrs. Rossi,” Skylar said, dropping to her knees beside the chair. “The night you were in the garden. The night you were looking for your dog. Do you remember how you got outside?”

Carmela’s face clouded with distress. “I… I don’t know. I woke up, and it was so cold. I couldn’t find my rosary.”

Skylar’s eyes widened. “The gold rosary your husband gave you? The one you never take off?”

“Yes. I lost it.”

Skylar stood up.

If Bianca had locked Carmela in the greenhouse, there had to be a padlock. There had to be evidence. If the rosary was dropped there…

“I have to go back out,” Skylar said.

“No!” Carmela grabbed her hand. “It’s not safe!”

“I know the back stairs,” Skylar promised. “I’ll be right back.”

She slipped out the side door of the suite, bypassing the guards, and crept down the servants' stairwell. The shouting from the grand foyer was deafening now.

Skylar slipped out the side kitchen door into the freezing night air. She sprinted across the frost-covered lawn to the massive glass greenhouse.

She fumbled for her master keys, opened the door, and slipped inside. It smelled of damp earth and orchids.

She turned on her phone flashlight, sweeping the floor.

Think, Skylar. Where would she have dropped it?

She moved to the back corner, where the temperature control unit was housed. Leo’s drawing had shown a broken thermometer.

Skylar gasped. The digital thermostat on the wall had been smashed. The wires were cut. Bianca hadn’t just locked her out here; she had disabled the heating system to ensure the greenhouse was as freezing as the outside.

Beneath the broken wires, glinting in the beam of her flashlight, was Carmela’s gold rosary.

Skylar snatched it up. Proof.

Suddenly, a heavy hand grabbed the back of her uniform collar, violently throwing her backward into a rack of clay pots.

The pots shattered as Skylar crashed to the floor, pain exploding in her spine.