THE SHADOW OF THE VALENTI BLOODLINE

The caller ID glowed in the pitch-black ballroom like a ghost.

MICHAEL CARTER.

My breath caught in my throat. My hands trembled so violently I almost dropped the phone.

Michael was dead. He had to be. I had buried an empty casket four years ago after his car was found at the bottom of the Charles River. I had mourned him. I had spent nights crying on the floor of our tiny apartment while Emma slept, wondering how I was going to feed her.

Now, his name was flashing on my screen, illuminating the darkness of a mafia boss’s mansion.

“Answer it,” Dante’s voice commanded.

He had moved seamlessly through the dark, stepping in front of Emma and me. His broad shoulders formed a physical barrier between us and the rest of the panicked room.

I swiped the screen with a shaking thumb. I pressed the phone to my ear.

“Michael?” I whispered, my voice breaking.

Static crackled on the line. Then, a sharp intake of breath.

“Anna.”

It was him. It was his voice. The deep, rough baritone that used to soothe Emma to sleep.

“Michael, where are you?” I gasped, tears instantly springing to my eyes. “What is happening?”

“Listen to me very carefully,” Michael’s voice was frantic, rushed, bordered by the sound of heavy wind or machinery. “You have to get Emma out of that house right now. Celeste knows. She knows who Emma really is. Did Dante find the rabbit?”

“Yes,” I stammered, pulling Emma closer to my legs. “He found it. He opened it.”

“Good. Give the phone to him. Now, Anna. Do not hesitate.”

I didn’t have to offer the phone. Dante had already reached out, taking the device from my trembling fingers. He pressed it to his ear, his jaw clenched so tightly the muscles jumped beneath his skin.

“Who is this?” Dante demanded, his voice a low, lethal growl.

I couldn’t hear the response. But I watched Dante Valenti, the untouchable king of the Boston underworld, freeze.

For the first time since I had met him, Dante looked entirely off-balance.

“You’ve been dead for twelve years,” Dante said into the receiver.

The silence that followed was deafening. The ballroom was still plunged in darkness, the wealthy guests holding their breath, waiting for the backup generators to kick in.

“Where are you?” Dante asked. His tone had shifted. It wasn’t a threat anymore. It was a plea.

Before the person on the other end could answer, the massive glass windows of the ballroom shattered inward.

The deafening crack of sniper fire echoed through the darkness.

“Get down!” Dante roared.

He didn’t hesitate. He threw his massive frame over Emma and me, tackling us to the marble floor just as a hail of bullets tore through the space where we had been standing seconds before.

Screams erupted. The elite guests of Boston’s high society scattered like insects, trampling each other in the dark. Glass rained down on us like diamond dust.

Dante kept one heavy arm wrapped around Emma’s small body, shielding her head. With his other hand, he drew his weapon, firing blindly toward the shattered windows to provide cover fire.

Suddenly, the emergency backup lights flickered to life, bathing the ruined ballroom in a harsh, bloody crimson glow.

The shooting stopped.

Dante slowly rose, keeping himself between us and the windows. His security team was already swarming the room, shouting orders, dragging panicked guests out the heavy oak doors.

“Clear the perimeter!” Dante shouted to his men. “Lock down the estate. No one gets in or out.”

He looked down at me. I was clutching Emma, shaking uncontrollably. Emma wasn’t crying. She was staring at the floor with wide, terrified eyes.

Dante knelt beside us. His dark eyes softened as he looked at my daughter.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, his voice entirely devoid of the monster the newspapers claimed him to be.

“No,” I whispered.

Dante looked at my phone, still in his hand. The screen was shattered from our fall. The line was dead.

He stood up and scanned the room. “Where is Celeste?”

I looked toward the ballroom doors. The spot where she had been standing seconds before the lights went out was empty.

“She’s gone,” I said.

Dante’s expression darkened. He walked over to the spot where his fiancée had been. He crouched, his eyes fixed on something gleaming against the blood-red marble floor.

He picked it up.

It was a heavy, silver locket. The chain was broken, likely snagged in her panic to escape.

Dante flipped it open. He stared at it for a long, agonizing moment.

“Anna,” he said quietly. “Come here.”

I stood on shaky legs, leaving Emma safely behind the marble pillar with one of Dante’s armed guards. I walked over to him.

He handed me the locket.

Inside was a small, faded photograph.

It was a picture of a man and a woman holding a newborn baby.

The woman was Celeste.

The man was my husband, Michael.

My breath stopped. I stared at the face of the man I had mourned, the man who had kissed me at the altar, the man who had promised to love me forever. He was looking at Celeste with a smile I had only ever thought belonged to me.

But that wasn’t what made the room spin.

It was the baby in Celeste’s arms.

On the baby’s left shoulder, clearly visible in the photograph, was a distinct, star-shaped birthmark.