THE STOLEN DIAMONDS AND THE SLEEPING SHADOWS

“Three minutes!” Isabella screamed, tearing at the locked mahogany doors, her perfectly manicured nails cracking against the wood. “Roman, do something! Break it down!”

Roman ignored her hysteria. He didn’t waste bullets shooting at the reinforced locks—he knew his own security system. Instead, he grabbed a heavy brass fire poker from the hearth and began viciously striking the reinforced glass of the library windows.

It didn’t even scratch. The glass was ballistic-rated. Designed to keep assassins out. Now, it was keeping us in.

“T-minus two minutes, forty-five seconds,” the automated voice droned.

I sat on the floor, holding Sophie so tightly she whimpered. My mind was spinning, fractured by the revelation hanging in the air.

Tell her who actually fathered her precious little girl.

“Isabella,” I said, my voice eerily calm despite the impending suffocation. I stood up, carrying Sophie, and walked over to the frantic woman. “What did you mean?”

Isabella spun around, her face smeared with mascara and panic. “Are you stupid? Look at him!” She pointed at Roman, who was now prying a mahogany bookshelf away from the wall, hunting for wiring. “Victor told me everything. You didn’t just wander into this mansion looking for work. Roman tracked you down. He brought you here.”

I looked at Roman’s broad back. “Roman?”

He stopped. He turned slowly, the brass poker hanging from his grip. His dark eyes met mine, filled with a regret so profound it stole the breath from my lungs.

“Four years ago,” Roman said, his voice low, steady, fighting the clock. “My younger brother, Leo. He came to me in a panic. He said he had made a terrible mistake. He got a girl pregnant. A girl from the city. He didn’t know her real name, only that she had a twin.”

My blood turned to ice.

Leo. The charming, reckless man I had met at a bar on the worst night of my life, exactly one year after the fire. He had told me his name was Luke. He vanished the morning after.

Three months later, I found out I was pregnant with Sophie. Six months after that, I read in the papers that a wealthy playboy named Leo DeLuca had been killed in a car crash.

“Leo was Sophie’s father,” Roman confessed, dropping the poker. “When he died, I made a vow to find the woman he abandoned. To make sure my blood, my niece, was protected. But when my men found you… you were terrified. You were hiding. You flinched when people walked too close.”

“Because I thought my sister’s killers were after me,” I whispered.

“I didn’t want to scare you away,” Roman said softly, taking a step toward me. “If I told you I was a DeLuca, you would have run. So, I bought the cleaning agency you worked for. I assigned you exclusively to my house. I gave you a safe place to live. I just wanted to watch over you. Over her.”

He looked at Sophie, his eyes softening.

The truth hit me like a physical force. My daughter wasn’t just a maid’s child. She was a DeLuca. She was mafia royalty.

“T-minus two minutes.”

“How touching!” Isabella shrieked, kicking a side table. “He’s been playing daddy to a bastard while I pick out wedding flowers! And Victor figured it out! Victor knew Roman would leave the syndicate to protect his secret little family. That’s why Victor allied with your psycho sister!”

It all made terrifying sense. Victor wanted to destroy Roman’s reasons for leaving. Elena wanted revenge on me. They were a perfect, lethal team.

“Mommy,” Sophie murmured, pulling my chin down.

I looked at her. “What is it, baby?”

She pointed a small, chubby finger toward the massive fireplace. “The music.”

I frowned. I listened past the blaring alarms and Isabella’s sobbing.

Faintly, coming from inside the dark, cavernous fireplace, I heard it. A tinkling, mechanical melody.

Pop Goes the Weasel.

I handed Sophie to Roman. He took her without hesitation, cradling his niece protectively against his chest.

I walked to the fireplace and peered into the soot-stained darkness of the massive chimney.

Sitting on the iron grate was a small, wooden music box.

It was painted with daisies.

My breath caught in my throat. It was my music box. The one I kept on my dresser when I was a child. The one I thought had burned in the fire.

The lid was open, the tiny ballerina spinning slowly.

But tied to the ballerina’s waist was a thin, nearly invisible piece of fishing line. The line extended upward, disappearing into the dark chute of the chimney.

Elena hadn’t just left it here to taunt me.

She had left a clue.

“Roman,” I said, my heart hammering. “The chimney. It’s an old house. Does this chimney have a secondary draft vent?”

Roman’s eyes widened in realization. “Yes. During the renovations, they left the old masonry vents intact. It connects to the master bedroom on the second floor.”

“The fire suppression system sucks out oxygen by sealing the room,” I said, talking fast. “But if we open the draft vent, it breaks the seal. The system will fail.”

“T-minus one minute.”

Roman handed Sophie back to me. He ducked his massive frame into the fireplace, ignoring the soot that ruined his tailored suit. He reached up into the darkness, feeling along the brick.

“It’s rusted shut!” he grunted, straining.

“Use the poker!” I yelled over the alarm.

He grabbed the heavy brass tool, wedged it into the brickwork, and threw his entire body weight against it. The muscles in his back strained tight enough to rip his jacket.

With a deafening CRACK, the iron vent gave way.

A rush of cold, sweet air poured down the chimney, blowing soot into the room.

Above us, the automated voice stuttered.

“Pressure anomaly detected. Purge system… aborted. Manual override required.”

The red flashing lights turned green.

The heavy lock on the mahogany doors clicked open.

We were alive.

Isabella collapsed onto the floor, sobbing in relief.

Roman stepped out of the fireplace, wiping soot from his face. He looked at me, a dangerous, lethal fire burning in his eyes.

“Victor thinks he’s won,” Roman said, racking the slide of his handgun. “He thinks I’m trapped in here. He doesn’t know I’m coming.”

But before Roman could reach the door, a child’s scream echoed from the hallway.

Not Sophie’s scream.