THE WAITRESS, THE WINE, AND THE MAFIA BOSS'S LOST SON

Grace stood trembling in the doorway of the kitchen, her wrists bleeding from where she had gnawed through zip ties.

But it was what she held in her bruised, shaking hands that made Victoria Hale, the woman in the red silk gown, drop her four-thousand-dollar crystal wineglass.

It was a small, heavy silver locket.

I recognized it immediately. It was the same locket Victoria had been wearing when she walked into the restaurant an hour earlier.

"Where did you get that?" Victoria hissed, her elegant facade cracking into sheer panic.

Grace didn't look at her. She looked at Dominic, who was leaning heavily against the table, his skin turning a terrible, ashen gray.

"She dropped it when she came down to the basement to check on me," Grace said, her voice shaking but loud enough to cut through the ringing silence left by the gunfire. "Thirty minutes ago. While you were eating appetizers, Mr. Caruso. She told the guard to make sure I was dead before dessert was served."

Dominic’s breathing was shallow and ragged. He turned his head slowly to look at the woman he was supposed to marry in three weeks.

"You," Dominic gasped, clutching his chest. "You knew they had Nicholas. You knew about the waitress's daughter."

Victoria backed away, her hands raised. "Dominic, darling, she's lying! Look at her, she's just a crazy girl!"

But Anthony Romano, standing near the shattered windows, began to laugh. It was a cold, dry sound.

"She's not lying, Dominic," Anthony said, checking his watch. "Victoria didn't just know. She was the one who suggested we use the waitress's daughter as leverage tonight. She thought it was poetic. The girl who saw too much fifteen years ago, dying on the same night as you."

"Why?" Dominic choked out, his knees buckling. He caught himself on the edge of a mahogany chair. "Why, Victoria?"

Victoria stopped backing away. The terror in her eyes vanished, replaced by a cold, calculating hatred that made her look like a completely different person.

"Because my name isn't Victoria Hale," she spat. "It's Victoria Santoro. You killed my father ten years ago when you took over the South Side docks. You didn't even remember his name, did you? But Anthony remembered. Anthony promised me that if I got close to you, if I got the ring on my finger, I would inherit half the empire when you died of a sudden, tragic heart attack at dinner."

I looked at the clock on the wall.

9:00 p.m.

Dominic collapsed onto the floor.

"Dad!" Nicholas screamed, running toward him.

I moved faster than I had in twenty years. I slid across the glass-covered floor and grabbed Dominic’s shoulder, turning him onto his side so he wouldn't choke. His eyes were rolling back. His pulse was weak, fluttering like a dying bird beneath my fingertips.

"Mrs. Bennett," Nicholas begged, grabbing my apron. "You knew the wine was poisoned. Do you know what it is? How do we stop it?"

I looked around the room. Anthony’s guards had their guns drawn, keeping Salvatore and the remaining loyal men at bay. But Anthony wasn't looking at us anymore. He was looking at his phone, waiting for confirmation that the transfer of power was complete.

I leaned down to Dominic's ear.

"Mr. Caruso," I whispered urgently. "The guard behind the door. The one who took the cash. I heard him say one more thing before I took your glass."

Dominic's eyes fluttered open. He was barely conscious.

"He said... he said 'the antidote is in the coat'," I told him. "Whose coat, Dominic? Who checked a coat?"

Dominic’s hand twitched. He pointed a trembling, tattooed finger toward Anthony Romano.

I didn't think. I just moved.

I lunged upward from the floor, grabbed a heavy, silver ice bucket from the nearest table, and swung it with every ounce of strength I had left in my fifty-year-old arms.

The heavy silver hit the side of Anthony’s head with a sickening crack.

He went down hard, his gun skittering across the floor.

Before his guards could react, Dominic's father, Salvatore—the seventy-five-year-old man who had ordered my daughter's death fifteen years ago—dove across the table and grabbed the weapon.

"Nobody moves!" Salvatore roared, aiming the gun at Anthony’s men.

I didn't care about the guns. I fell to my knees beside Anthony’s unconscious body and tore open his expensive cashmere coat.

In the inside breast pocket, I felt something hard. A small, glass vial with an auto-injector needle.

I pulled it out, my hands covered in Anthony’s blood.

"Nicholas!" I yelled, tossing the vial to the young man. "Give it to him!"

Nicholas caught the vial, jammed it into his father’s thigh, and pressed the button.

For ten agonizing seconds, nothing happened. The restaurant was dead silent, save for the distant wail of police sirens approaching the building.

Then, Dominic took a massive, shuddering breath.

His eyes snapped open. He coughed violently, rolling onto his hands and knees. The color began to return to his face.

Nicholas wrapped his arms around his father's shoulders, sobbing.

"I got you, Dad," Nicholas cried. "I got you."

I looked up. Grace was standing near the kitchen door, watching me. I ran to her and pulled her into my arms, burying my face in her shoulder. She was alive. We were alive.

But as I held my daughter, I felt her slip something into the pocket of my apron.

I pulled back and looked at her.

"Grace?" I whispered. "What is this?"

Grace looked terrified. She glanced at Salvatore, who was still holding Anthony’s men at gunpoint, then back at me.

"When Victoria dropped the locket in the basement," Grace whispered so only I could hear, "it popped open. Mom... Anthony isn't the one who kidnapped Nicholas fifteen years ago."

I reached into my pocket and opened the silver locket.

Inside was a faded photograph of a young woman holding a baby. The baby had a crescent-shaped birthmark beneath his left ear.