The Woman Sitting Beside the Mafia Boss’s Mother

“Marcus, no!” Elena screamed, lunging forward.

The gunshot was deafening in the enclosed ballroom. The sound bounced off the marble walls, followed immediately by the screams of the party guests diving for cover under the tables.

Elena hit the floor, her hands covering her ears.

When she opened her eyes, the smoke was clearing.

Her father was standing.

The guard who had been holding his right arm was on the ground, clutching his bleeding shoulder. Marcus hadn't aimed at Thomas; he had aimed at the man restraining him.

“Move!” Marcus roared, grabbing Elena by the arm and hauling her to her feet.

Victoria was already in motion. She had pulled a small weapon from a holster strapped to her thigh beneath the slit of her gown. She fired two precise shots at the chandeliers above Isabella’s table.

Glass rained down like deadly hail. Isabella shielded her face, her guards scrambling to protect her.

“To the east wing!” Thomas yelled, grabbing the silver candlestick Elena had dropped and smashing it into the face of a guard blocking the side exit.

The four of them sprinted through the heavy oak doors, Marcus firing blindly behind them to keep Isabella’s men pinned down.

They burst into the grand hallway of the Vale estate. The air was thick with the scent of old wood and impending violence.

“Keep moving!” Victoria ordered, her elegant gown torn at the hem. She moved with a tactical precision that terrified Elena. “They’ll lock down the perimeter in less than two minutes.”

They ran down a maze of corridors adorned with priceless art, finally ducking into a heavy-doored study. Marcus slammed the door shut and engaged the reinforced steel deadbolts.

Elena collapsed against the mahogany desk, her chest heaving, her lungs burning. Her expensive wedding shoes were gone; she was barefoot on the Persian rug.

“You shot him,” Elena choked out, staring at Marcus. “You actually shot a man.”

“I saved your father’s life,” Marcus corrected, checking the magazine of his weapon. “We don’t have time to panic, Elena. We have to get to the vault.”

“The vault?” Thomas asked, leaning against the wall, out of breath. “You actually found it?”

“Victoria did,” Marcus said, nodding toward the woman.

Victoria was at the window, peering through the heavy velvet curtains. “We have heavily armed men moving across the courtyard. We are trapped.”

Elena looked between the three of them. Her husband. Her dead father. Her husband’s fake mistress.

“Stop,” Elena said. Her voice wasn't a whisper anymore. It was hard. “Everyone stop right now.”

Marcus turned to her.

“You’ve all been lying to me my entire life,” Elena said, her eyes burning with angry tears. “You traded me. You married me to protect me. You faked an affair. I am not moving another inch until someone tells me the rest of the truth. Because this isn't just about a fifty-million-dollar debt. Isabella wouldn't execute her own son over money.”

The room went silent.

Victoria turned away from the window. She reached into her clutch and pulled out a string of dark wooden beads.

A rosary.

Elena recognized it instantly. It was the rosary her mother used to pray with every night before bed.

“How do you have that?” Elena asked, her voice shaking.

“Because your mother gave it to me,” Victoria said softly. “The night she died.”

Elena’s heart stopped. “You were there?”

Victoria walked slowly toward Elena, holding the rosary out. “I told you I was an orphan taken in by the Vales. That was true. But I didn't tell you who my parents were.”

Victoria reached up and unclasped the heavy diamond necklace she was wearing. She let it drop to the floor. Beneath it, on her collarbone, was a jagged, faded scar.

“I got this scar in a car accident when I was four years old,” Victoria said, her eyes filling with tears. “The same car accident that supposedly killed my mother and father. But they didn't die. They escaped. I was thrown from the vehicle and taken by Isabella.”

Elena stared at the scar, then at the rosary, and finally up into Victoria’s eyes. They were the exact same shade of hazel as her own.

“No,” Elena breathed, stepping back.