“I didn’t know until tonight.”

“I didn’t know until tonight.”

“The files in my office.”

“The attack looked the same.”

Rico glanced through the glass toward Salvi.

“Then Elena wasn’t Luca’s first contract.”

“No.”

“Salvi has been using him for years.”

Clara grabbed Rico’s lapels.

“He recognized me.”

The balcony door opened.

Marco, the restaurant manager, stepped outside.

His face was white.

Then Clara saw why.

A pistol touched his back.

Luca followed him onto the balcony and slid the door closed.

Locked it.

Smiled.

“I knew I remembered you.”

Rico moved in front of Clara.

Luca’s gun remained steady.

“The little nurse from Chicago,” he said. “You were always the loose end.”

Clara could hear the orchestra playing inside.

People were drinking twenty feet away.

Nobody could hear them.

Luca looked at Rico.

“Don Salvi sends his regards.”

Rico’s voice became dangerously calm.

“You made a mistake.”

“No.”

Luca smiled.

“My mistake was leaving her alive three years ago.”

Then his eyes shifted toward Clara.

“Tonight I get to correct it.”

He raised the gun.

“And this time, Ricardo, you get to watch me kill your fiancée exactly the way I killed your wife.”

PART 3 — THE MOTHER WITHOUT A CHILD

Rico did not reach for his weapon.

Clara noticed that immediately.

Luca expected him to.

His pistol remained aimed between Rico and Clara, while Marco stood trembling against the balcony wall.

Inside the ballroom, the quartet moved into a waltz.

The civilized world remained inches away behind glass.

“Where’s Dante?” Rico asked.

Luca smiled.

“Unavailable.”

Rico’s face changed.

“What did you do?”

“Pantry.”

The answer was enough.

For one terrible second, grief broke through Rico’s discipline.

Dante had been with him before Leo was born. He had stood outside the hospital room when Elena delivered their son. He had carried Leo from the restaurant the night Clara first arrived.

Luca enjoyed the reaction.

That was his mistake.

Rico moved.

Not toward his gun.

Toward Marco.

He shoved the manager sideways.

Luca fired.

The suppressed round shattered glass near the door.

“Run!”

Rico hit Luca hard enough to drive both men against the stone railing.

Clara climbed.

The drop below was more than twenty feet.

She looked down at dark hedges.

Then back at Rico.

“Clara!”

She jumped.

Branches broke beneath her.

Pain exploded through her ankle.

For several seconds she could not breathe.

Then gunfire cracked above.

Clara dragged herself from the hedge.

People were shouting inside the mansion now.

Lights moved across windows.

She started toward the main entrance.

Stopped.

Leo.

If Salvi had infiltrated Rico’s summit deeply enough to neutralize Dante and corner Rico, he would not leave the Moretti heir untouched.

Clara turned.

The nursery sat on the east wing’s second floor.

A wooden trellis climbed beneath its window.

Her ankle screamed with every step.

She kicked off her remaining shoe.

Rain began falling harder.

“Come on,” she whispered.

Her hands closed around wet lattice.

She climbed.

One rung.

Then another.

Thorns caught the emerald dress.

Silk tore.

Her injured ankle slipped.

She nearly fell.

Clara pressed her forehead against the trellis.

“Mia,” she whispered.

The name came out before she could stop it.

For years she had avoided saying her daughter’s name during moments of fear because grief made everything harder.

Tonight it made her climb.

She reached the nursery ledge.

The window was locked.

Inside, darkness.

“Leo.”

No movement.

Clara wrapped her fist in torn fabric and struck near the latch.

The first blow cracked nothing.

The second hurt badly enough to make her vision flash white.

The third broke the pane.

She reached through carefully, opened the lock, and pulled herself inside.

The crib was empty.

Clara’s stomach dropped.

“Leo?”

Silence.

Then a small sound came from beside the rocking chair.

She dropped to her knees.

Leo was curled beneath it with his stuffed dinosaur pressed against his face.

Clara crawled toward him.

His eyes widened.

“Mama.”

She froze.

One word.

Not Elena.

Her.

Clara’s heart seemed to split open and heal at the same time.

She gathered him against her.

“I’ve got you.”

His arms locked around her neck.

“I’ve got you, baby.”

The nursery handle moved.

Clara turned.

A security guard entered.

She recognized him.

For two weeks, he had greeted Leo every morning.

Now he held a knife.

“Sorry, Miss Vance.”

Clara pushed Leo behind her.

The guard shut the door.

“Salvi pays better.”

Clara looked around.

No gun.

No escape except the broken window.

She had never been trained to fight.

She was a waitress.

A former nursing student.

Twenty-four years old.

Five feet five.

Barefoot.

Terrified.

But Leo was behind her.

Something in Clara became very still.

“Don’t touch him.”

The guard advanced.

“You think you can stop me?”

“No.”

She picked up the heavy ceramic base of a humidifier.

“But you’re going to have to go through me.”

He lunged.

Clara moved sideways and swung.

The humidifier struck his leg.

He staggered.

His blade caught her forearm.

Pain burned across her skin.

She shoved the rocking chair between them.

“Closet, Leo!”

The boy ran.

The guard pushed the chair aside.

Then a deafening shot filled the nursery.

The man collapsed.

Rico stood in the doorway.

His tuxedo jacket was gone.

Blood darkened his white shirt at the side.

His breathing came hard.

He looked at the fallen guard.

Then at Clara.

Broken glass in her hair.

Blood on her sleeve.

Bare feet.

Emerald silk torn from climbing the exterior wall.

He crossed the room.

“You came back.”

The words broke in his throat.

Clara stared.

“You told me to run.”

“You were supposed to keep running.”

“I couldn’t leave him.”

Rico cupped her face.

For one moment, he was not the head of the Moretti family.

He was a widower who had expected to lose everything again.

Clara’s control broke.

“He was alone.”

Rico pulled her against him.

Then Leo emerged from the closet.

“Daddy.”

Rico crouched despite the pain in his side.

Leo ran into him.

Clara knelt beside them.

Three frightened people held one another in the wreckage of a nursery while the mansion below descended into chaos.

Footsteps approached.

Rico reached for his weapon.

“Boss!”

Rocco, one of his young lieutenants, appeared.

“The lower floor is compromised. Salvi brought people in through catering and private security.”

“Where’s Luca?”

“Moving toward the west corridor.”

“Dante?”

Rocco’s face told him.

Rico looked away for half a second.

Then returned to command.

“The bunker.”

Clara noticed the blood spreading at his ribs.

“You’re injured.”

“Later.”

“Rico.”

“Move.”

He lifted Leo with one arm and caught Clara’s good hand with the other.

They disappeared through the west wing.

The hidden entrance lay behind a wine-storage room beneath the mansion.

Rico keyed a code.

Steel opened inside stone.

They descended.

The bunker door closed behind them with a mechanical thud.

Suddenly there was no gunfire.

No rain.

No screaming.

Only ventilation fans and three people breathing too hard.

Monitors covered one wall.

Medical cabinets lined another.

An escape tunnel extended behind a secondary reinforced door.

Rico set Leo down.

Then his knees weakened.

He hit the wall.

Slid toward the floor.

Clara moved instantly.

“Sit.”

“I am sitting.”

“Stop talking.”

She tore open the medical cabinet.

Her old training returned through muscle memory.

Gloves.

Sterile dressings.

Antiseptic.

Rico tried to stand.

“Leo first.”

“He’s physically unharmed.”

“He’s terrified.”

“So am I. Sit still.”

Rico looked up.

Despite everything, something like admiration appeared.

“Yes, nurse.”

“Don’t flirt while bleeding.”

“I wasn’t.”

“That was worse.”

She opened his shirt.

The injury was painful but not immediately catastrophic.

Clara exhaled.

“You’re lucky.”

“I’m frequently told that.”

“By whom?”

“Nobody.”

“Exactly.”

She worked.

Rico watched her hands.

They were shaking.

Yet each movement remained controlled.

Leo sat beneath a blanket nearby, staring at them.

Clara cleaned and dressed the wound.

Only afterward did she sit beside Rico.

The adrenaline was draining.

Her own forearm hurt.

Her ankle throbbed.

Blood had dried beneath her fingernails.

Rico looked at Leo.

“He trusted you before he trusted me again.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true.”

“He was grieving.”

“So was I.”

Clara turned.

Rico stared at his son.

“I knew how to punish enemies. I knew how to secure properties. I knew how to make people fear touching my family.”

His jaw tightened.

“But when Elena died, none of that helped him.”

Clara looked down.

“Fear doesn’t comfort anyone.”

“You knew.”