“EMPTY YOUR PURSE ON THE TABLE, YOU OLD THIEF.” THE MAFIA BOSS’S FIANCÉE HUMILIATED THE SEVENTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD WOMAN WHO HAD RAISED HIM IN FRONT OF TWENTY DINNER GUESTS—BUT WHEN I PICKED UP A SMALL PHOTOGRAPH FROM THE FLOOR, THE MOST FEARED MAN IN NEW YORK LOOKED AT HIS BRIDE-TO-BE AND ASKED, “HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN LYING TO ME?” -

Chapter 2 – A CHILD’S DRAWING IN THE DARK

“Put the gun down, Marcus.”

Adrian didn’t yell. He didn’t have to. The quiet menace in his tone was enough to make the dining room temperature drop.

But Marcus was panicking. His hand trembled as he kept the barrel pointed at Ruth’s chest.

“Sloane promised me a piece of your empire!” Marcus shouted. “She said if we kept Leo locked away, she’d marry you, take the Valenti trust, and we’d be rich!”

Sloane slowly backed toward the dining room doors, her eyes darting around. “You idiot,” she muttered.

I was standing three feet from Marcus. I held the heavy silver water pitcher from the dinner service. My brother needed his tuition paid, but I couldn’t let this man hurt the woman who had just defended me.

I swung the silver pitcher with everything I had.

It cracked violently against Marcus’s wrist. The gun clattered to the marble floor. Adrian’s security chief, Dominic, tackled Marcus instantly, pinning him down.

Sloane shrieked and bolted through the doors into the rainy night.

Adrian ignored her fleeing figure. He dropped to his knees beside Ruth. “Are you hurt? Did he touch you?”

“I’m fine, my sweet boy,” Ruth breathed, patting his cheek.

Adrian stood up and turned to me. “You saved her life, Claire. I won’t forget this.”

I picked up the dropped gun and kicked it away, but as I did, my shoe hit a crumpled piece of paper that had fallen from Marcus’s pocket during the scuffle.

I smoothed it out on the table.

It wasn’t a document. It was a child’s drawing in blue crayon. A picture of a tall brick building with a broken clock tower, and a little boy crying in a window. At the bottom, written in messy kid’s handwriting, were the words: Save my Daddy.

Ruth gasped, touching the paper. “That’s Saint Jude’s. The abandoned orphanage by the docks.”

Adrian racked the slide of his own weapon. “Dominic. Lock down the estate. Claire, Ruth… you’re coming with me.”

We rushed out into the pouring rain and climbed into Adrian’s armored SUV. But as we pulled out of the gates, my phone buzzed with an unknown number.

I answered it.

“Claire Morgan?” a raspy, terrifying voice asked. “If you ever want to see your little brother alive again, you will turn that car around right now.”