“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 4 – THE MAN IN THE SHADOWS

The silence in the rotting hallway was deafening.

Adrian didn’t dare shift his weight. The click of the pressure plate meant only one thing—the orphanage was wired to blow, and Sloane had set the trap perfectly.

“Take the boy and get out, Claire,” Adrian ordered, his jaw locked. “Take Mama Ruth. Run.”

“I am not leaving you, Adrian Valenti!” Ruth cried, clutching little Toby tightly.

“You have to,” Adrian said, a tear finally escaping his stoic eyes. “Tell Leo I never stopped looking for him.”

Before I could grab Ruth’s arm, a heavy, dragging sound echoed from the basement corridor.

A man emerged from the shadows.

He was thin, frail, leaning heavily against the brick wall. He wore ragged clothes, his face bruised and bearded. But his eyes—piercing, defiant, and startlingly blue—were the exact same shape as Adrian’s.

“You always were too dramatic, little brother,” the man coughed.

Adrian stopped breathing. “Leo?”

Leo Valenti managed a broken smile. “Sloane’s men didn’t rig the floor with explosives, Adrian. I rigged it. To keep them out.”

Leo limped forward, falling to his knees and wrapping his arms around his crying son. Toby buried his face in his father’s chest.

Adrian fell to the floor, pulling both his brother and his nephew into a desperate, crushing embrace. Twelve years of grief melted away in the damp hallway of the orphanage.

I watched them, tears blurring my vision. But my heart was pounding a frantic rhythm. My brother. I had chosen Adrian’s family over my own.

I looked down at my phone. The time was 11:05 PM. My brother’s shift was over.

Suddenly, my phone rang again. The screen flashed: Sloane Whitaker.

I answered it, my hands shaking.

“Well, Claire,” Sloane sneered over the line. “I see you made your choice. Say goodbye to your precious brother.”

I heard a scuffle on the phone. A heavy thud. Then, a man’s voice came through the speaker.

But it wasn’t my brother.

“Claire?” the deep voice said. “It’s Dominic. We secured the hospital. Your brother is safe. But you need to get back to the estate, right now.”

“Why? What happened?” I asked.

Dominic’s voice dropped to a grim whisper. “Sloane isn’t trying to steal the Valenti fortune. She’s trying to cover up who really owns it. You need to see what we found in her safe.”