“SHE TOLD MY DAUGHTER I STOPPED LOVING HER!” THE MAFIA BOSS WATCHED HIS FIANCÉE ERASE HIS MOTHER’S PHONE—UNTIL THE MAID REVEALED THE HIDDEN VOICEMAIL THAT BROKE THE WEDDING.

Vanessa stared at Luca’s face. She looked for a crack, a hesitation, a single thread of the affection she had spent two years manipulating.

She found nothing.

Just two eyes that looked like empty gun barrels.

Slowly, her hands shaking so violently she dropped her clutch onto the floorboards, Vanessa worked the platinum ring off her finger. It came free with a dry, scraping sound against her knuckle.

She held it out in her open palm.

Luca didn't take it with his skin. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a clean linen handkerchief, and tipped the ring into the cloth, wrapping it up as if it were a piece of roadkill he didn't want contaminating his home.

He tossed the bundled handkerchief onto the center of the table.

“Dante,” Luca commanded without turning around.

“Yes, boss.”

“Escort Miss Bellini to her suite. Give her twenty minutes to pack two suitcases. If she takes anything that wasn't in her luggage the day she moved in, strip-search her at the gate.”

Vanessa’s chest heaved. “Luca! You cannot throw me out like a common street walker! My father is Don Salvatore Bellini! He controls the Teamsters on the South Side! If you insult my family this way, there will be war across every terminal from here to Gary!”

Luca leaned in until his lips were an inch from her diamond earring.

“Tell your father that if a single truck belonging to the Bellini syndicate stops moving on Monday morning, I will release the offshore banking manifests my brother Michael left in his safe deposit box before he died.”

Vanessa froze. All the color drained from her skin, leaving her as pale as the linen napkins on the table.

“Michael didn't leave anything,” she whispered, her voice failing her.

“Try me,” Luca replied.

He turned his back on her, signaling Dante with a single flick of his fingers.

Dante stepped forward, his heavy hand clamping down on Vanessa’s upper arm with enough pressure to bruise through the red silk. He dragged her out through the double doors, her designer heels skidding uselessly against the polished parquet floor until the door clicked shut behind them.

The room exhaled.

Uncle Sal picked up his napkin, wiping sweat from his forehead. The other capos exchanged grim, heavy looks, recognizing that the balance of power in the five boroughs had just shifted on its axis over a plate of roast beef.

Luca stood at the head of the table.

He looked at his mother.

Rosa was still holding Sophie, her wrinkled chin resting on the young girl’s dark hair. Sophie’s shoulders were shaking with silent sobs, her face buried in the blue cardigan.

Luca walked around the table, dropped to one knee beside his daughter, and pulled both of them into his arms.

“I’m sorry, baby,” Luca murmured, his voice cracking with a vulnerability that none of his soldiers had ever heard. “I’m so sorry. I should have seen it. I should have looked at the phone myself.”

Sophie clutched at the collar of his black shirt. “Dad… she told me you were tired of me. She said after the wedding, you and her were going to have your own babies, and there wouldn't be room for a girl who looked like Mom.”

A collective intake of breath hissed through the room.

Luca’s arms tightened around his daughter until his knuckles turned paper-white.

“Nobody replaces you,” Luca whispered against her temple. “Nobody on this earth. Not for a million weddings. Not for an empire.”

Rosa stroked her son’s shoulder with her frail fingers.

“She played us against each other, Luca,” Rosa said softly. “She told me you were too busy with the docks to be bothered by an old woman’s complaints. She told me that if I complained, you would think I was turning senile like my sister did.”

Luca lifted his head. His eyes were red-rimmed with raw, suppressed fury, but his mind was working with terrifying, surgical clarity.

He turned his gaze toward me.

I was still sitting in the chair where he had placed me, clutching my hands tightly in my lap, trying to make myself as small as possible.

“Emma,” Luca said.

“Yes, Mr. Moretti?”

“You heard her in the hallway yesterday.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you heard her talking to the house manager three weeks ago.”

“Yes, sir.”

Luca stood up slowly, looking around the room at his captains, his uncles, and his family.

“A house that doesn't listen to the people who sweep its floors is a house waiting to be burned down,” Luca declared, his baritone booming through the high-ceilinged room. “Emma didn't lie for a tip. She didn't look away to save her paycheck. She stood up against my future wife to protect my mother and my child.”

He looked down at me, his gaze softening into something deep, respectful, and unwavering.

“Effective immediately, your employment as a housemaid is terminated, Emma.”

My stomach plummeted into my shoes. My heart stopped.

Before I could beg, before I could mention my brother’s trade school tuition or the rent on my apartment, Luca continued:

“Because starting tomorrow morning, you are appointed the Executive Director of the Rosa Moretti Family Trust, with full administrative authority over this household, its staff, and my daughter’s personal security detail.”