THE MAFIA BOSS’S FIANCÉE TOLD ME TO SEAT HIS SEVENTY-EIGHT-YEAR-OLD FORMER HOUSEKEEPER IN THE KITCHEN—BUT WHEN I BROUGHT HER TO THE ENGAGEMENT TABLE, LUCA MORETTI STOOD UP AND CALLED HER “MAMA ROSA.”

The wind off Lake Michigan whipped freezing spray across the deck of the boat, stinging my face like needles. Gino Bellini stood over me, his grip on my coat collar tightening until the fabric choked my throat, the cold steel barrel of his revolver pressed hard against the bridge of my nose.

“You think you’re smart, don't you?” Gino spat, rain dripping from his slicked-back dark hair. “A little trailer-park girl playing games with the commission. Where’s Luca? Did the bastard burn in the cellar?”

I looked past his shoulder.

Emerging from the shadows of the collapsed boathouse slipway, moving through the waist-deep black water like an ancient sea demon, was Luca Moretti.

His dress shirt was shredded, his face streaked with soot and blood, but his dark eyes were completely clear, burning with cold, lethal fury.

In his right hand, Luca held a twelve-gauge tactical shotgun salvaged from the cottage armory.

I didn’t blink. I didn’t look away from Gino’s eyes.

“Luca isn't in the cellar, Gino,” I said, my voice steady, ringing with absolute certainty over the roar of the surf.

Gino sneered, his finger tightening on the trigger. “What did you say?”

“I said look behind you.”

Gino’s instincts kicked in a fraction of a second too late.

As he began to turn his head, Luca surged out of the dark water, driving the heavy steel butt of the tactical shotgun directly into Gino’s jaw with concussive, bone-crushing force.

Gino let out a wet, strangled gasp as his teeth shattered. His revolver went flying into the black water of the slip, and his heavy body slammed backward onto the wooden pier with a sickening thud.

Before Gino could scramble to his feet, Luca planted his heavy boot squarely onto Gino’s chest, pressing down with enough pressure to crack his ribs, racking the shotgun slide with a crisp, terrifying *CLACK*.

The twin barrels hovered two inches from Gino’s bleeding nose.

“Where is your father, Gino?” Luca asked.

His tone was conversational. Mild. Polite.

It was the most terrifying sound I had ever heard in my life.

“Luca... please...” Gino wheezed, blood bubbling from his mouth, his hands clawing uselessly at Luca’s boot. “He’s... he’s at the private airstrip in Gary... waiting for the helicopter... he sent us to burn the cottage...”

“And Vanessa?”

“She’s... she’s with him... they’re flying to Miami... transferring the accounts to the Bahamas before dawn...”

Luca slowly lifted his boot.

He looked down at Gino with an expression of profound, unadulterated disgust.

“Take off your jacket, Gino.”

Gino blinked through his tears of agony. “What?”

“Take off your tactical jacket and give Emma your satellite phone.”

Gino scrambled frantically to unzip his heavy coat, throwing it onto the boat deck alongside an encrypted military-grade smartphone.

Luca turned to me, reaching out his large, blood-stained hand to pull me up from the cockpit floor.

“Are you hurt, Emma?” he asked, his voice softening instantly as his eyes swept over my face, checking for injuries.

“I’m fine, Luca,” I whispered, throwing my arms around his neck, burying my face into the crook of his collarbone. He smelled of smoke, gunpowder, and cold lake water, but to me, he felt like the safest place in the universe. “I thought you died in that fire.”

Luca held me tight against his chest, his large hand gently cradling the back of my head.

“A Moretti doesn't die in an Indiana cellar, Emma,” he murmured against my hair. “Not when there is an apple pie waiting for him at home.”

He pulled back, looked down at the satellite phone on the deck, and keyed the screen.

“Marco,” Luca spoke into the speaker.

Marco’s voice crackled through the receiver immediately: *“Boss! Thank God! The surveillance feed from New Buffalo went black! We thought—”*

“The cottage is gone, but we have the ledgers,” Luca interrupted smoothly. “Salvatore and Vanessa are at the private airstrip in Gary, preparing to board a Gulfstream for Miami. Mobilize Teams Alpha and Bravo. Shut down the runway. And contact Elder Capo Barzini.”

Luca looked out over the black, churning waves of Lake Michigan.