THE MAFIA BOSS’S FIANCÉE TOLD ME TO TURN AWAY THE NURSE WHO CARED FOR HIS LATE WIFE—BUT WHEN HE SAW THE BLUE BOX IN HER HANDS, HIS ENTIRE EMPIRE CRUMBLED BEFORE DINNER

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Dawn arrived over the Gold Coast with gray clouds and a biting wind.

I didn't sleep.

I had spent the night on the couch in the staff quarters, terrified that my father's small apartment in Bridgeport was already being targeted.

Every distant siren that tore through the city streets made my heart race.

At six in the morning, the kitchen was silent.

The head cook hadn't arrived yet; the catering staff had been sent home during the chaos the night before.

I brewed fresh black coffee, poured two cups, and carried one up to the study, expecting Luca to be asleep.

He wasn't.

The door was ajar.

Luca was sitting behind his mahogany desk, surrounded by stacks of ledgers and leather-bound journals.

Grace’s blue box sat open in front of him.

The gold wedding band caught the pale morning light coming through the high leaded-glass windows.

Beside it lay a small key I hadn't seen the night before.

A brass key, intricately carved with the shape of an ivy leaf.

He looked up as my shoes scuffed against the doorway.

His eyes were rimmed with dark circles.

“Come in, Emma.”

“I brought you coffee, Mr. Moretti. I wasn't sure if you had slept.”

“Sleep is a luxury for men with clean consciences,” he said, taking the cup from my hands. His fingers brushed mine, warm and calloused. “Sit down.”

I took the seat opposite him.

“Is Margaret alright?” I asked.

“She is resting. My personal security detail will escort her to a safe house in Michigan this afternoon. She will be guarded round the clock.”

He took a sip of the bitter coffee, staring intently at the brass key.

“Do you know what this opens?” he asked suddenly.

I shook my head. “No, sir.”

“Grace’s personal safe. Not the one in the bedroom wall. A floor safe she had installed in the old greenhouse behind the carriage house before she became too sick to walk.”

Luca set his cup down.

“Vanessa wasn't just trying to intercept a sentimental keepsake, Emma. When Margaret arrived, Vanessa didn't panic because of a wedding ring. She panicked because Grace kept records.”

I felt a cold chill run along my spine.

“Records of what?”

Luca leaned back, rubbing his temples.

“Eight years ago, when Grace was diagnosed, her health deteriorated with terrifying speed. The doctors said it was an aggressive form of lymphoma. But toward the end, she became paranoid. She kept writing in her diaries that the water tasted like copper. That her medications were being switched.”

I gasped, putting a hand over my mouth.

“You mean... she wasn't sick?”

“She was sick,” Luca said, his voice dropping to a gravelly whisper. “The cancer was real. But Grace believed someone was accelerating it. Someone who wanted her out of the way so their daughter could step into her shoes.”

“The Bellinis,” I breathed.

Luca nodded slowly.

“Vanessa had been trying to get close to me since before Grace fell ill. Her family wanted a merge of territories. Grace was the only obstacle. Grace died before she could prove anything, but she told Margaret that when the time was right—when I was about to make the fatal mistake of letting the serpent into our home—she would send me the key to uncover the truth.”

Luca reached across the desk and picked up the brass key.

“I need to open that safe, Emma.”

“Why don't you?”

“Because the greenhouse is wired with an old security relay that Grace designed. It triggers an alert if unauthorized codes are broken. And more importantly... the Bellinis have informants among my guards.”

Luca stood up, walking to the window that overlooked the rain-soaked gardens.

“I don't know who among my men has taken Bellini money. But I know one thing for certain.”

He turned and looked straight into my eyes.

“You refused to back down to Vanessa when she had every advantage. You stood between an old woman and thirty men who could have ruined your life.”

“I only did what was decent, sir.”

“Decency is the rarest commodity in my world,” Luca said. “Tonight, when the shift changes at midnight, I need you to accompany me to the greenhouse. You will hold the lantern. You will watch my back. Can I trust you, Emma?”

I thought about my father. I thought about the bills on my kitchen counter.

And then I thought about Grace, dying in a bed eight years ago, fighting to protect the man she loved from beyond the grave.