THE MAFIA BOSS WATCHED ME CATCH THE BLUE BIRTHDAY BALLOON HIS NINE-YEAR-OLD SON'S FUTURE STEPMOTHER HAD JUST CUT LOOSE DURING HIS ENGAGEMENT DINNER

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The roar of the .38 revolver shattered the silence of the Cathedral Ballroom like a thunderclap.

Glass rained down from the lowest tier of the crystal chandelier as women screamed and thirty wealthy guests dove beneath the white linen banquet tables.

I didn't even have time to close my eyes before a hundred and ninety pounds of solid muscle slammed into me from the side.

Luca tackled me behind the thick marble pillar, wrapping his arms around my head and shielding my body completely with his own as the heavy lead bullet gouged a three-inch crater into the fluted stone right where my collarbone had been half a second earlier.

Marble dust showered over my dark hair and Luca's black cashmere coat.

Before Vanessa could cock the hammer for a second shot, Frank Costello and four Chicago SWAT officers burst from the side curtains onto the raised dais.

Frank knocked the silver revolver out of Vanessa's hand with a single brutal sweep of his forearm, sending the weapon skittering across the polished parquet floor into the champagne fountain.

"Get off me!" Vanessa shrieked, thrashing like a wild animal in the mud-stained white pantsuit as two officers pinned her chest-first against the marble stage and snapped steel handcuffs around her wrists. "Do you know who I am?! Do you know whose house I was supposed to own tomorrow?!"

Down on the marble floor behind the pillar, my ears were still ringing from the gunshot.

Luca was propped up on one elbow above me, his chest heaving against mine, his dark eyes scanning my face, my throat, and the front of my midnight-blue dress with frantic intensity.

"Rachel," he breathed, his warm hands sliding over my shoulders and down my arms to check for blood. "Are you hit? Look at me—did it touch you?"

"I'm okay," I whispered, my voice trembling as I reached up and touched a small red scrape along his jawline where a shard of flying marble had nicked his skin. "You're bleeding."

"It's dust," Luca muttered, though his hand closed tightly over my fingers against his cheek for a heartbeat before he stood up and pulled me gently to my feet.

When we stepped out from behind the pillar, the ballroom looked like the aftermath of a tornado.

Waiters were helping trembling society matrons off the floor, and by the main double doors, flashes from press cameras were already strobing through the glass transoms as reporters who had come to cover the rehearsal dinner of the decade captured the image of Councilman Victor Bellini's daughter being dragged out in handcuffs.

Vanessa's blonde hair hung in tangled strings over her face, her lipstick smeared across her chin as the officers hauled her down the center aisle right past us.

When she saw Luca standing beside me with his arm locked securely around my waist, she tried to lunge toward us against the officers' grip.

"Luca!" she sobbed, her arrogance suddenly collapsing into raw, animal terror as the reality of prison bars finally hit her. "Luca, please! Don't let them take me to County! Tell the prosecutor it was a mental breakdown! We can still fix this—my father will sign over the voting shares tonight!"

Luca looked at her as if she were a stranger he had never met in his life.

"You held a pair of silver scissors next to a nine-year-old boy's birthday balloon and made him apologize for existing," Luca said, his voice so quiet that only Vanessa, the arresting officers, and I could hear him. "Then you tried to stop his heart in his sleep, and you just fired a gun at the woman who saved his life. By the time my lawyers and the State's Attorney finish stacking the federal kidnapping, attempted murder, and wire fraud charges against you, Vanessa, you will be sixty years old before you see Lake Michigan again."

"Daddy!" Vanessa twisted her head desperately toward the foyer where Victor Bellini was leaning against the coat check counter, looking like a corpse in a bespoke suit. "Daddy, call Judge Myers! Post my bail!"

Victor didn't even look up from the floor.

Because right beside Victor stood two federal marshals holding a blue asset-forfeiture portfolio—the immediate result of the bank records Frank had handed over from Safe-Deposit Box 409 thirty minutes ago.

"There is no bail for attempted child murder and armed hostage-taking, Miss Bellini," the lead detective said coldly, shoving her head down as they pushed her through the revolving brass doors out into the flashing red-and-blue lights of six waiting police cruisers. "And even if there were, the federal prosecutor just froze every bank account, trust fund, and property deed attached to the Bellini name."

I stood by the tall arched window of the foyer, watching through the purple twilight as they put Vanessa into the back of a caged transport van.

Inside the ballroom behind us, the wedding coordinator was standing by the stage holding a clipboard, looking utterly lost among five thousand white roses that had been flown in from Ecuador for tomorrow's ceremony at Holy Name Cathedral.

"Mr. Moretti?" the coordinator asked timidly, stepping over a piece of shattered chandelier crystal. "What—what should we do about the cathedral reservation tomorrow morning, and the catering for four hundred guests?"

Luca didn't hesitate for a second.

"Cancel the cathedral," Luca said, brushing the marble dust off his lapel. "Donate all the flowers to the pediatric ward at Northwestern Memorial Hospital where my son was treated last night. And have the catering kitchen pack every meal prepared for tomorrow's reception and deliver it to the South Side women's and children's shelter by noon."

The coordinator blinked in surprise, then nodded quickly. "Right away, sir."

Luca turned to me, his dark eyes softening as he looked down at my pale face.

The adrenaline that had carried me from the hospital lobby to the bank vault and through a literal gunfight was finally beginning to ebb, leaving a deep tremor in my hands.

"Come on," Luca said quietly, taking my cold hand and lacing his strong fingers right through mine. "I promised my son I'd bring you home before the stars came out."

When we walked out to the curb to get into the Maserati, Frank Costello hurried up to the driver's window before Luca could start the engine.

Frank's expression wasn't relieved.

In fact, the former FBI agent looked more tense than he had before we walked into the ballroom.

"Boss," Frank said, leaning down close to the open window and glancing down the street toward the dark river. "We have a problem."

Luca's hand tightened on the leather steering wheel. "What kind of problem, Frank?"

"When the police raided Dante Russo's riverboat office twenty minutes ago using the paternity blackmail papers from Vanessa's bank box," Frank said grimly, "Russo wasn't there. And neither were his three top enforcers."

My stomach dropped. "He ran?"

"Worse," Frank said, pulling out his phone and showing us a security alert from the Port of Chicago. "Russo knows that with Vanessa in custody singing to the feds to shave ten years off her sentence, his entire East Side operation is going down for conspiracy by Monday morning. Ten minutes ago, two black Suburbans registered to Russo's shell company bypassed the tollway cameras heading north toward Lincoln Park."

Lincoln Park.

Where the Moretti estate was.

And where nine-year-old Benjamin and Caroline were waiting for us right now!

"Wait," I gasped, grabbing Luca's arm. "Marco left six men at the mansion gates! Russo wouldn't try a frontal assault on a guarded estate in broad daylight, would he?"

"He doesn't have to hit the mansion if Ben isn't inside the gates," Luca said, his face draining of color as he looked at the dashboard clock. "Six-thirty. Caroline called me forty minutes ago while we were at the bank. She said Ben wanted to stop at the Adler Planetarium observatory deck on the lakefront promenade on their way back from picking up his prescription at the pharmacy—because the sky cleared up after the storm."

My heart stopped beating.