A three-year-old housekeeper’s daughter painted all over my face while I pretended to sleep—an offense that could have terrified grown men inside my Chicago mansion. But when I opened my eyes and heard why she had done it, the feared mafia boss everyone called heartless nearly broke in front of them.

The test came three nights later.

At 2:15 a.m., the silent alarms in the east wing art gallery tripped.

I was out of bed before the klaxons could even sound, my Sig Sauer P226 already in my hand, the cold metal a familiar extension of my body. I slipped down the dark corridor in silence, barefoot, moving like a ghost through the shadows of my own home.

In the gallery, two masked men dressed in black tactical gear were trying to crack the reinforced glass display housing a fifteenth-century Italian crucifix—a symbolic artifact of immense value in the syndicate world.

They thought the guards were distracted. They thought the boss was sleeping.

They were wrong.

"Looking for something?" I spoke from the doorway, my voice cutting through the dark like a blade.

Both intruders spun around, weapons drawn, but they were half a second too slow.

Crack. Crack.

Two precise shots blew out the kneecaps of the lead intruder, dropping him to the hardwood floor with a choked shriek. The second man lunged for the window, but Marcus materialized from the darkness outside, driving the butt of a shotgun directly into the man's chest and sending him crashing backward.

Within seconds, six armed guards swarmed the room, zip-tying the men and dragging them toward the subterranean holding cells.

I stood alone in the dim gallery, inspecting the blood smeared across the polished floor.

Salvatore’s calling card. He wanted to remind me that my gates weren't impenetrable.

As I turned to leave, a soft sound made me stop.

Standing at the end of the long hallway, rubbing her eyes in oversized yellow pajamas and clutching Buttons tightly against her chest, was Lily.

My heart hammered against my ribs—not from the gunfight, but from panic. What if she had seen the blood? What if she was terrified?

I rushed across the floor, kneeling down immediately so I was at her eye level.

"Lily," I whispered, gently placing my hands on her small shoulders. "What are you doing out of bed? You should be asleep."

"I heard a loud pop," she mumbled sleepily, blinking up at me. "Is it thunder?"

"Yes," I lied instantly, pulling her small body against my chest and shielding her eyes from the gallery entrance. "Just a bad storm outside. Go back to bed, little one. I'm right here. Nobody is going to hurt you."