I was just another tired waitress trying to survive a Friday night rush, until the mafia heir recognized a ghost in my eyes.

Julian Vance stepped into the room, his silver cane tapping against the floorboards with a slow, rhythmic thud... thud... thud...

He looked at me. A slow, terrifying smile spread across his thin, weathered lips—a smile that held no warmth, only the cold satisfaction of a hunter cornering a wounded deer.

"Look at you," Julian murmured, his voice smooth as oil. "The spitting image of your unfortunate mother. Sofia always was the weak one among us."

I backed up against the edge of the four-poster bed, my hands hidden behind my back as I pressed the stolen diary against my spine under my apron.

"Stay away from me," I said, forcing my voice to sound firmer than I felt.

"Now, now, my dear niece," Julian chuckled softly, leaning heavily on his dragon-headed cane. "Is that any way to speak to your family? After all the trouble I took to ensure Lorenzo found you tonight?"

My eyes widened. "You... you set up the attack at the restaurant?"

"Of course I did," Julian said casually, walking over to the vanity table and picking up a crystal perfume bottle, inspecting it under the light. "Lorenzo was becoming far too complacent, moping around like a beaten dog over Clara’s death. I needed a catalyst to stir the waters. Giving him a vision of his dead wife walking the streets of Boston was... poetically effective."

"You killed Clara!" I spat, my fists clenching at my sides. "She was your own niece!"

Julian’s eyes flashed with a sudden, vicious coldness. He slammed his cane down onto the floor, the metallic noise echoing through the quiet room.

"Clara was a fool!" Julian hissed. "She had the keys to a hundred-billion-dollar global empire, and she wanted to play happy family with a Moretti bastard! She refused to hand over the financial ledgers. So I had her car handled. Sadly, the infant survived."

He looked toward the connecting door of the nursery, where Matteo was sleeping.

"And now," Julian continued, taking two slow steps toward me, "history repeats itself. You have Clara's face, Mara. And more importantly, you have Sofia's blood. With you under my control, I can force Lorenzo to sign over the family trusts before I put a bullet in his head."

"Lorenzo will kill you the moment he finds out," I snarled.

Julian smiled again—that terrible, empty smile. "Lorenzo is currently downstairs in his study, surrounded by three of my top captains, reviewing forged intelligence that blames the restaurant attack entirely on the Falcones. By the time he realizes what is happening, he will be dead, and you will be on a private jet to Zurich with me and little Matteo."

He reached out his gloved hand to grab my hair. "Hand over whatever you found under those floorboards, Mara. Now."

I didn't think. Instinct took over—the survival skills honed over years of working late-night diner shifts in the dangerous neighborhoods of South Boston.

I reached out, grabbed the heavy crystal perfume bottle off the vanity table, and swung it with all the strength in my body.

CRACK!

The heavy crystal smashed directly against the side of Julian’s head. Blood spurted from his temple, and he let out a strangled cry, staggering backward, dropping his silver cane.