At midnight, a barefoot three-year-old girl crossed a mafia boss’s mansion alone and knocked on the one door everyone had warned her never to approach. “Please,” she whispered when it opened. “My mommy won’t wake up.”

Forty-seven seconds earlier, Lily had been standing over her mother’s body in the small staff quarters off the kitchen wing.

“Mama?”

She shook Clara’s shoulder.

Nothing.

“Mommy?”

Still nothing.

Lily even sang the little bedtime song Clara always used when she couldn't sleep—the soft, humming melody about little birds in the orchard. But tonight, the song didn't work backward. Her mother remained motionless on the cold, polished hardwood floor beside the unmade cot.

Lily was only three, but she could see Clara's chest moving strangely. Too slowly. Too softly. A small bottle of unlabelled pills lay spilled beneath the edge of the nightstand, its white contents scattered like broken teeth.

And she remembered something her mother had once told her in a quiet, urgent whisper while brushing her hair.

If there's ever an emergency, find help.

So Lily opened the bedroom door.

She wasn't supposed to leave after bedtime. Especially not here. Her mother worked as a maid inside a sprawling estate where certain hallways were strictly forbidden and certain men were never to be disturbed under any circumstances.

But rules didn't matter if Mama wouldn't wake up.

Lily stepped into the darkness barefoot, clutching her worn, faded stuffed rabbit against her chest.

She tried the first door down the narrow service hallway.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Nothing.

Then another.

Still nothing.

By the fourth door, tears blurred her vision, making the dark corners bleed together. By the seventh, she was completely lost. The mansion seemed endless at night. Tall, dark portraits of grim-faced ancestors watched her from the high walls, their painted eyes following her tiny frame. Every tiny footstep sounded like a crack of thunder against the marble flooring.

Then she reached a wing she had never seen before.

Thick, plush dark crimson carpet muffled her feet. Golden wall lamps cast a warm, heavy light over mahogany paneling. There were only three doors here.

Lily didn't know this was the private executive wing. She didn't know armed guards normally stood posted at the archway—guards who were currently downstairs handling an urgent shipment delivery at the docks.

And she certainly didn't know whose bedroom stood at the very end of the hall.

She only knew something about that last heavy oak door made her stop.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

No answer.

She knocked harder with her small, sticky fist.

“Hello?”

Silence.

Her lower lip trembled, and a fat tear rolled down her cheek, dripping onto her rabbit's frayed ear.

“Please. I need help.”

Something heavy moved behind the wood. A latch turned.

Lily hugged her rabbit tighter.

The lock clicked with a loud, metallic sound, and the heavy door slowly swung inward.

A tall man stood there in dark trousers and an unbuttoned white linen shirt, his expression cold enough to freeze blood. His silver-streaked hair was slightly rumpled, and his dark eyes held the lethal sharpness of a man whose sleep was always light and dangerous.

Lily had seen him only once before from a distance, through the iron railings of the garden terrace.

Everyone in the mansion called him Mr. Moretti.

Her mother called him something else whenever she saw his car pull up the drive.

The man you must never bother.

Dante Moretti’s gaze dropped from the doorway down to Lily's bare, dusty feet. Then to her tear-streaked face and the bruised rabbit tucked beneath her arm.

“What happened?” his voice was a low, raspy baritone that held no tolerance for games.

Lily swallowed hard, her small throat tightening. “My mommy fell down.”

The man's cold expression shifted slightly, his heavy brow knitting together. “What is your mother's name?”

“Clara.”

Dante went completely still.

For one strange, terrifying second, Lily thought he hadn't heard her at all. He didn't blink. He didn't breathe.

Then he crouched down smoothly until they were at eye level. Up close, he smelled of cedarwood, dark tobacco, and faint leather.

“Clara what?” he asked softly, though an underlying tension made his jaw lock tightly.

“Clara Vance,” Lily whispered.

And whatever sleep had been left in the mafia boss's eyes vanished instantly, replaced by a dark, terrifying flame.

He grabbed his satellite phone from the entry table behind him, dialed a single digit, and barked an order Lily couldn't understand into the receiver.

“Medical team to the estate. Now. Full cardiac and toxicology kit. Move.”

Within seconds, heavy doors opened throughout the mansion. Footsteps echoed up the stairwells. Men in suits started running down the corridors.

But before Moretti lifted Lily into his arms, wrapping his large, warm hand securely around her back, he looked down at his chief of security, Marco, who had just sprinted up the stairs with a drawn firearm.