MAFIA BOSS CRIED AT HIS DAUGHTER’S GRAVE—NOT KNOWING SHE WAS ALIVE AND WATCHING FROM BEHIND A TREE

The music box snapped shut with a sharp click.

Dominic froze.

For three agonizing seconds, no one moved in the dim study. The grandfather clock in the corner ticked heavily. The rain continued to drum against the balcony glass.

Dominic didn't turn around immediately. He closed his eyes, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the wooden music box. He believed he was finally losing his mind. He believed the grief had finally pushed him over the edge of sanity, making him hear her voice in the dark.

"I'm losing it," Dominic muttered to the empty room, his voice a ragged whisper. "I'm finally going crazy."

"Daddy, please," the voice spoke again, closer this time, small, trembling, and choked with tears. "Don't be mad at me for climbing the vine."

Dominic’s entire body went rigid.

Slowly, as if afraid that moving too quickly would shatter the hallucination, Dominic turned his head.

He looked over his broad shoulder.

Standing near the edge of his mahogany desk, bathed in the soft amber light of the desk lamp, was a little girl.

She was filthy. Her hair was a wild, tangled mess of dark curls and leaves. Her clothes were torn, dirty, and soaked with rain. She was bruised, thin, and shivering so hard her teeth were clicking together.

But her eyes—those dark, fierce, beautiful brown eyes—were looking directly into his.

Dominic stood up so fast his heavy leather chair crashed backward onto the floor. His glass of bourbon tipped over, amber liquid spilling across his papers, but he didn't even notice.

He stared at her, his mouth open, his amber eyes wide with absolute, terrifying disbelief.

"Lily?" he breathed, the word barely escaping his throat.

"Daddy!" Lily cried out.

She couldn't hold it back anymore. She broke. She threw herself across the short distance between them, wrapping her small, dirty arms as tightly as she could around his waist, burying her wet face directly into his chest.

Dominic stood frozen for a fraction of a second, his brain refusing to process the physical reality of the child holding him.

Then he felt her warmth. He felt her small heart hammering wildly against his ribs. He felt the trembling of her tiny body. He smelled the unmistakable, familiar scent of his daughter beneath the mud and smoke—the scent of jasmine milk and rain.

"God... oh God..." Dominic gasped, dropping to his knees on the Persian rug.

He wrapped his massive, powerful arms around her, pulling her so close against his body that she could barely breathe. He buried his face in her tangled hair, weeping hysterically, his heavy shoulders shaking with a fierce, violent release of two months of agony.

"You're real... you're real... you're alive..." Dominic sobbed, kissing her face, her cheeks, her hair, her muddy hands, over and over again like a man who had been dragged out of hell into the light. "My baby... my little girl... Principessa..."

"I'm real, Daddy," Lily sobbed, holding his neck, her tears washing streaks through the dirt on his face. "I'm here. I missed you so much."

For ten full minutes, the feared Don of New York stayed on his knees on the floor of his study, holding his dirty, malnourished daughter, crying like a child, refusing to let her go even for a single inch.

Finally, Dominic pulled back slightly, his thick, calloused hands gently cupping her small face, his amber eyes searching every inch of her features.

"How?" Dominic asked, his voice shaking with a sudden, dark intensity. "The cabin burned... the police said... how are you here, Lily? Where have you been?!"

Lily wiped her nose with her sleeve, her small frame still trembling from the cold and the adrenaline.

"They took me, Daddy," Lily whispered, her eyes wide with fear as she looked toward the locked study door. "Before the fire started. Two men put a bag over my head and took me to a basement in Brooklyn."

Dominic’s expression changed instantly.

The weeping father vanished.

In his place, a terrifying, icy, sociopathic darkness flared deep within his amber eyes. The room seemed to drop ten degrees in temperature. The air grew heavy, thick, and dangerous.

"Who?" Dominic growled, his voice dropping into a register so low it vibrated through the floorboards. "Who took you, Lily?"