My boyfriend had just assaulted me and threatened to kill me when I ran for my life. I burst barefoot into a mafia boss’s private club, bleeding and struggling to breathe. But what shook New York wasn’t Adrien Viscari’s promise to protect me—it was the photograph discovered minutes later, proving someone had been watching me for years because of a secret I was never meant to uncover.

When I opened my eyes again, the deafening noise of the club was gone, replaced by a deep, heavy silence.

I was lying in a massive king-sized bed wrapped in silk sheets, inside a dim room framed by dark mahogany walls and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the glowing skyline of Manhattan. The air smelled rich and comforting—cedar, rain, and vintage leather.

Adrien sat in an armchair near the window, watching me quietly while keeping his distance.

“Where am I?” I whispered, my throat feeling like sandpaper.

“You’re safe,” he said, his voice low and steady. “My private residence above the club. Dr. Bell treated your ribs. Two are cracked, but none are broken. You need rest.”

I pushed myself up against the pillows, pulling the heavy duvet up to my collarbone. “Marcus... he said things about my mother. He said my life was a lie.”

Adrien didn't answer immediately. He stared out at the rain-streaked glass, his jaw clenched tight.

Before I could press him, the heavy oak door swung open without a knock.

A tall, broad-shouldered man named Marco stepped inside, his dark suit soaked through with rain. He was carrying a thick, sealed Manila envelope wrapped in plastic.

“We searched Blake’s apartment,” Marco said, his voice grim as he looked at Adrien. “He was packing a bag to run when we intercepted him. You need to see this.”

Adrien stood up from the armchair, walked over to Marco, and took the envelope. He tore open the top and pulled out its contents.

Inside was a single, faded photograph.

Adrien stared at it for a long, agonizing moment before walking back toward the bed. He didn't speak. He simply turned the photograph around and handed it to me.

My hands shook as my fingers touched the glossy paper.

The photo showed a twelve-year-old girl standing on a sunny sidewalk outside a gray stone house—the very house in upstate New York where I had spent my childhood. The girl was me, wearing a blue summer dress I distinctly remembered loving.

But the woman standing behind me, her arm resting protectively on my shoulder, was terrifying to look at.

Someone had taken a sharp blade and violently scratched her face away, leaving only jagged, ruined paper where her features should have been.

My heart hammered against my cracked ribs. “Who did this?”

“Turn it over,” Adrien said softly.

I flipped the photograph over. Written in thick, black ink across the back was a single, chilling sentence:

Find the girl before Viscari learns she survived.

The words blurred before my eyes. My breathing turned shallow and fast as panic rose in my throat.

Adrien stared at those words, his dark eyes darkening further, looking at me as if I were a ghost that had suddenly materialized out of his past.

“Lena,” he said, his voice dropping into a register so quiet it chilled me to the bone, “what was your mother’s real name?”

“Her name was Clara,” I stammered, tears welling in my eyes. “Clara Linwood. She was an art teacher—”

“Clara wasn't an art teacher,” Adrien interrupted gently, leaning down so his face was level with mine. “Clara was the codename given to the chief accountant of the Moretti crime family twenty years ago. The woman who disappeared with forty million dollars of syndicate money... and my uncle’s ledger.”