PART 2 Rain was pouring so hard over Chicago that night I almost missed the small, broken whimper coming from the alley beside Sal’s Diner. 11009

The scream came from the main floor, a raw, ragged sound that was instantly cut off by the sharp, deafening CRACK of a gunshot echoing through the high ceilings of the estate.

I didn't think. Instinct, forged from twenty-four years of surviving on the harsh side of Chicago, took over. I lunged across the rug, grabbing Leo by his waist, and hauled him behind a heavy mahogany bookshelf set against the thickest brick wall of the sunroom.

“Stay down,” I whispered into his hair, wrapping my arms completely around his small, shaking frame. “Don't move. Don't make a sound, Leo. Do you hear me?”

He nodded against my shoulder, his fingers digging frantically into my cardigan.

Downstairs, another shot tore through the silence, followed by the metallic crash of broken glass and heavy boots sprinting down the marble hallway.

Where was Adrian?

The thought struck me like a physical blow, a sudden, blinding panic that had nothing to do with my own safety and everything to do with the man with the dark eyes and the ruined suit.

Footsteps heavy and unhurried began ascending the broad wooden staircase.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

They weren't running. Whoever was coming up those stairs wasn't panicked. They were hunting.

I looked around the sunroom wildly. There was no exit. The French doors led back into the hallway, and the rest of the room was enclosed in double-paned glass overlooking a fifty-foot drop to the stone courtyard below. We were trapped.

I reached out, my hand closing around a brass-and-marble desk lamp sitting on a side table. I yanked the cord from the wall, gripping the heavy metal base like a club, and squeezed myself closer to Leo behind the shelf.

The sunroom doors creaked open.

A scent drifted into the room—not gunpowder, not sweat, but a thick, sickeningly sweet perfume. Gardenias and expensive French vanilla.

A shadow fell across the rug.

“Leo?” a voice called out.

It was a woman’s voice. Smooth, melodic, carrying a strange, sing-song cadence that sent a wave of icy terror straight down my spine.

“Leo, darling... Mommy’s home. Don't you want to see Mommy?”

I felt Leo stiffen in my arms. He tried to rise, his eyes widening in a terrifying mixture of childhood longing and instinctual horror, but I clamped my hand firmly over his mouth, pinning him to the floor with my body weight.

It isn't her, I wanted to scream at him. It can't be her.

The high heels clicked slowly across the sunroom floor, stopping right in front of the window.

“I know you’re in here, little boy,” the woman murmured. Through the gap between two leather-bound encyclopedia volumes on the shelf, I caught a glimpse of her.

My heart stopped.

She was wearing an emerald-green trench coat. Her dark hair was styled in sleek, cascading waves around her shoulders. Her face—the high cheekbones, the delicate nose, the full, arched lips—was identical to the photograph of Elena Moretti that sat on Adrian’s desk.

Except for her eyes.

Where Elena’s eyes in the pictures had been soft and warm, this woman’s eyes were wild, bloodshot, rimmed with a feverish, manic intensity. And on her feet were red silk heels, stained dark around the soles with fresh mud.

And in her right hand, dangling casually at her side, was a pearl-handled snub-nosed revolver.

“Adrian is so boring, isn't he?” the woman laughed softly to herself, stepping closer to the bookshelf. “He thought he could lock me away. He thought a few million dollars in a Swiss account would make me forget what he did to my sister.”

She stopped. She was three feet away from our hiding spot. I could see the lace of her stockings. I could see the tiny droplets of water clinging to her coat.

She raised the revolver, pointing it casually toward the back of the mahogany shelf.

“Come out, Willa,” she whispered, her tone turning ice-cold. “Or I put a bullet through the wood and let God decide where it lands.”

My blood ran cold. She knows my name.

I squeezed Leo’s shoulder once, signaling him to stay down, and slowly stood up from behind the shelf. I kept my hands visible, the heavy brass lamp hidden behind my hip.

“Camille,” I said, my voice steady despite the hammer pounding inside my chest.

The woman smiled—a sharp, jagged expression that didn't reach her eyes. “Ah. So my dear brother-in-law did mention me. I was worried he’d wiped my existence from his pristine little life.”

“You look just like her,” I said, trying to buy time, listening frantically for any sound from the hallway. Where was Marco? Where was Adrian?

“I am her ghost,” Camille purred, taking a step closer, raising the gun until the black barrel was leveled directly at my forehead. “Elena was weak. She let Adrian control her, fix her, hide her away when she got sick. But I am not weak. And I’m taking back what belongs to my family.”

“Leo is a six-year-old child!” I snapped, stepping slightly to the left to block her view of the floor behind the shelf. “He has nothing to do with whatever war you have with Adrian!”

“He is a Moretti,” Camille spat, her face suddenly twisting with venomous rage. “He has the blood of the men who ruined us! And he—"

A shadow exploded through the French doors behind her.

Adrian didn't yell. He didn't order her to drop the gun. He hit Camille like a freight train, his massive frame slamming into her side with terrifying force.

The gun fired—a deafening BANG that shattered a panel of the sunroom roof, showering us in a rain of safety glass.

Camille hit the floor hard, the gun skidding across the rug toward my feet. Adrian landed on his knees beside her, grabbing her wrists, pinning her to the ground with his full weight. His shirt was torn at the shoulder, blood soaking through the grey fabric of his arm from a graze, but his face was absolute, terrifying murder.

“Don't touch my family!” Adrian roared, his voice echoing off the glass walls like a judgment from hell.

Camille didn't fight back. She just lay there beneath him, laughing hysterically, blood dripping from a cut on her cheek where the glass had clipped her.

“You’re too late, Adrian!” she screamed into his face, her laughter shrill and unhinged. “You think I came here alone? Look at your desk! Look at the safe!”