Chapter 1 - THE PENDANT THAT SHOULD NOT EXIST
The most feared crime boss in Boston woke up after I saved his life, then cornered me with proof of a secret I’d spent years keeping buried. Dominic Vale thought three bullets were his greatest danger that night, but the moment he showed me what he’d found, I knew someone had dragged both of us into something far worse.
Rain was hammering St. Bartholomew’s when they rushed him through the emergency doors.
Dominic Vale.
His white shirt was soaked crimson. Three gunshot wounds. Barely a pulse.
The entire ER seemed to stop breathing.
Everyone knew his name. Dominic owned restaurants, warehouses, private clubs, and, according to rumor, half the people who pretended they couldn’t be bought.
“I’m not touching him,” one doctor whispered.
I looked at the dying man on the stretcher.
Then I snapped on my gloves.
“Trauma Two. Move.”
One of Dominic’s armed men stepped toward me.
“You stay outside unless you know how to start an IV.”
He actually froze.
Then Dominic’s hand shot out and locked around my wrist.
His gray eyes opened.
For one strange second, the noise around us disappeared.
“Mr. Vale, can you hear me?”
His fingers tightened.
“Are you real?” he whispered.
Before I could answer, he lost consciousness.
For hours, we fought for him.
At three in the morning, I stood outside surgery in bloodstained scrubs when his lieutenant, Marcus Reed, approached.
“You saved him.”
“I did my job.”
“He spoke to you.”
I hesitated. “He asked if I was real.”
Marcus’s expression changed.
Only for a second.
But I noticed.
When the surgeon finally announced Dominic would survive, Marcus blocked my path.
“He’ll want to see you.”
“No.”
His eyebrows lifted.
Apparently, people didn’t say that word around Dominic Vale.
Three days later, my schedule was mysteriously changed.
I’d been assigned to Dominic’s private floor.
Black SUVs crowded the entrance. Armed men guarded the elevators.
When I entered his suite, three men stood beside his bed.
“Leave,” Dominic said.
They obeyed instantly.
That frightened me more than the guns.
“You should be resting,” I told him.
“I’ve rested enough.”
“You were shot three times.”
“And you made sure I survived.”
His gaze followed me as I checked his chart.
“What’s your name?”
“You already know.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
I looked at him. “Grace Walker.”
“Grace.”
Something about the way he said it made my skin prickle.
Then his expression hardened.
“Why did you save me?”
“Because you were my patient.”
“No.”
The word landed like a warning.
Slowly, Dominic reached beneath his pillow.
When I saw what was between his fingers, every breath left my body.
A small silver pendant.
Mine.
Except I hadn’t seen it in twelve years.
And nobody in Boston was supposed to know what the symbol engraved on its back meant.
Dominic watched my face carefully.
Then he turned the pendant over.
“Funny thing,” he murmured. “The man who shot me was carrying one exactly like it.”
My blood went cold.
He leaned closer.
“Now, Grace…”
His voice dropped to a whisper.
“Tell me who you really are.”
I stared at the pendant.
A silver circle.
A tiny lighthouse engraved inside a crescent moon.
Three narrow lines beneath it.
To anyone else, it looked like inexpensive jewelry.
To me, it was the last thing my mother had pressed into my palm before our house burned.
I reached for it.
Dominic closed his fingers.
“Answer me first.”
“My name is Grace Walker.”
“Is that the name you were born with?”
I said nothing.
His expression changed.
Not triumph.
Recognition.
“You were at Blackwater House.”
My knees nearly gave way.
I hadn't heard those words spoken aloud in twelve years.
Blackwater House had been demolished after the fire.
The newspapers called it a charitable boarding residence for children whose parents had disappeared.
They never reported what happened beneath it.
I stepped backward.
“How do you know that name?”
Dominic watched me.
“Because my brother died there.”
I stopped breathing.
He continued.
“His name was Adrian Vale. He was seventeen.”
The room seemed to tilt.
I remembered a teenage boy carrying a little girl through a smoke-filled corridor.
A boy with gray eyes.
A boy who had pushed me through a basement window and told me to run.
I whispered, “Adrian didn't die in the fire.”
Dominic's face went completely still.
“What?”
I looked at the pendant in his hand.
Then at the hospital door.
“Lock that door.”
He didn't move.
“Grace—”
“Please.”
Something in my voice convinced him.
He pressed the call button.
When Marcus entered, Dominic ordered him to secure the hallway.
Then he looked at me.
“Tell me what happened to my brother.”
I swallowed.
“Adrian was alive when they took him.”
Dominic gripped the bedrail.
“Who took him?”
I closed my eyes.
For twelve years, I had prayed never to answer that question.
May you like
Then I whispered the name.
“Your father.”
