Chapter 1 - THE LITTLE GIRL WHO KNEW WHO TO TRUST
My three-year-old maid’s daughter secretly led me upstairs and showed me the woman I planned to marry threatening her mother and implying she could make the little girl disappear. Vivien thought no one important was listening, but she had made one mistake: the child knew exactly which man in that house everyone feared.
“Shh. Don't talk, Uncle Lorenzo. Follow me.”
Mia's tiny hand wrapped around one of my fingers.
I let her lead me.
I'm Lorenzo Duca. Grown men have crossed streets to avoid meeting my eyes, yet that afternoon I found myself creeping through my own mansion behind a three-year-old in a red skirt.
She stopped outside Isabella's bedroom.
The door was cracked open.
Mia pointed.
I crouched beside her and listened.
Inside, Elena, Mia's mother, stood against the wall clutching a towel.
Vivien faced her.
My Vivien.
The woman I'd trusted.
The woman I intended to marry.
“You'll speak to Lorenzo tonight,” she said coldly. “You'll tell him his mother approves of me.”
Elena whispered, “I can't lie to him.”
Vivien stepped closer.
“Then you'll leave this house without a reference. Nobody in this city will hire you after the Duca family dismisses you.”
Silence.
Then Vivien said something that turned my blood cold.
“And Mia...”
Elena's face changed.
Vivien smiled.
“Children wander. Gates get left open. Cameras fail. Terrible things happen.”
Beside me, Mia pressed closer to the doorframe.
She'd heard this before.
That realization nearly broke whatever restraint I had left.
I could have walked inside.
Men had suffered for threatening my family with far less.
But I stopped.
If I confronted Vivien now, she'd cry. Deny everything. Destroy evidence.
So I picked Mia up and carried her to my study.
Once the door closed, I sat her on my desk.
“How long has Vivien been frightening your mommy?”
Mia raised three fingers.
“Three days?”
She shook her head.
“Three weeks?”
Another shake.
Then she pressed those three tiny fingers against my chest.
My stomach dropped.
“Three months?”
She nodded.
Then she leaned into me as if she'd finally put down something far too heavy for a child to carry.
I reached for the phone.
“Rocco. My study. Now.”
My oldest lieutenant arrived minutes later.
“I want every employee, contractor, visitor, bank transfer, and reference connected to this house from the last four months investigated.”
“Quietly?”
“Very.”
That evening, Vivien waited downstairs in pale green silk.
She smiled when she saw me.
I smiled back.
She offered her hand.
I kissed it.
“You look tired, darling,” she whispered.
“Long day.”
She had no idea I'd heard everything.
And as I looked into the eyes of the woman I'd almost married, I understood something terrifying.
For three months, Vivien had been hiding something inside my own house.
Now I was going to find out why.
And until I did, she couldn't know I was hunting her.
Dinner was served at eight.
Vivien sat to my right, discussing floral arrangements for our engagement celebration. Across the table, my mother, Isabella Duca, barely touched her food.
At seventy, Isabella could silence an entire room with one raised eyebrow.
She had never liked Vivien.
I'd dismissed her concerns as the possessiveness of a mother who'd already buried one husband and watched her only son inherit a dangerous empire.
Now I wondered what she'd seen that I hadn't.
“Isabella,” Vivien said sweetly, “I was hoping we could discuss the wedding.”
My mother lifted her eyes.
“What about it?”
“Lorenzo and I think June would be beautiful.”
“We haven't selected a date,” I said.
Vivien's smile faltered.
Only for a second.
Then she recovered.
“Of course, darling. I was only dreaming.”
My mother studied me.
Something passed between us.
She knew I was withholding information.
She also knew better than to ask at the table.
At nine, Rocco sent me a message.
Initial review complete. Three irregularities. One serious. Meet privately.
I excused myself.
Vivien caught my wrist.
“Don't work all night.”
I smiled.
“I won't.”
She kissed my cheek.
Her perfume was familiar.
White jasmine and expensive roses.
For eighteen months, I'd associated that scent with the possibility of peace.
Tonight it smelled like a lie.
Rocco waited in the library.
He placed three photographs on my desk.
The first showed Vivien entering a private bank in Manhattan.
The second showed her speaking to a man outside a restaurant.
The third showed that same man standing beside Elena and Mia at a playground.
I looked up.
“Who is he?”
Rocco's expression was grim.
“His name is Adrian Voss.”
The name meant nothing.
Then Rocco added:
“He's a private investigator who used to work for the Bellini family.”
I went still.
The Bellinis had been our enemies for more than a decade.
Their former patriarch had died three years earlier.
His son, Matteo Bellini, now controlled what remained of their criminal network.
I looked at the photograph again.
“Why is he following Elena?”
Rocco hesitated.
“Because Elena may not be who she says she is.”
My jaw tightened.
“Explain.”
Rocco slid a document across the desk.
It was a birth certificate.
Mia's birth certificate.
Her mother's name was Elena Rossi.
Her father's name had been left blank.
But beneath the document was another photograph.
A younger Elena standing beside a man I recognized immediately.
My dead brother.
May you like
Gabriel Duca.
And suddenly I understood that Vivien's secret might be much bigger than a frightened housekeeper.
