Chapter 3
The sound of those locks moved through my body like ice water.
Noah screamed.
“Mommy!”
“I’m right here,” I said, even though I was still ten feet away.
Gregory stood between us, his eyes empty now.
No husband.
No father.
Just a man who had lost control in front of the wrong people.
“Everyone stays,” he said.
One of the aldermen near the stage laughed nervously.
“Gregory, this has gone far enough.”
Gregory did not look at him.
“Sit down.”
The alderman sat.
That was what power looked like in Gregory’s world.
Men with clean hands obeying men with dirty ones.
I looked at Daniel.
He was still holding the tablet.
“Can you open the doors?”
“Not from here,” he said under his breath. “He cut the guest controls.”
Paulie leaned close.
“There’s a service exit behind the kitchen.”
Gregory heard him.
“Try it and I bury you with the old man.”
Every head turned.
My father.
The old man.
Something in Daniel’s face changed.
“What did you say?”
Gregory smiled.
It was ugly.
“I said what everyone already knows.”
I stepped toward him.
“What does that mean?”
Carmela hissed, “Gregory, stop.”
But he was unraveling.
His pride was bleeding out all over the marble floor, and he needed to make someone hurt worse than he did.
“Your father was dying anyway,” he said to me. “All I did was hurry the inevitable.”
The room tilted.
My father had died three years earlier.
A heart attack, they said.
Alone in his study.
Gregory found him.
Gregory arranged the funeral.
Gregory held my hand at the grave and promised my father’s enemies would never touch me.
I could not feel my fingers.
“You killed him?”
Gregory’s smile faded when he saw the phones.
Too many phones.
Too many cameras.
Too many witnesses.
Carmela stood and shouted, “Put those away!”
Nobody moved.
Daniel’s voice was low.
“You just confessed.”
Gregory lunged for him.
Matteo shoved Noah into Paulie’s arms and stepped in front of Daniel.
The first punch landed with a sick crack.
Then the ballroom erupted.
Chairs scraped.
Women screamed.
Bodyguards reached for weapons.
I ran for Noah.
Carmela grabbed my hair from behind.
Pain ripped across my scalp.
“You should have stayed quiet,” she snarled.
I elbowed her hard.
She stumbled into the dessert table, sending champagne glasses crashing down.
I got to Noah and pulled him into my arms.
His little hands wrapped around my neck.
“Close your eyes,” I whispered.
“I’m scared.”
“Me too, baby.”
The lights suddenly went out.
Darkness swallowed the ballroom.
For one second, everyone froze.
Then emergency lights kicked in, red and dim.
Daniel’s voice came through the speakers.
“Valeria, kitchen exit. Now.”
He had gotten into the system.
Gregory roared his name.
I ran.
Paulie cleared a path.
Matteo was behind us, breathing hard, blood on his lip.
We pushed through the kitchen, past terrified catering staff hiding near the ovens.
A server pointed at the back door.
“It’s jammed.”
Paulie slammed his shoulder into it.
Once.
Twice.
On the third hit, the door burst open into the alley.
Cold air hit my face.
I almost cried from relief.
Then Noah stiffened.
“My bear.”
I looked down.
His arms were empty.
“Noah, we have to go.”
His face crumpled.
“He has the note inside.”
I stopped.
“What note?”
Noah looked back toward the house.
“Grandpa’s note.”
My heart slammed.
Paulie cursed.
Matteo looked at me.
“Valeria, move.”
But I could not.
My father had left me nothing but a company buried under Gregory’s control and a house full of lies.
If Noah’s bear held something from him, then my son had been carrying the truth in his arms the whole time.
A black SUV screeched to a stop at the alley entrance.
Men stepped out.
Not Gregory’s men.
Mine.
May you like
My father’s old driver, Frank, opened the back door.
“Miss Romano,” he said, “your father told me this day might come.”
