Chapter 1

The convoy carrying my daughter, the heir to the Vellano bloodline, was ambushed on the road, and the woman guarding the children turned it into a spectacle for her phone.

"It was so dangerous! Thank God, Marco's mother sent her men and they got the children out safe. We owe everything to Marco's mother!"

On the live feed, a boy named Marco was walked out between several broad-shouldered soldiers, not a scratch on him.

Where was my daughter, Sofia? I searched the screen frantically until I finally saw her crawling out of the wreckage of the lead car.

Then I saw one of the attackers on the ground behind her, lifting a blade toward the small of her back. The Captain's men reached her a breath too soon, knocked the knife aside, and put two of the shooters down on the pavement.

My daughter was gathered up into a policewoman's arms, sobbing, "Daddy! Mommy!"

Blood kept running down her forehead, and my heart shattered at the sight of it.

I told my associate to end the sit-down in the north territory and put me on the first flight home.

My eyes went back to the feed.

Didn't those men in dark suits around Marco look exactly like the enforcers I had sent to protect my daughter's convoy?

And that expensive little pack on his shoulders looked just like the one-of-a-kind piece I'd had made overseas for Sofia.

Suspicion sat in me like a stone, so I called my husband, Vincent. He answered like a man interrupted. "All soldiers dress the same, Adriana. Stop reading into things. I'm on my way to get Sofia."

He hung up before I could speak, and the unease only pressed harder against my ribs.

Later, when I quietly pulled the footage from the convoy and from inside our estate, my heart sank deeper still.

It turned out the pack, and all the other things that had gone missing from the house, had been lifted by the very woman we trusted to raise our daughter.

Even my husband was keeping things from me.

And as more of the truth came into the light, I closed my fists. If that was how it was going to be, then I would give every last one of them a surprise they'd never forget.

……

At the time, I was still away, closing a matter in another Family's territory.

The moment that awful feed reached me, I called my husband about the enforcers and the pack.

Vincent said, "Every child at that private academy comes from a Family with means, Adriana. Any of them can put men on a car and buy an expensive bag. Don't read into it, cara."

"Our girl went through something terrible and she must be frightened. I need to be at the clinic with her. You handle your business. I have things covered at home."

I was about to tell him I was already on my way to the airport when all I heard was the dead line humming in my ear.

Fine. I would deal with it once I was home.

But on the plane, the more I turned it over, the more wrong it felt.

That pack had been designed by my own hand. The diamonds alone, set into the little fox and the rabbit, were worth a fortune. There could not be a second one anywhere in this world.

I opened the woman's account again, hoping to make out the faces of those soldiers and get a clean look at the pack, but the recorded feed had already been taken down.

Why erase evidence of a crime that plain?

I called her at once and kept my voice even. I told her I wanted the recording back. "Gia, I have a friend who looks into these things quietly. He can help find out who did this."

Gia Torrino sighed. "It was Marco's mother who asked me to take it down. She didn't want her son marked for a vendetta, not with one of the attackers still in the wind. I was rushed and forgot to save a copy. I'm sorry, Mrs. Craino." She kept wringing the strap of her bag as she spoke, and she would not quite meet my eyes.

Her words only sharpened everything. If Marco's mother truly feared for her son, wouldn't she keep the evidence, hand it to the Captain, and see the men behind this buried as fast as possible?

I had no time to sit with it. Getting home to my daughter was all that mattered.

The moment the wheels touched down, I went straight for the Vellano clinic. My daughter would have the best care under our own roof, or so I believed, so I wasn't afraid for her.

But when I hurried through those doors, what I saw nearly drove my nails through my own palms.

My daughter was lying alone on a cot pushed against the wall of the corridor.

Her pale little face was streaked with dried blood, tears still clinging to her lashes. She was curled into the corner of the cot like a small, abandoned animal.

Holding back my own tears, I crossed to her and lifted her into my arms. "Sofia! I'm so sorry I'm late! Mommy let you down. Mommy let you get hurt."

When I checked her head and saw the wound was shallow, only then did I let myself breathe.

My husband was nowhere in sight. There wasn't a single nurse tending to her either. And where was the woman we paid to stay at her side?

A nurse happened to pass just then. I swallowed the fire in my chest and stopped her. "Bring me your director. Tell Bellandi that Adriana Vellano wants to see him. And my daughter is hurt. Send your best doctor to her, now."

The nurse looked at the two of us with open impatience, her eyes sliding over Sofia and me with plain contempt.

"You think you own this place? The director doesn't drop everything for the likes of you. And we've got an important man in today. Who has time for one little girl? All this noise over a scratch. Ridiculous."

With that, she turned and walked off without a backward glance.

I was so furious I laughed, low and bitter. Fine. Let's see exactly whose clinic this really was.