Chapter 3

I looked at him.

"If you're this scared, why'd you come down here in the first place?"

He gave a broken little laugh.

"Sonia saved my life once on a job. If I let her rot down here, I'm not a man. I'm a rat."

My Sonia and I are different animals.

I was raised with a gun. She was raised with a stethoscope.

She's the family fixer — the one who patches up bullet holes in the back of restaurants, who keeps our boys off the ER records.

She's saved half this Family. Vincent. Chase. Marco. All of them.

And every single one of them let this happen.

But some outside kid she barely knew? He came for her.

"Chase — look! The killer's right there!"

A woman came running down the stairs. Red dress. Baby face. The kind of pretty that looks harmless.

Mira Sutton.

I looked past the pretty. And I saw the pendant hanging around her neck — *my daughter's pendant*. And the ring on her finger — the Blackwood signet, the one that only gets passed down to the heir.

That's what this was about. Sonia hadn't stolen a damn thing.

Mira wanted the inheritance. So she took it. Simple as that.

"Who the hell are you? This is a restricted floor!"

Chase — my daughter's baby brother in everything but blood — pointed a gun at my face.

I'd made sure my hair and makeup were plain. Some Botox to soften the jawline. He didn't recognize me. Of course he didn't.

I ignored him. Looked straight at Mira.

"That pendant. That ring. Where'd you get them?"

Her face flickered. Just a hair.

"None of your business! I earned them!"

Earned them. Sure.

I let my eyes travel over her, slow.

The Chanel jacket she was wearing was custom-made. I know because I'd flown to Milan and commissioned it myself, from a designer who only takes three clients a year.

That jacket has Kevlar woven in. Stops a .45 at point-blank.

The bracelet on her wrist — diamonds set in a specific old-world cut. I bought that at a private auction in Geneva. It came with a matching necklace, which was hanging around her throat.

All of it was Sonia's. Everything I left her. Every single piece.

I laughed. Short, quiet.

Then I flicked my hand and yanked Mira across the room by the collar. My fingers closed around her throat.

"Four generations of nobodies. Bones like twigs. Skin like paper."

My voice was ice.

"And you're telling me a worthless bloodline like yours rose to the top of a Family this powerful in three years without stealing everything from a woman better than you? Try again, honey."

Mira wasn't ready. She kicked and scratched. Her face turned purple.

"Chase — Marco — help me — please —"

Chase and Marco snapped out of it. Both drew. Both charged.

Cute.

They were good. But I was the one who taught the man who taught them. I sidestepped, spun Mira around, and let their bullets hit her instead. Twice in the shoulder. Once in the thigh.

She screamed.

"STOP! STOP SHOOTING! IT'S ME!"

That's when Chase and Marco realized every round they'd fired had landed in their precious little Mira.

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