The crack of the gunshot echoed off the marble walls like a cannon blast.

I flinched, burying my face against Luca’s shoulder. Below us, Vincent Rossi staggered backward. A bloom of dark crimson spread rapidly across the crisp white fabric of his dress shirt. He looked down at his chest with an expression of sheer, absurd bewilderment, as if the bullet had violated some unspoken rule of the universe.

His knees buckled, and he collapsed onto the marble floor, his blood pooling around Sophie’s yellow backpack.

Dead silence fell over the foyer, broken only by the sound of the rain lashing against the open front doors.

"No, no, no!" I screamed, tearing myself away from Luca’s grip. I scrambled down the grand staircase, ignoring the shouts of the guards. I didn't care about the guns. I didn't care about the mafia. The only man who knew where my daughter was had just been executed in front of me.

I fell to my knees beside Vincent’s body, grabbing his lapels and shaking him.

"Where is she?!" I shrieked, tears blinding me. "Vincent, where is my daughter? Wake up!"

His eyes were glassy, staring sightlessly up at the chandelier. He was gone. The thirty-minute clock on Sophie’s life was still ticking, and the only person with the map was dead.

"Claire, get away from him!" Luca bounded down the stairs, placing himself between me and Patricia, his weapon drawn and leveled squarely at her head.

Patricia stood shivering in the center of the foyer, the revolver still gripped tightly in both hands. She wasn't looking at Vincent. She was looking at the necklace resting against my collarbone.

"Drop the gun, Patricia," Luca ordered, his voice dangerously low. "It's over. You have nowhere to go."

"It's not over!" Patricia screamed, her voice cracking with desperation. She took a step back, angling her gun away from Vincent and pointing it directly at me. "I didn't spend two years rotting in this house, wiping your mother's drool, just to walk away with nothing! I know about the vault, Luca. I know your father hid three hundred million dollars in untraceable bearer bonds."

"You killed the only man who knew where Sophie is," Luca growled. "You're a dead woman."

Patricia let out a manic, breathless laugh. "Vincent didn't know where the girl is. I do."

The world stopped spinning. I froze, my hands still covered in Vincent’s blood.

"What?" I choked out.

Patricia smiled, a cruel, twisted stretching of her lips. "Vincent was an idiot. He thought he was playing me. He went to the school, yes. But I had my own men tailing him. When Vincent stopped for gas, my men took the girl from his backseat. Vincent didn't even realize she was gone until he got here. That’s why he was stalling, trying to make a deal. He was bluffing."

I felt a surge of nausea so violent I swayed on my knees.

"Where is she?" I demanded, my voice reduced to a ragged whisper.

"Take off the necklace, Claire," Patricia commanded, gesturing with the barrel of the gun. "Throw it to me. And maybe I'll tell you which locked room on this property your little deaf girl is suffocating inside."

"Don't do it," Luca said without taking his eyes off Patricia. "If you give it to her, she has no reason to let Sophie live."

"She has ten minutes left, Claire!" Patricia screamed, looking at her wristwatch. "I didn't put her in a car. I put her somewhere much, much worse. Toss me the necklace, or she dies alone in the dark!"

My hands flew to the back of my neck. I fumbled with the clasp, my fingers slick with blood and sweat. I didn't care about three hundred million dollars. I didn't care about the Moretti family empire. I only cared about the terrified eight-year-old girl who couldn't hear the footsteps of the monsters coming for her.

"Claire, stop," Luca ordered, stepping slightly to block my throw. "I won't let her leave this room. I'll shoot her in the legs and make her talk."

"If you shoot me, you'll never find her in time!" Patricia shrieked, backing toward the open front doors. Her own getaway car was idling in the driveway. "Give me the necklace!"

I yanked the chain, snapping the silver links, and held the swallow charm in my palm.

But before I could throw it, the heavy, rhythmic squeak of a wheelchair echoed from the top of the stairs.

Everyone froze.

Eleanor Moretti sat at the top of the landing. She had escaped the safe room.

Patricia scoffed. "Get back in your cage, old woman. Your son can't protect you now."

Eleanor didn't sign. She didn't cry.

Instead, she gripped the armrests of her wheelchair. Her knuckles turned white. And then, with an agonizing, trembling effort that made the veins in her neck bulge, Eleanor planted her feet on the floor.

She stood up.

Luca’s breath hitched in his throat. "Mom?"

For two years, Patricia had told everyone Eleanor was completely paralyzed. But in the quiet isolation of her room, fueled by grief and a mother's sheer force of will, Eleanor had been practicing.

Eleanor didn't look at her son. She locked eyes with Patricia.

Then, Eleanor reached over to the heavy brass antique clock resting on the hallway pedestal. She picked it up with both hands, raised it over her head, and smashed it directly into the wall-mounted fire alarm system.

The glass shattered. The red lever snapped.

Instantly, the mansion's emergency sprinkler system activated. Thousands of gallons of freezing water erupted from the ceiling, instantly flooding the grand foyer in a torrential downpour.

The sudden shock of cold water made Patricia flinch, her gun arm wavering for a fraction of a second.

It was all Luca needed.

He lunged forward like a striking snake, tackling Patricia to the marble floor. The revolver fired wildly into the ceiling, the sound swallowed by the roaring water.

I scrambled backward as Luca pinned Patricia down, wrenching her arms behind her back. But as Patricia thrashed, she kicked out, her heel striking the set of car keys she had dropped earlier.

I watched in horror as the keys skittered across the wet marble and slipped straight down into the slatted iron floor heating vent.

May you like

The Mafia Boss Had Refused Every Woman for Five Years Until His Exhauste…

Five minutes after our divorce, I boarded a flight overseas with our two…

Graham went pale before I said a word. He recognized the envelope in my…

They were gone.

And Sophie’s clock was ticking.