Chapter 1

The pin on the silver eagle caught a thread as Luca removed it from my collar. He bent his head to smooth the fabric.

He was so careful. It could have been any morning of the past eight years.

But I watched his other hand as he set the eagle on the table and pushed it out of my reach.

The bodyguard by the door saw him do it. He stood and gave his place to a man I didn't recognize.

His name was Carlo. He ran one of the crews that had lost a man in the fire. The other two capos had sent him to collect the debt.

He had put his pistol on the table when he arrived. He hadn't bothered to explain what he wanted me for.

“You promised we were only coming here to answer a few questions.”

Luca's jaw tightened.

“Don't make this harder.”

I opened the confession.

According to the confession, I had burned the shipment to break Luca's alliance with the Morettis. No one outside these families would ever read it. Inside them, his signature beneath mine would be enough to have me killed.

Three names followed.

Joe, forty-six. Just last month, he'd shown me a picture of his little girl.

Matt, twenty-nine. He'd just asked for time off to get married.

And Peter.

The night before, I had dragged Anthony to a window on the ground floor and passed him to the people outside. Then I'd gone back for Peter.

In the stairwell, Peter saw a beam falling overhead and shoved me toward the exit.

When I turned around, he was trapped beneath it. I grabbed his arm, but I couldn't move him.

In the end, the other workers had to drag me out.

“When the alarm went off, I was inside saving people.”

Luca looked down at the confession.

“We don't have complete security footage showing how the fire started.”

“We have the maintenance report. That warehouse should have been shut down three days ago. I emailed it and had a hard copy delivered.”

I looked up at him. He wouldn't meet my eyes.

On Luca's right, Sera set down her wineglass.

“Those crates had to move, Eve. You manage the warehouse. You knew whose shipment it was.”

I remembered her outside the warehouse the day before.

The fire engines hadn't even arrived when she stopped an employee carrying files out of the building.

She wanted that order back.

I gave her a cold look.

“You had them tear down the shutdown notice as soon as it went up. And now you're lecturing me about the cost?”

“Enough.” Luca cut me off.

Then I saw it. The maintenance report, tucked beneath the folder by his hand.

On the exposed red cover were the words I had written myself: SHUT DOWN IMMEDIATELY.

I stopped explaining and stared at the report he had already received.

Luca waved everyone out.

As Sera stood, she reached for the silver eagle.

“Don't touch it.”

His voice was cold.

Her hand paused. Then she withdrew it.

The moment the door closed, Luca crouched in front of me and cradled my injured hand.

“Have you taken your painkillers?”

I pulled away.

He pressed his lips together and slid a travel itinerary across the table.

A seaside villa in Sicily. A private doctor. A full year's living expenses.

There was only one plane ticket.

“Sign tonight. I'll tell the elders you've been sent away for punishment, and I'll pay the crews to accept it. You leave tomorrow morning. I'll take care of the rest.”

“And if Carlo wants more than money?”

“He answers to the elders.”

I looked at the door. Carlo had left his pistol on the table.

“They haven't accepted this.”

“They will.”

“What about the families of the men who died?”

“What do you want me to do? Give them Sera? Half my capos backed me because they thought I had the Morettis behind me. She keeps that door open. If I hand her over, they'll put someone else in my chair.”

The warehouse belonged to a freight company on paper. Luca owned no shares in his own name. The restaurants, the nightclub, the polite men who sent flowers to city hall were the part people were allowed to see.

But I had seen the crates before they were nailed shut. I knew why the night crews carried guns beneath their jackets. I had stayed anyway.

Now he was asking me to become the body that kept all of it standing.

Eight years ago, his father had left him nothing but debt and two failing restaurants. I had sold the house my adoptive mother left me to cover the employees' unpaid wages.

He had slept beside me in the warehouse office. He had waited with me outside a bank for a manager who never showed up.

Later, he took over the Vito family. Everyone called him Don and knocked before entering his office. I still called him Luca.

“You know I didn't do this.”

“I know. You'll help me, won't you, Eve? Just like you did eight years ago.”

I stared at him, unable to speak.

He took my silence for agreement. He lifted my right hand again and rested his forehead against it.

“Give me three months. Once the capos answer to me without looking to the Morettis first, I can bring you home.”

I slowly drew my hand away.

“I'm not signing.”

Luca looked up.

“I didn't kill those men.”

He rose, the tenderness draining from his face.

Two knocks sounded at the door. Carlo was getting impatient.

Luca picked up another document, a declaration severing my ties to the family, and signed it.

He pressed his signet ring into the wax beneath his name. The men outside would recognize the mark.

Anyone who hurt me now would owe him nothing.

“I've bought you seventy-two hours. Think it over. Then come back to me.”

The door opened again. Everyone was watching.

I took the declaration, folded it in half, and slipped it into my coat pocket.

Luca frowned. “What do you want that for?”

“In case you change your mind.”

He thought I was still sulking and let it go.

I put the unsigned confession away with it.

When I stood to leave, no one opened the door for me.