Chapter 1 - THE BOMB BENEATH HIS DESK
Table of Contents 6
The moment Damiano closed the study door behind him, I understood that Emma had not simply wandered into something dangerous.
My six-year-old daughter had stepped directly into the middle of a war.
I carried her toward the west parlor so quickly that one of her shoes nearly slipped from her foot. The mansion that had seemed elegant and almost peaceful twenty minutes earlier was changing around us. Men in dark suits appeared at every intersection. Heavy doors locked. Curtains were pulled across windows. Somewhere downstairs, I heard someone ordering the kitchen staff through the service entrance.
Emma pressed her face against my shoulder.
“Mommy, did I do something bad?”
“No, sweetheart.”
“The shiny lady said Mr. Moretti would be angry.”
I stopped walking.
“What shiny lady?”
Emma lifted her head. “The one who wears the sparkly earrings. She was talking to the sad man.”
My stomach tightened because I already knew exactly whom she meant.
Isabella Romano.
Damiano’s fiancée.
For six months, photographs of Isabella and Damiano had appeared in newspapers and society magazines. She came from one of the oldest families in New York, wore diamonds to breakfast, and moved through Damiano’s mansion as though she had been born to become its mistress.
Their wedding was three weeks away.
I had served her champagne dozens of times.
She had barely acknowledged my existence.
But Emma remembered her because Isabella had once dropped a crystal bracelet near the kitchen and Emma had returned it. Isabella had smiled, touched Emma’s cheek, and told her she was “an observant little thing.”
At the time, I thought it was kindness.
Now those words felt completely different.
I locked the west parlor door and pushed a heavy chair beneath the handle exactly as Damiano had instructed. Emma climbed onto the sofa with her rag doll tucked beneath her chin.
“Tell me everything you saw.”
She hesitated.
“I was looking for Mr. Buttons.”
Mr. Buttons was the stuffed rabbit she had carried everywhere until losing it earlier that afternoon.
“I went near the big office because I thought maybe I left him there when I brought you lunch yesterday. The sad man was kneeling under Mr. Moretti’s desk. He had wires.”
“What kind of wires?”
“Red and yellow. And a little box.”
My hands went cold.
“Where was Isabella?”
“By the door. She told him to hurry because the old men were coming soon.”
Five Mafia dons.
Five men whose organizations controlled enormous pieces of the East Coast underworld.
If they died inside Damiano Moretti’s home, every surviving family would blame him.
The peace agreement would become a massacre.
Within hours, New York could be drowning in blood.
“Did Isabella see you?”
Emma nodded reluctantly.
“She came after me.”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“What happened?”
“I hid behind the curtain near the stairs. She found me and asked what I saw. I said nothing, but she knew.”
Emma’s lower lip trembled.
“She squeezed my arm really hard.”
I pulled up her sleeve.
Four faint red marks circled her small upper arm.
Rage replaced fear so quickly that I almost couldn’t breathe.
“She told me if I talked, you wouldn’t have a job anymore and we’d have to sleep outside.”
I hugged Emma against me.
For three years, I had scrubbed floors, carried trays, washed linens, and worked every extra shift available because this job came with a small apartment above the mansion’s carriage house. After Emma’s father disappeared from our lives, Damiano’s household had become the closest thing we had to security.
Isabella knew that.
She knew exactly what threat would frighten a six-year-old into silence.
A knock suddenly struck the door.
Emma jumped.
“Sophia.”
Damiano.
I moved the chair and opened the door only a few inches.
He stood outside with Gabriel, his security chief, and another man wearing gloves.
Damiano’s face told me everything before he spoke.
“There was an explosive device beneath my desk.”
I covered my mouth.
Gabriel continued. “Remote detonation. Enough explosive to destroy most of the study and probably kill everyone in the adjoining conference room.”
“Can you disable it?”
“Already done.”
Relief lasted less than a second.
Damiano looked at Emma.
“We have another problem.”
He stepped into the room and closed the door.
“The device required access to the secure wing. Only twelve people have authorization.”
“Isabella?” I asked.
His jaw tightened.
“Thirteen if you count my fiancée.”
Emma stared at him.
“The sad man had a bird on his hand.”
Gabriel frowned.
“A bird?”
“She means a tattoo,” I said.
Emma pointed to her wrist. “Here. A black bird.”
Gabriel and Damiano exchanged a look.
For the first time, genuine alarm appeared in Damiano’s eyes.
“Marco Bellini,” Gabriel said.
I didn’t recognize the name.
Damiano clearly did.
Marco Bellini had once worked for the Romano family.
Isabella’s family.
He had supposedly died eighteen months earlier.
Damiano crouched in front of Emma.
“Are you absolutely sure?”
Emma nodded.
“I drew him.”
She opened the little cloth bag hanging from her shoulder and removed a folded sheet of paper.
Children notice things adults dismiss.
Emma had drawn the man beneath Damiano’s desk, including his narrow face, dark jacket, and the black bird tattoo on his wrist.
Beside him stood a woman wearing enormous silver earrings.
Isabella.
Damiano studied the picture for several seconds.
Then his phone rang.
Gabriel answered his own radio at almost the same moment.
“The dons are arriving,” he said.
Damiano looked toward the windows.
Five black convoys were already approaching the mansion gates.
If he canceled the meeting without explanation, suspicion would spread.
If he revealed Isabella’s betrayal too soon, whoever else was involved might disappear.
He stood slowly.
“The meeting continues.”
I stared at him.
“There was just a bomb beneath your desk.”
“And whoever planted it believes we haven’t found it.”
That was when I understood his plan.
Damiano wanted the traitor to believe everything was proceeding normally.
He turned toward Gabriel.
“Move the meeting to the ballroom. Quietly. I want Marco Bellini found alive.”
Then he looked at me.
“And Isabella is not to know Emma spoke to us.”
My daughter suddenly grabbed his hand.
“Mr. Moretti?”
He looked down.
“Is the shiny lady going to hurt Mommy?”
Something changed in his expression.
Damiano Moretti was a man people crossed streets to avoid. I had watched powerful businessmen struggle to keep their voices steady around him.
But he knelt beside my frightened daughter and answered with surprising gentleness.
“No.”
Emma searched his face.
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
Then he looked directly at me.
The softness disappeared.
“Anyone who threatens either of you answers to me now.”
At that exact moment, Gabriel’s radio crackled.
A guard’s urgent voice filled the room.
“Boss, we have a problem. Miss Romano is gone.”
Damiano’s eyes hardened.
“When?”
“Security footage shows her leaving eleven minutes ago.”
Gabriel cursed beneath his breath.
Then the guard added something worse.
“She didn’t leave alone.”
Damiano grabbed the radio.
“Who was with her?”
Static hissed for several seconds.
Then came the answer.
“Someone from your inner security team.”
Damiano slowly turned toward Gabriel.
The betrayal was no longer standing outside his walls.
It had been living inside them.
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