A mafia boss slapped me, accused me of dumping his seven-month-old daughter in the trash, and had me dragged away after I saved her from freezing to death. Three days later, a detective uncovered one detail that shattered the nanny’s story, then showed me a photograph that made me realize this was far bigger than attempted murder.

The mansion was suffocatingly quiet.

The marble corridors that usually smelled of lemon polish and expensive orchids now carried the sharp, bitter scent of unburned tobacco and disinfectant. Every chandelier was dimmed to a low, amber twilight.

Dante led me up the grand rear staircase, his boots making no sound on the thick velvet runner. I followed right behind him, my heart hammering against my throat so hard I felt sick.

At the end of the second-floor hallway, the door to the master nursery stood slightly ajar. Warm yellow light spilled onto the dark hardwood floor.

Dante stopped outside the door, raising his hand to halt me. He pushed the door open slowly.

Sitting in a high-backed leather armchair beside a white wooden crib was Adrian Valente.

He looked ruined.

The pristine, tailored Italian suits he usually wore were gone. He wore a wrinkled black dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing dark tattoos winding up his muscles. His dark hair was messy, shadows carved deep under his hollow, bloodshot eyes. On the small wooden table beside him lay a heavy, customized matte-black hand gun, resting next to a half-empty bottle of bourbon.

Inside the crib, wrapped in three pink fleece blankets, seven-month-old Emma slept peacefully, the soft hum of an electronic heart-rate monitor ticking softly in the corner.

"I told you I didn't want to be disturbed, Dante," Adrian said without turning his head. His voice was gravelly, broken, and filled with a terrifying, quiet violence.

"Boss," Dante said calmly, stepping fully into the room. "You need to see someone."

Adrian turned his head slowly.

When his bloodshot eyes landed on me, standing in the doorway, the change was instantaneous.

The exhaustion vanished from his face, replaced by a dark, feral rage that made the air in the room drop ten degrees. He reached for the handgun on the table with blinding speed.

CH-CK.

The safety clicked off before he even stood up.

"Dante," Adrian growled, his arm extending, the heavy barrel of the gun pointed directly between my eyes. "Why is the woman who tried to murder my daughter standing in my house?"

I didn't step back. I didn't look down.

"Put the gun down, Adrian," I said, my voice surprisingly steady despite the terror freezing my veins. "If I wanted your daughter dead, I would have left her in the dumpster. I wouldn't have stripped off my coat, put her against my bare skin, and run two hundred yards through a blizzard to get her to a doctor."

"You did it to cover your tracks," Adrian snarled, taking a slow step toward me. "Karen saw you."

"Karen lied to you!" I shouted, taking a bold step into the nursery, ignoring the deadly barrel hovering inches from my head. "Karen took twenty thousand dollars four days ago to drug your baby with Alprazolam and dump her in the trash!"

"Lie!" a sharp, shrill voice shrieked from the hallway behind me.

Karen Mitchell stepped out of the shadows, wearing her crisp blue nurse's uniform, her face pale with pure fury. She held a baby bottle filled with warm milk in her shaking hands.

"Mr. Valente!" Karen gasped, putting a hand over her heart. "She’s lying! She broke in! She’s trying to finish what she started! Call the guards!"

Adrian didn't lower his gun. His eyes flickered between me and the nanny.

"Dante," Adrian said coldly. "Search her."

Dante didn't search me. Instead, he walked past me, stepped directly up to Karen, grabbed her heavy leather handbag from the hallway side table, and dumped its entire contents onto the hardwood floor.

Lipstick, keys, a leather wallet, loose cash—and a small, clear glass prescription bottle with a hand-written label rolled across the floorboards.

It stopped right against the toe of Adrian’s boot.

The silence in the nursery was absolute.

Adrian looked down at the bottle. He reached down, picked it up with his free hand, and read the label under the dim lamp light.

Alprazolam. 50mg.

Adrian raised his eyes slowly toward Karen. The look on his face wasn't just anger—it was the look of a demon waking up from a long nightmare.

"Karen," Adrian said softly, his voice dangerously quiet. "What is my mother's old nerve medication doing in your purse?"

Karen’s face went completely grey. She took a staggering step backward. "I... I have anxiety, Mr. Valente! I took it from the pantry last week because my nerves were bad!"

"You're lying, Karen," I said, stepping closer to Adrian. "Check her bank records. Check the wire transfer from the Cayman Islands. A company owned by Elena."

At the sound of his dead wife's name, Adrian froze completely.