Keep going—the next chapter reveals what happens next.

-3-

The impact knocked the wind from my lungs, but the survival instincts honed through a decade of bloody turf wars took over instantly. As my back slammed against the edge of the antique dressing table, my hands shot out, gripping the collar of my assailant's tactical jacket.

He was wiry, fast, and reeked of desperation. In the dim light of the hidden alcove, I caught the glint of a hunting knife flashing toward my throat.

With a brutal twist of my hips, I threw my weight forward, driving my forehead straight into the bridge of his nose. A sickening crunch echoed through the wall cavity, followed by a muffled shriek of agony. I followed up with a vicious right hook to his jaw, sending him crashing backward into the stack of canned goods and empty coffee cups.

Before he could recover, I pinned him to the subfloor with my knee planted firmly between his shoulder blades, my fingers wrapping around his throat.

"Who sent you?" I snarled, my voice vibrating with a lethal fury that made the man beneath me tremble violently. "Name the family! Is it the Moretti syndicate? Or did the board of directors finally decide to cut out the cancer from the inside?"

The man gasped for air, his face smeared with blood from his broken nose. He laughed—a wet, hysterical sound that grated against my nerves. "You... you think this is about the syndicates, Mercer? You think the Italians care about your brats?"

I tightened my grip, cutting off his air supply until his eyes bulged in panic. "Talk. Now."

"Check... check the safe in your office," he choked out, his fingers clawing futilely at my wrist. "The safe... behind the portrait of your grandfather. The documents aren't missing. They're inside. The real reason your wife's car went off that bridge... wasn't an accident."

The words hit me like a physical blow, paralyzing my fingers for a fraction of a second. That split second was all he needed. With a sudden surge of adrenaline, he kicked backward, driving his boot heel into my shin, and wrenched himself free from my grip. He scrambled toward the emergency exit hatch cut into the exterior wall of the mansion's foundation, diving headfirst into the rainy night just as my fingers brushed the hem of his jacket.

I lunged after him, bursting through the hidden wall panel and scrambling out onto the stone terrace of the east wing.

The rain was pouring down in sheets, turning the lawn into a muddy swamp. In the distance, the tail lights of an unmarked black sedan vanished down the winding private driveway, cutting through the iron security gates as if they hadn't even been locked.

I stood on the terrace, soaked to the skin, my chest heaving, the blood from the intruder's broken nose staining my knuckles. My mind raced in a dozen different directions. For twelve months, I had believed my wife's death was a tragic, random catastrophe of slick roads and poor visibility. I had mourned her in silence, burying my grief beneath a mountain of criminal enterprises and corporate acquisitions.

Now, kneeling on the wet stone, the cold reality washed over me: her death had been targeted. And my children hadn't just been grieving orphans; they had been hostages in their own home, terrorized by a ghost living inside the very walls I swore I had secured.

Slowly, I turned back toward the shattered doorway of the blue room.

Marisol was standing in the corridor just outside the threshold. She wasn't holding a weapon, nor did she look panicked. She stood with her hands folded neatly over her apron, watching me with an expression of profound, unshakeable sorrow.

"You let him go," she stated quietly.

"He slipped out the escape hatch," I growled, wiping the rain and blood from my face as I stepped past her into the hall. "How long did you know about this, Marisol? Be very careful how you answer that question."

"I knew something was wrong the first night I walked into their nursery," she replied without a hint of fear, stepping into my path to block my way. "The twenty nannies before me didn't quit because the boys were difficult. Mrs. Gable fired them the moment any of them started asking questions about the strange scratching noises behind the walls or the missing security footage from the east wing. But Mrs. Gable didn't account for someone who spent five years working in pediatric psychiatric trauma wards."

I stopped dead in my tracks, staring down at her. "Psychiatric wards? I ran a background check on you through the best investigators on the East Coast. Your file listed you as a private tutor and former governess in Boston."

"My file was cleaned," Marisol said calmly, her eyes locking onto mine. "Just like yours was, Mr. Mercer. People with our kind of pasts always need new names when the old ones get too dangerous to keep."

Before I could demand an explanation, the shrill, electronic chime of my encrypted satellite phone began ringing from the pocket of my trousers.

I pulled it out, my eyes never leaving Marisol's face, and pressed the receiver to my ear.

"Boss," came the urgent, breathless voice of my chief of security, Viktor. "We have a massive security breach. Someone just overrode the master mainframe from an internal terminal. They're downloading the entire financial ledger and the syndicate's off-shore routing codes right now."