"THE MAFIA BOSS’S FIANCÉE TOLD ME TO SEAT HIS EIGHTY-ONE-YEAR-OLD FORMER SCHOOL LUNCH LADY WITH THE STAFF—BUT WHEN LUCA MORETTI SAW HER HOLDING AN OLD RED LUNCH TOKEN, HE STOOD UP AND SAID, “SHE FED ME WHEN MY FAMILY HAD NOTHING.”

Luca didn't panic.

He calmly snapped the ammo box shut, picked up the microcassette recorder, and dropped it into his coat pocket. He handed the heavy ledger to me.

“Tuck it under your jacket, Emma,” he commanded in a whisper. “If anything happens to me, you don't stop running until you reach the Federal Building downtown. You ask for Agent Miller. You give him that book. Understood?”

“Mr. Moretti, I’m not leaving you—”

“Understood?” he repeated, his grip on my arm firm, his dark eyes boring into mine with an intensity that brooked no argument.

“Understood,” I whispered.

Above us, the heavy metal door of the cafeteria banged open against the wall.

“Luca!”

A voice echoed down the stairwell. It was high, frantic, and unmistakably Vanessa’s.

“Luca, I know you’re down there!” she called out. “Don’t do something stupid! Silvio is with me! He just wants the ledger! If you give it to him, he’ll let you walk away! We can fix this!”

Luca’s expression went colder than the basement floor.

He didn't answer. He signaled to Marco at the top of the stairs, holding up three fingers, then closing his fist. *Ambush.*

We crept up the concrete steps, keeping low beneath the rusted handrail.

Through the cracked doorway of the kitchen, I could see the cafeteria bathed in the sweeping headlights of the SUVs parked outside the double doors. Rain poured through the shattered windows, soaking the linoleum floor.

Standing in the center of the cafeteria was Vanessa.

She had traded her red evening gown for a designer black trench coat, but her hair was plastered to her forehead by the rain, and her mascara was smeared across her cheeks. Standing behind her were four massive men in dark coats with automatic pistols drawn.

And between them stood a man with slicked-back silver hair, wearing an overcoat that cost more than my father’s medical treatments.

Silvio Castiglione.

He looked around the rotting cafeteria with a look of mild disgust, tapping an unlit cigar against his gold signet ring.

“Come on out, Luca,” Castiglione called out, his voice smooth and gravelly like stones rolling in the surf. “You’re thirty-two years old. You’ve had a good run playing don on the North Side. But this neighborhood belongs to me. It always has.”

Luca stepped out of the shadow of the kitchen door.

He didn't raise his weapon. He walked into the open cafeteria with his hands at his sides, completely unfazed by the four guns instantly aimed at his chest.

I stayed crouched behind the industrial steel dishwasher, the heavy ledger pressed hard against my ribs.

“Silvio,” Luca said, his voice echoing off the gym floor. “You’re looking old.”

Castiglione chuckled, though his eyes remained dead. “And you’re looking careless, boy. Letting an eighty-one-year-old cafeteria woman dismantle a three-million-dollar alliance between our families in twenty minutes.”

He glanced sideways at Vanessa, who shrank under his gaze.

“She was always a weak link,” Castiglione sneered, gesturing toward Vanessa with his cigar. “Just like her brother. Vincent thought he could steal my book and disappear to Mexico. He didn't make it past the state line.”

Luca froze.

The air seemed to drop ten degrees.

“What did you say?” Luca asked, every syllable laced with murder.

Castiglione gave a thin, cruel smile. “You thought Vincent ran away? You thought he abandoned his sweet little sister? Vincent died twenty-two years ago, Luca. In a ditch off Interstate 55. We squeezed him for two days, but the stupid brat had already hidden the book, and he died before he could tell us where.”

Vanessa let out a choked sob, falling to her knees on the dirty linoleum.

“You told me he was alive,” she cried, looking up at Castiglione with horror. “You told me if I got close to Luca, if I found out what his father told him before he died, you’d bring Vincent home!”

Castiglione looked down at her with utter contempt.

“You stupid girl,” the old mobster sighed. “Your brother’s bones have been fertilizer in a cornfield since the Clinton administration. The only reason I kept you alive was because you were pretty enough to plant in Moretti’s bed.”

He looked back at Luca.

“She was mine from the day her father died, Luca. Every designer dress she wore, every social club she joined, every word she whispered in your ear—it all came from me. She was supposed to find that ledger in your family’s archives. But when that old biddy showed up tonight with Vincent’s lunch token, Vanessa panicked. She knew the token meant the kid had hidden the book right here at St. Jude’s.”

Luca didn't look at Vanessa. He didn't look at the four gunmen.

His eyes were locked entirely on Castiglione.

“You used my father,” Luca said. “You let him take the blame for the church money. You let him rot in Joliet while you built your empire on the bribes in that book.”

“Anthony was a fool,” Castiglione laughed. “A noble, sentimental fool. Just like you.”

The mobster gestured to his men.

“Kill him. Find the book. Burn the school.”

Before the first gunman could squeeze his trigger, a deafening blast tore through the cafeteria.

Marco fired from the kitchen entrance, his shotgun blast catching the first guard square in the chest, throwing him back through the cafeteria doors into the rain.

Luca moved like lightning.

He drew his weapon, dropped to one knee, and fired two shots with terrifying precision. The second guard dropped before his body even hit the ground.

“Get down!” Luca roared, looking back toward my hiding spot.

Gunfire erupted. Muzzle flashes lit up the dark cafeteria like strobe lights. Glass shattered, plaster rained from the ceiling, and bullets chewed through the wooden tables.

Vanessa screamed, crawling frantically toward the service doors.

Castiglione scrambled back toward his SUV, shouting orders to his remaining men: “Kill them! Don’t let them leave with the ledger!”

I pressed myself flat against the cold tile beneath the dishwashers as bullets pinged off the stainless-steel counters above my head. The smell of cordite and burned powder filled my lungs, choking me.

Suddenly, a hand grabbed my collar.

I gasped, preparing to fight, but it was Luca. His knuckles were bleeding, his shirt was torn, but his eyes were blazing with savage resolve.

“Emma! Are you hit?”

“No!” I yelled over the deafening crack of Marco’s shotgun. “No, I’m okay!”

“Give me the ledger,” he ordered.

I pulled the heavy book from my jacket and shoved it into his hands.

Luca shoved the book into a canvas gym bag slung over his shoulder, then grabbed my wrist, pulling me to my feet.

“Marco! Rear exit!” Luca shouted.

“Go, boss! I’m right behind you!” Marco yelled, laying down a suppressing burst of fire toward the shattered front entrance.

Luca kicked open the heavy iron kitchen service door that led into the dark alley.

Rain lashed our faces as we burst into the night. But as we sprinted toward the end of the alley, the beam of high-powered headlights pinned us against the brick wall.

Another black SUV screeched to a halt, cutting off our escape.

The driver’s door opened, and a man stepped out into the pouring rain.

He wasn't holding a gun.

He was wearing a faded leather jacket that was three sizes too big for him.