D197."GET THAT LITTLE BRAT OUT OF MY HOUSE!"

The basement of the Moretti estate was an ancient labyrinth.

Constructed in the late 1920s during the height of Prohibition, the estate had originally belonged to an infamous rum-runner who had honeycombed the earth beneath the mansion with reinforced concrete tunnels, hidden speakeasy vaults, and drainage channels leading directly to the Hudson River.

When my father bought the property in the seventies, he had sealed off most of the tunnels, converting the upper subterranean levels into a massive wine cellar and firing range.

Or so I had believed.

Now, standing in the hidden medical bunker behind Sofia's portrait, I saw the truth. A section of the wall behind the linen cabinets had been dismantled, revealing a freight elevator shaft that didn't appear on any architectural blue prints of the house.

The steel cables of the lift were still vibrating.

"They went down," Marco said, his submachine gun raised, inspecting the freshly greased guide rails. "Not more than five minutes ago. Boss, who the hell had the clearance to build an elevator inside your private walls without you knowing?"

"My brother," I said through gritted teeth.

I turned slowly to face Rosa. She was clutching Lily tightly against her chest. The little girl had buried her face in Rosa's neck, sensing the suffocating violence radiating from me and my men.

"Lily," I said, pitching my voice low and calm, though every muscle in my body was coiled like a steel spring. "Cover your ears for a minute, sweetheart. Uncle Alessandro needs to speak to your mother."

Lily peeked out from Rosa's collar, her wide eyes searching mine. "Are you going to hurt Mommy?"

"No," I promised her, looking directly into those hazel eyes that belonged to my sister. "I will never hurt her. But she needs to tell me the truth so I can bring the sleeping lady back."

Lily nodded solemnly. She pressed her small hands over her ears and squeezed her eyes shut.

I grabbed a folding metal chair from the corner of the room, set it down in front of Rosa, and sat. I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees.

"Talk, Rosa. Start from the beginning. If you leave out a single syllable, I will tear this city apart brick by brick until I find the answers myself. Who did this to Sofia?"

Rosa swallowed hard, her voice trembling as she began to unravel a seventeen-year-old nightmare.

"It was Roberto," she whispered.

Hearing my dead brother’s name spoken in connection with Sofia’s disappearance felt like a physical blow. Roberto was three years older than me. Growing up, he had been our father's favorite—charming, ruthless, but hopelessly reckless with money. When our father died without naming a clear successor, Roberto had expected to take the throne. Instead, the family council had chosen me, recognizing that Roberto’s gambling debts and violent temper would run the Moretti empire into the ground.

"Roberto?" I asked, my voice dangerously soft. "Roberto cried at her funeral. He threw the first spade of dirt onto her coffin."

"He put an empty box in the ground, Don Alessandro," Rosa cried softly. "Seventeen years ago, Sofia was eighteen. She was young, brilliant, studying forensic accounting at Columbia. She wasn't supposed to be involved in the family business, but she had access to the trust ledgers."

The pieces began to assemble themselves in my mind, forming an image so grotesque I could barely comprehend it.

"She found the missing money," I muttered.

"Yes!" Rosa nodded frantically. "Roberto had embezzled nearly forty million dollars from the family trust to pay off his debts to the Russian syndicates and Julian Vance. Sofia found the offshore wire transfers. She was coming to your country house that night to hand you the ledger. She told Roberto she was going to expose him."

"So he bombed her car," I said, the words tasting like ash.

"He tried to kill her," Rosa corrected, shaking her head. "He hired Vance's men to plant the bomb. But Sofia was delayed leaving the city. Her college roommate was driving the Mercedes. The poor girl was incinerated instantly. When Roberto realized Sofia was still alive, he panicked. He couldn't let her speak to you. He ambushed her outside her apartment, drugged her, and brought her here."

"Why didn't he kill her?" Marco demanded from the doorway. "If Roberto wanted to hide his theft, why keep her alive for seventeen years?"

"Because of your father's will," Rosa answered, looking straight at me. "The Moretti trust funds—over two hundred million dollars in Swiss reserves and offshore holdings—required biometric verification from both Sofia and Roberto to release the capital. Sofia held the primary master encryption codes in a retinal-scan vault in Zurich. If she died, the funds were permanently locked and redirected to charitable foundations upon your death, Alessandro."

"Roberto couldn't access the money without her," I realized, a sick feeling twisting my gut. "He needed her alive."

"He kept her in a medically induced coma," Rosa wept. "He brought in private, corrupt physicians. They pumped her full of paralytics and neuro-suppressants, keeping her unconscious, only bringing her to partial awareness when Roberto needed her thumbprint or retinal scans for banking authorizations. When Roberto fell ill with cancer five years ago, he passed the secret to Isabella."

"Isabella knew," I whispered.

"Isabella ran the operation after Roberto died," Rosa said. "She partnered with Julian Vance. Vance has been funding the medical staff, waiting for the final trust maturation date. Sofia turns thirty-five this year. On her thirty-fifth birthday—which is next week—the final trust fund unlocks. Vance and Isabella were going to drain the accounts, execute Sofia, and pin her murder on you to take over the Moretti territory."

The betrayal was staggering in its scope. For seventeen years, my sister had been kept like an animal in a subterranean vault mere yards from where I slept, ate, and ran my empire. I had lived under the same roof with the monsters who had stolen her life.

"And you, Rosa?" I asked, my gaze piercing her. "Who are you in this horror show?"

"I was a registered ICU nurse," Rosa said softly. "Seventeen years ago, Roberto paid me a fortune to care for an 'unidentified invalid relative.' At first, I didn't know who she was. They told me she was brain-dead. But after a few years, as Sofia began to build a tolerance to the sedatives, she started waking up. She whispered her name to me. She told me about you. She told me about her brother who loved her."

Rosa reached down and gently stroked Lily’s hair.

"I realized I was guarding an innocent prisoner," Rosa continued, tears streaming down her face. "I tried to find a way to help her, but Roberto threatened to murder my family in Sicily if I spoke a word. Then, four years ago, Roberto died. Isabella took over, and she brought Julian Vance into the house. They got careless. Sofia had moments of lucidity."

I looked at Lily. The horrifying truth that had been hovering at the edge of my consciousness suddenly demanded to be spoken.

"Rosa," I said, my voice barely audible above the hum of the medical equipment. "How old is Lily?"

"She was born three years ago," Rosa said.

My breath caught in my throat. "Who is her father?"

Rosa looked up, her expression a mixture of profound sorrow and unyielding defiance.

"Julian Vance."

The name struck the room like a thunderbolt. Marco cursed violently under his breath. The guards outside the door shifted uncomfortably, sensing the lethal aura radiating from me.

Julian Vance. My greatest enemy. The man who controlled the shipping docks and the narcotics trade in Brooklyn.

"Vance visited this room three years ago," Rosa whispered, her voice trembling with disgust. "He thought Sofia was completely comatose. He was drunk. When Sofia became pregnant, Isabella wanted to terminate the pregnancy, but Vance forbade it. He said a child with Moretti blood would give him an undisputed claim to your family's empire if anything happened to you."

Rosa pulled Lily closer to her heart.

"When Sofia gave birth in this hidden room, Vance ordered the baby taken to an orphanage. But I couldn't let them do it. I told Isabella the child had died of respiratory failure at birth. I smuggled Lily out of the estate in a medical waste container, took her to my sister's apartment, and raised her. A year later, I applied for the housekeeper position under an assumed name. I brought Lily back into this house so she could be near her mother. I cleaned your floors by day, and by night, when the guards changed shifts, I brought Lily down here through the maintenance tunnels so Sofia could hold her daughter."

I closed my eyes. The sheer weight of Sofia's suffering washed over me in a suffocating wave.

Seventeen years in the dark. Tortured, violated, stripped of her youth, her sanity, her freedom. And yet, she had fought through the chemical fog to hold her daughter.

"Yesterday," I murmured, opening my eyes. "What happened yesterday?"

"Vance’s doctors increased her sedative dosage," Rosa explained. "They knew the birthday was coming. Sofia’s body had an adverse reaction. She had a seizure. I had to administer adrenaline to save her life. When she woke up, she was completely clear-headed for the first time in years. She saw Lily. She spoke to her. But Isabella walked in unexpectedly. She saw Lily in the room. I managed to grab Lily and run upstairs, but Isabella followed us into the foyer."

"And that’s when Lily found the button," I finished.

"Sofia gave it to her," Rosa said, fresh tears falling. "She pulled it from the old coat she was wearing the night she was kidnapped. She told Lily: *'Find the giant in the big chair. Give him the lion. Tell him Sofia is waiting.'*"

I stood up.

The grief that had paralyzed me moments ago was gone, incinerated by a white-hot, consuming vengeance. I looked down at Lily.

The child pulled her hands away from her ears. She looked at me with those golden-hazel eyes—the eyes of my sister, the eyes of a true Moretti.

"Mister Giant?" she asked softly. "Is the sleeping lady coming home?"

I knelt down in front of her. I gently took her tiny hands in mine.

"Yes, Lily," I told her, making a vow that would be sealed in fire and blood. "Uncle Alessandro is bringing her home. And no one will ever hurt you or your mother again."

I stood up, turned to Marco, and unholstered my customized .45 caliber pistol.