I almost made it to the table. Six more steps. That was all I needed. My name is Claire Dawson. I was twenty-eight, worked as a housemaid in Luca Moretti’s Chicago

The rain had turned into a thick, low-slung fog by three in the morning.

In the private underground parking garage beneath the Moretti estate, a single black sedan idling in the corner spat white exhaust into the damp air.

Luca sat in the back seat, his phone pressed to his ear. Across from him sat Claire, wrapped in a heavy navy-blue wool coat Luca had instructed his head housekeeper to give her.

"Are the perimeter guards positioned?" Luca asked into his phone.

"Yes, Boss," Marcus’s voice crackled through the speaker. "Julian just left his penthouse in River North. He’s heading toward the private docks. He thinks he's meeting Vanessa’s courier."

"Don't intercept him yet," Luca ordered. "Let him reach the warehouse. I want him completely comfortable when he realizes he's trapped."

Luca ended the call and tossed his phone onto the leather seat beside him. He turned his gaze to Claire, who was staring out the tinted window at the concrete walls of the garage.

"You haven't asked how much I'm going to pay you for this," Luca remarked.

Claire didn't turn her head. "Money won't fix my brother's legs, Mr. Moretti."

"His name is Leo, isn't it?" Luca asked smoothly. "Twenty-two years old. Former collegiate track athlete. Now sitting in a wheelchair at a rehab facility on the West Side."

Claire’s head snapped toward him, her hazel eyes widening in sudden panic. "How do you know that?"

"I am the head of the Moretti family, Claire," Luca said calmly, leaning closer. "When a maid enters my home with bruised wrists and a hidden agenda, I run her entire bloodline within thirty minutes. Your brother was hit by a black SUV three months ago. The police report listed it as a hit-and-run by an unknown driver."

"Julian was driving," Claire spat, her knuckles turning white where her good hand gripped her coat. "I saw the security footage from the corner gas station. It was blurry, but the license plate matched his personal fleet."

"Julian hit your brother because Leo was working as an intern for my chief financial analyst," Luca revealed, his voice darkening. "Leo discovered an anomaly in our international shipping manifests. Julian was embezzling money through Vanessa’s family accounts in Miami. Julian tried to silence your brother before he could bring the files to me."

Claire felt the air leave her lungs. For three months, she had believed her brother was a random victim of mob violence. She had suffered through nights of listening to him cry in his hospital bed, believing their family was cursed.

"He wasn't an innocent bystander," Claire whispered, tears glistening in her eyes. "He was targeted because he was honest."

"Yes," Luca agreed softly. "And tomorrow, the men who hurt him will pay for every single day he spent in that wheelchair."

He reached out, his large, warm hand gently covering her good hand on her lap. Claire shivered at the sudden warmth of his touch, but she didn't pull away.

"I need you to do something dangerous tomorrow, Claire," Luca said, his eyes searching hers with intense gravity.

"Name it," she answered without a second of hesitation.

"Vanessa believes you're terrified of her," Luca explained. "She believes her little display in the linen closet broke your spirit. At eight o'clock tomorrow morning, she will call you to her dressing room to help her zip her dress before the lawyers arrive."

"She wants to check my hand," Claire realized instantly. "She wants to make sure I haven't told anyone."

"Precisely," Luca smiled, a cold, lethal expression. "You will go to her room. You will wear your uniform. You will act terrified, compliant, and completely beaten. And while she is mocking you, you will plant this beneath her vanity mirror."

Luca pulled a silver lapel pin from his jacket pocket—no larger than a button, fitted with a high-gain micro-microphone and a GPS transmitter.

Claire looked at the tiny device, then looked into Luca’s dark, commanding eyes.

"And if she checks my pockets?" Claire asked.

"She won't," Luca said confidently. "Cruel people like Vanessa never look down at the people they step on. They only look up at the people they want to become."

Claire took the pin with her good hand, tucking it securely into her inner pocket.