Men like me never announced when we were coming home. For fifteen years, unpredictability had kept me alive through ambushes, federal raids, and men who

I retreated to my private study on the third floor, locking the heavy mahogany doors behind me.

The room was dark, lit only by the city skyline glowing through the floor-to-ceiling glass and the soft light of my computer monitors. I poured three fingers of scotch, my hand shaking so violently the glass clinked against the crystal decanter.

Daddy killed Mommy.

The words echoed off the walls. I sank into my leather chair, staring at the framed photograph on my desk. Isabella was laughing in the picture, holding the triplets on a beach in Montauk three summers ago. She had been so full of light. I had sworn on my life to keep the dark underbelly of my business away from our front porch. I had failed.

A soft knock at the door broke the silence.

"Enter," I barked.

My chief of security, Frank Lombardi—a man who had taken bullets for me in three different decades—stepped inside. His face was grim, his suit slightly rumpled.

"Dominic," Frank said, closing the door quietly. "We have a problem."

"My daughter talked today, Frank," I said, staring into my whiskey. "Fourteen months of silence, and her first words accused me of her mother's murder."

Frank paused, his eyes softening with genuine sympathy before his professional mask slid back into place. "I heard. The kitchen staff is talking. But Dominic... that's not why I'm up here. The perimeter security team caught something strange on the northern boundary logs an hour ago."

I raised my eyes, my instincts instantly sharpening. "What kind of strange?"

"The secondary wire was bypassed," Frank said, dropping a manila folder onto my desk. "Not cut. Bypassed with a high-level military override code. The same kind of code used by our internal security system."

I stared at the folder. "Are you telling me we have a mole inside the estate?"

"Or someone who has access to our master encryption keys," Frank replied darkly. "And there's more. The wire audit shows the breach happened three weeks ago—the exact same week Rosa hired the new nanny."

My blood ran cold. Elena.

"You said her background was clean," I snapped, standing up.

"Her papers are spotless," Frank warned, holding up a finger. "Too spotless. Her father was an attorney for your holding company, yes. But her older brother? He was a lieutenant in the Mendoza organization who disappeared right before the Queens hit on Isabella."