The sharp, biting crack of the thin leather riding crop echoed like a gunshot through the vaulted ballroom of Sterling Manor, instantly knocking the silver serving tray from my hands.

The mahogany doors of Dominic Sterling’s private study slammed shut, muffling the chaotic murmur of departing socialites. Outside, engines hummed and high heels clicked in hurried retreat. Inside, the only sound was the crackle of a cedar log burning down in the fireplace and the steady, measured ticking of a grandfather clock.

Dominic stood near the hearth, peeling his leather gloves off finger by finger. The broad cut of his shoulders filled the room, radiating the ruthless authority that had kept the Eastern seaboard under his thumb for a decade. Yet, his gaze remained fixed entirely on me.

I stood in the center of the Persian rug, clutching the torn fabric of my maid’s uniform together. I was dirty, soaked in Dom Pérignon, and bruised, but I did not bow my head. In my veins ran blood older and deadlier than any fortune Cassandra Vance flaunted.

"Sit," Dominic ordered quietly, nodding toward a deep leather armchair.

"I prefer to stand, Mr. Sterling."

"I wasn't asking." He poured two fingers of bourbon into a crystal tumbler and set it on the mahogany desk. "Drink it. It will stop your hands from shaking."

"My hands are shaking from fury, not fear," I replied, crossing my arms. "Your fiancée owes me two weeks of back pay, and now she owes me for a uniform."

Dominic’s mouth twitched, the ghost of an amused smirk flickering across his hard features before his eyes darkened once more. "Cassandra Vance is not my fiancée yet. And after tonight, she never will be."

I narrowed my eyes. "Is that supposed to impress me?"

Dominic moved with the silent grace of an apex predator, closing the distance between us until he stood barely a foot away. He was taller than me by half a foot, towering and solid, yet he didn't crowd me with intimidation. Instead, he reached out again, his bare thumb lightly grazing the edge of the silver pendant hanging from my throat.

His touch sent a sharp electric current through my skin.

"The Moretti Crest," he murmured. "Forged in Milan in 1922. Only three of these lockets were ever struck. One was buried with Don Vincent Moretti. One was lost in the Adriatic Sea. And the third belonged to his only daughter, the crown princess of Chicago's underworld."

He paused, his gray eyes piercing straight into my soul.

"She was reported dead ten years ago when the Moretti compound in Lake Forest burned to ashes. They said she was trapped in the wine cellar."

"People say a great many things when bodies are burned beyond recognition," I said coldly.

"Her name was Elena," Dominic continued, his voice dropping into a register of velvet steel. "She was fourteen years old. Soft-spoken, fiercely protected, and guarded like the crown jewels of Europe."

"And now she's standing in front of you wearing a servant’s apron, three sizes larger than high society deems acceptable, smelling like cheap citrus bleach and your expensive champagne." I scoffed. "Quite a fall from grace, wouldn't you say?"

Dominic didn't laugh. He stepped closer, close enough that I could smell the cold winter rain and sandalwood clinging to his skin. "You think your weight or your clothes hide who you are? Look at your spine, Elena. A servant bows. A survivor glares like she’s measuring the distance to my jugular."

My heart hammered against my ribs, but I kept my chin lifted. "If you know who I am, then you know why Cassandra Vance hired me."

Dominic frowned, his eyebrows drawing together into a menacing V. "Cassandra brought you into my house through an independent staffing agency two months ago. She told me she was replacing the downstairs staff."

"She didn't use an agency," I said with a bitter laugh. "She tracked me down to a bakery in South Boston. She recognized my mother's ring, which I had to pawn last winter to pay for my aunt’s medical bills. She bought the ticket from the pawnshop, found my address, and offered me triple wages to work at Sterling Manor."

"Why would she bring you here?" Dominic’s voice held a dangerous edge now.

"Because the Vance family didn't just watch the Moretti empire burn ten years ago, Dominic," I said, leaning in, letting the cold truth hit him like a bullet. "Her father supplied the kerosene. And she wanted to keep the last surviving heir on a leash, right under your nose, until she secured your empire through marriage."

Dominic stood motionless. The silence that followed was suffocating. Then, slowly, he picked up the landline on his desk and punched three numbers.