THE BILLIONAIRE MAFIA BOSS FIRED HIS MAID OVER ONE SHATTERED GLASS

The crystal did not simply fall.

It exploded against the marble like a gunshot.

Every man in Dominic Gallow's office went still.

Layla Bennett stared at the glittering fragments around her shoes while the room tilted beneath her. Her stomach clenched, and a bitter taste flooded the back of her throat. She pressed one palm against the edge of the cleaning cart and the other against the secret beneath her gray uniform.

Two heartbeats.

Two lives.

And one man standing ten feet away who did not know either of them existed.

Dominic slowly lifted his eyes from the eighty-million-dollar contract on his desk.

He did not raise his voice.

He never needed to.

"Everyone out."

The three attorneys gathered their folders and left without argument. Vincent Crane, Dominic's security chief, remained near the door until Dominic gave him a second look.

"You too."

Vincent hesitated.

"Boss, the Callahan shipment—"

"Can wait sixty seconds."

The door closed.

Layla crouched to gather the broken crystal, though her knees trembled so violently that the pieces blurred. The tumbler had been hand-cut in Prague. She had heard one of the staff say it cost more than three months of her wages.

Dominic came around the desk.

"Leave it."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Gallow."

"I said leave it."

She straightened too quickly. Black spots crowded her vision.

Dominic caught her elbow before she hit the floor.

For one terrible second, his hand rested inches from the children growing inside her.

His grip tightened.

"You're sick."

"No."

"That wasn't a question."

Layla pulled away.

"I skipped breakfast."

His gaze moved over her face with the same ruthless attention he gave contracts, enemies, and loaded weapons.

"You've skipped breakfast for three weeks?"

Her breath caught.

He had noticed.

Not enough to understand, but enough to frighten her.

"I can finish the room."

"You're shaking."

"I'm fine."

"People who are fine don't turn gray and destroy my glassware."

The cruelty in the sentence was not loud. That made it worse.

Layla looked down at the shattered tumbler.

"Take the cost from my pay."

Dominic gave a humorless laugh.

"You couldn't pay for that glass in a year."

The office door opened before she could answer.

Seraphina Vale entered as though every locked room in Chicago belonged to her.

She wore a white cashmere coat over a crimson dress, and the diamond at her throat flashed beneath the recessed lights. At thirty-two, Seraphina had perfected the kind of beauty that made people forgive her before they knew what she had done.

Her gaze dropped to Dominic's hand still hovering near Layla's arm.

Then it moved to the broken crystal.

"What happened?"

Dominic stepped back.

"An accident."

Seraphina smiled at Layla.

"Accidents are becoming expensive around here."

Layla had cleaned Seraphina's lipstick from champagne glasses, mud from her shoes, and once, a dark red stain from the cuff of a silk blouse. She had never asked what caused it.

She lowered her eyes.

"I'm sorry, Ms. Vale."

"You should be. That set was a gift from my father."

Dominic looked at Seraphina.

"It was a glass."

"It was a test."

"Of what?"

"Standards. Loyalty. Attention. Choose one."

Seraphina walked around the shards without looking down.

"Your staff has become careless since you began treating them like family."

Layla felt something cold move through her.

Dominic did not treat anyone like family.

His own brother had disappeared after challenging him over control of the docks. His uncle had died in a prison hospital before Dominic sent a single visitor. Men lowered their voices when they spoke his name, and women smiled too brightly because fear often dressed itself as admiration.

Yet three months ago, behind a gold Venetian mask, he had looked at Layla as though she were not invisible.

"Should I leave?" he had asked in the library.

"It is your house."

"That wasn't my question."

They had spoken for nearly an hour without names.

He told her he hated crowded rooms because everyone wanted something. She told him grief made silence louder than music. He asked who she had lost. She said her father.

Then the orchestra began a slow waltz in the ballroom beyond the library doors.

Dominic offered his hand.

"Dance with me."

"You don't know who I am."

"Maybe that's why I'm asking."

The memory struck Layla so sharply that she nearly swayed again.

Seraphina noticed.

Her smile disappeared.

"Dominic, may I speak with you privately?"

"You are speaking privately."

"Not while she is here."

Layla reached for the cleaning cart.

"I'll go."

Seraphina placed one heel against the cart wheel, preventing it from moving.

"Actually, stay."

Dominic's expression hardened.

"Seraphina."

"I want witnesses when I say this."

She opened her leather portfolio and removed a photograph.

It showed the loading dock beneath Gallow Tower at 2:13 that morning. Layla stood beside a black sedan, handing an envelope to a man in a wool cap.

The photograph made her blood turn cold.

Dominic took it.

"Who is he?"

"A debt collector."

"At my private loading dock?"

"He followed me."

"And the envelope?"

"My father's hospital documents."

Seraphina folded her arms.

"My investigator says the man works for the Callahan family."

Layla stared at her.

"That's not true."

"His name is Patrick Doyle. He transports messages between Callahan warehouses."

"He collects medical debt."

"Apparently he has two jobs."

Dominic studied the photograph in silence.

The Callahans controlled gambling rooms on the South Side and had spent two years trying to push their freight through Dominic's lakefront docks. Three men had died in that dispute, though the newspapers called each death unrelated.

Layla's heartbeat pounded in her ears.

"I didn't know."

Seraphina glanced at the broken glass.

"You expect us to believe a woman who enters private offices, overhears meetings, and passes envelopes to our enemies is merely clumsy?"

"I have never passed information to anyone."

"Then empty your pockets."

Dominic's voice cut through the room.

"Enough."

Seraphina turned toward him.

"You cannot be serious."

"I said enough."

For the first time, Layla saw anger beneath Seraphina's polished face. It vanished almost immediately.

"Of course. You decide."

Dominic looked at Layla.

His eyes were colder than the November sky beyond the windows.

"Did you bring anyone into this building?"

"No."

"Did you give that man information about my company?"

"No."

"Did you know he worked for Callahan?"

"No."

"Can you prove any of that?"

Layla opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.

Her father had taught her that truth mattered. Dominic's world had taught her that proof mattered more.

Seraphina's hand moved to Dominic's shoulder.

"You know what must happen."

Layla saw the decision settle over his face before he spoke.

"You're dismissed."

The words were so quiet that she almost did not understand them.

"Mr. Gallow—"

"Your employment ends now. Vincent will escort you downstairs."

"Please listen to me."

"I listened. You have no proof."

Something inside Layla broke more cleanly than the crystal.

She had imagined telling him about the twins in fear, in anger, even in tears. She had never imagined doing it while he looked at her as though she were a contaminated object that needed to be removed from his home.

Her hand drifted toward her abdomen.

Seraphina watched the movement.

Their eyes met.

And Layla understood.

Seraphina knew.

The realization was so sudden that the room sharpened around her.

The photograph.

The investigator.

The accusation arriving at the exact moment Layla nearly fainted.

Seraphina had not come to expose a spy.

She had come to eliminate a problem.

Dominic pulled several hundred-dollar bills from a locked drawer and placed them on the desk.

"Two weeks' severance."

Layla looked at the money.

Then at him.

"Keep it."

"Take it."

"I don't want anything from you."

A flicker crossed his face, gone too fast to name.

Vincent opened the door.

"Miss Bennett."

Layla pushed the cart into the hall.

As she passed Seraphina, the other woman leaned close enough that her perfume burned Layla's throat.

"You should have stayed behind your mask."

Layla stopped.

Dominic was speaking to Vincent and did not hear.

"What did you say?" Layla whispered.

Seraphina smiled.

"I said Chicago is dangerous for girls who confuse one night with destiny."

Layla's entire body went cold.

Seraphina knew about the library.

She knew about the hour after the dance, when Dominic had removed Layla's mask but the lights were too low for him to connect her to the maid who passed silently through his home. She knew about the guest suite, the rain against the windows, and Dominic's voice when he asked whether Layla wanted him to stop.

No one else should have known.

Unless someone had watched.

Vincent led Layla toward the service elevator.

Behind them, Dominic called Seraphina's name with a warning in his voice.

The elevator doors closed before Layla heard the answer.

In the staff locker room, she changed into jeans and an old blue coat. Her hands shook as she folded the gray uniform. She found the ultrasound photograph inside her purse and stared at the two pale shapes until her vision blurred.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

She did not know whether she was speaking to the babies, her dead father, or herself.

When she reached the underground garage, Patrick Doyle stood beside her car.

The debt collector's wool cap was soaked from melted snow. A purple bruise darkened one side of his jaw.

"You need to leave Chicago," he said.

Layla stopped ten feet away.

"You lied to me."

"I collect debts. Sometimes they're money. Sometimes they're blood."

"Do you work for the Callahans?"

"Not anymore."

He held out the envelope she had given him that morning.

The seal was broken.

"Your father wasn't being chased over hospital bills."

"What are you talking about?"

"Samuel Bennett paid every cent before he died. The letters you've been receiving are fake."

Layla's fingers tightened around her purse.

"Why?"

Patrick looked toward the security camera in the corner.

"Because someone wanted to know when you would become desperate enough to take money from Dominic Gallow."

He pushed the envelope into her hands.

Inside was a hospital invoice, a copy of her father's death certificate, and a photograph she had never seen.

Samuel stood beside a black limousine twenty-four years earlier. Next to him was a young woman wearing the silver bird-shaped locket Layla now carried in her purse.

On the back, written in faded ink, were six words.

Protect her from the Gallow family.

Layla looked up.

"Who was my mother?"

Patrick's face changed.

Headlights flooded the garage.

A black SUV accelerated toward them.

Patrick shoved Layla behind a concrete pillar as the first bullet struck his chest.

He fell without making a sound.

Layla screamed.

The SUV stopped.

Two masked men stepped out.