Six more steps. That was all I needed to reach the far wall of the Grand Dining Hall. Six measured, impossible

steps across gleaming Brazilian cherrywood that had been polished until it reflected the crystal teardrops of three massive chandeliers overhead.

The antique mirror was nearly as tall as I was. Its gilded acanthus-leaf frame was solid oak beneath heavy leafing, easily ninety pounds of awkward, unyielding dead weight. With every millimeter I shifted to steady it, a white-hot spike of agony stabbed directly into the base of my spine.

My right palm was slick with sweat. The edge of the carved wood dug into my clavicle, grinding bone on bone through the cheap poly-cotton blend of my black housekeeper’s tunic.

Twenty-six guests sat frozen in silence around the sixty-foot banquet table, their forks hovering above bone-china plates of squab and truffled risotto. They were the royalty of Chicago’s hidden aristocracy—capos, city councilmen, shipping magnates, and defense attorneys who knew exactly whose bread they were buttering.

"For heaven’s sake, Claire. Don’t scratch the floor."

Vanessa Bellini didn't bother keeping her voice low. Her tone was like cut crystal: bright, polished, and inherently sharp. She was thirty-two, stunning in a custom-draped crimson silk slip gown that looked like liquid rubies against her olive skin, diamond cluster earrings shivering at her lobes with every theatrical tilt of her head.

I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted iron. "I'm being careful, ma'am."

"Then pick it up properly. Stop dragging the base. That piece is a seventeenth-century Florentine original. It cost more than your family makes in a calendar year."

I drew a shallow breath, trying not to let my diaphragm press against the bruise flowering across my kidney. I forced my boots forward one inch. Pain flared instantly—blinding, violent, robbing the air straight from my lungs. My knees buckled.

The heavy top corner of the mirror slipped from my sweat-slicked fingers, tipping in a sickening arc toward the edge of the dining table.

I waited for the deafening smash of antique glass.

It never came.

A man’s hand, large and calloused, clamped over the top rim of the carved frame. The wood groaned under the sudden arrest of momentum, but it stopped an inch from an untouched crystal goblet.

"Put it down," a low voice commanded.

Luca Moretti hadn't made a sound when he stood from the head of the table. At thirty-nine, the head of the Moretti organization moved with the unnatural, silent economy of an apex predator. His tailored midnight-black Tom Ford suit was immaculate, his crisp white shirt unbuttoned at the collar just enough to expose the hollow of his throat. A silver signet ring with the Moretti crest gleamed dull under the lights.

He wasn't looking at the mirror. He wasn't looking at the horrified faces of his business associates or his smirking fiancée.

He was staring directly at my posture—at the way my torso was pitched forward at an unnatural thirty-degree angle, my fingers trembling where they clung to the wood.

"Claire," he murmured. The name sounded surprisingly dark in the cavernous room.

"Yes, Mr. Moretti?" My voice was barely a croak.

"What is wrong with your back?"

Before I could force out a polite lie, Vanessa let out a musical, pitying laugh that fluttered down the length of the table.

"Oh, darling, pay no attention. She fell in the conservatory this afternoon. Honestly, the girl can’t move a decorative stool without finding a way to injure herself. She’s entirely too clumsy for a house this size."

The dining room went eerily still.

My heart slammed against my ribs like a trapped bird.

I hadn't set foot in the conservatory all week. And Vanessa knew to the exact minute when, where, and why I had been hurt.

Luca didn't release his hold on the mirror. Very slowly, his dark eyes turned from me to the woman wearing his two-million-dollar sapphire engagement ring.

"The conservatory?" he repeated. The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.

"Yes, sweetheart," Vanessa said, smoothing an invisible crease from her red silk lap. "She was assisting the floral decorator with that marble side table near the hydrangeas. Tripped over her own feet, I suspect."

Luca’s gaze drifted back down to me. The amber flecks in his dark eyes seemed to pin me in place. "Did you fall in the conservatory, Claire?"

I caught Vanessa’s reflection in the dark mahogany paneling behind him. Her chin was lifted, her lips curved into a gracious hostess smile, but her eyes were cold, narrowed, and lethal. She had cornered me in his private hallway four hours ago, her French-tipped fingers digging into my wrist, whispering that one wrong word to Luca would ensure my mother’s dialysis treatments were canceled and my brother’s parole was revoked.

"I... I fell, sir," I managed to whisper, staring down at his polished oxford shoes.

"When?" Luca pressed softly.

"Around four o'clock."

"Who was with you?"

"The decorator," Vanessa interjected smoothly, leaning forward, resting her chin on laced fingers. "Luca, truly, are we going to cross-examine the domestic staff while our duck gets cold? It’s embarrassing."

Luca didn't even blink in her direction. "What was the decorator's name, Claire?"

My tongue felt like sandpaper. "I... I don't recall, sir."

"You don't recall," Luca said flatly. Then he looked at the massive mirror resting between our hands. "And why are you moving this down from the private residential wing in the middle of a seated dinner?"

"I asked her to!" Vanessa laughed again, but there was an abrasive edge to it now. "The lighting by the dessert credenza is dreadful. The gold leaf pulls the candlelight. Really, darling, you’re making a grand production out of home decor."

Luca took the entire weight of the ninety-pound frame into his single right hand, lifting it without visible effort, and set it against the wall with a hollow, solid thud. He stepped around the glass and stopped twelve inches from me.

"Straighten your spine, Claire."

I swallowed the bile rising in my throat. I tried to pull my shoulders back. The instant my vertebrae aligned, a sickening tear ripped across my lumbar muscles. I gasped, stumbling sideways, my hands slapping down on a nearby mahogany sideboard to keep from crashing to the parquet floor.

At the far end of the table, an older woman set her silver champagne flute down with a sharp *clink*.

Luca’s expression went utterly blank—a terrifying shift that everyone in the Chicago underworld knew meant someone was about to stop breathing.

"Mrs. Carter," Luca said without turning around.

The elderly head housekeeper materialized from the shadows near the pantry doors, her face tight with worry. "Yes, Mr. Moretti?"

"Take Claire to my personal quarters. Call Dr. Harris. Tell him if he isn't here within fifteen minutes, I will have Daniel drag him out of his dinner club by his neck."

"Mr. Moretti, please," I pleaded, terror overriding the pain. "I need the shift. My mother's copay—"

"You will be paid for a double shift," he cut in, his voice brooking no argument. "Now move."

"Luca, this is absurd!" Vanessa snapped, standing up so fast her chair screeched against the floor. "She is a maid! You don't bring the house physician in for a servant's pulled muscle during our announcement dinner!"

Luca slowly turned his head to look at her. "Sit down, Vanessa."

She froze. The color drained from her cheeks, leaving her immaculate blush standing out like twin slashes of war paint. She sank back into her seat.

Luca looked back at me. His eyes dropped to the small tear along the lower seam of my uniform where the wood had caught—and where a faint smudge of dark red had soaked through the fabric.

"Claire," he asked, so quietly only I and the two guests seated nearest could hear. "Was Vanessa in my private study at four o'clock today?"

The silence in the room became absolute. You could hear the faint hum of the central heating through the brass floor vents.

I looked at Vanessa. The fury in her eyes was venomous.

Then I looked at Luca Moretti. In his eyes, there wasn't cruelty. There was a cold, calculating fire that promised absolute devastation to whoever had brought deception beneath his roof.