The Mob Boss Came Home With a Ring — a Crying Little Girl Begged Him to Save Her Mother From His Own Fiancée. The hands wrapped around Alessandro Vieri's lapels were small enough to vanish inside his own palm, and they were trembling so hard he could feel the tremor traveling up his spine like an electric wire. The voice that cracked against his chest did not belong in a mafia boss's foyer at dusk. It belonged to a child. Please save my mama. The pretty lady said if she talks, she'll disappear. Please don't let her take my mama away.

Alessandro had spent twenty years believing his father died because the roads were slick and the driver had lost control.

Now an old report sat on his table, suggesting someone had concealed evidence.

He summoned Serena's lawyer, but she refused to meet him. Her phone had been switched off, and every address registered under her name led to properties that had been sold years earlier.

“Her identity is real,” Nico said, “but her history has holes. She used another surname before coming to Chicago.”

“What surname?”

Nico placed a photograph in front of him.

Serena stood beside Henry Bellini at a charity event in another state, wearing a different hairstyle and a name badge that read Elena Marchesi.

The next document was a marriage record.

Serena had been legally married to a man named Daniel Russo before his death. The death certificate described a boating accident, but the insurance file showed that the beneficiary had received an unusually large payment.

Alessandro's stomach tightened.

“Does Daniel Russo have any connection to my father?”

“We're checking.”

A knock interrupted them.

Chiara entered with a folded note she had found tucked beneath Mia's pillow. It had been slipped into the room while everyone was occupied with the investigation.

The message contained only one sentence.

Tell Alessandro the girl is the reason the marriage must happen.

Alessandro read it twice.

“Mia?”

Chiara immediately pulled her daughter closer.

“My daughter has nothing to do with your wedding.”

“Someone believes otherwise.”

Mia was coloring at the far end of the room. When Alessandro knelt beside her, she quietly turned her paper around.

She had drawn a woman in a blue dress standing beside a black car. A tall man was holding the woman's hand, while another figure watched them from behind a tree.

“Who is this?” Alessandro asked gently.

Mia pointed to the woman.

“That's the lady who came to our old apartment before Mama started working here.”

Chiara stared at the drawing.