Chapter 1 - THE LOCKED NURSERY
The voice beyond the nursery door whispered my name again.
"Mara."
It was soft enough to sound almost gentle.
That frightened me more than a shout would have.
Lorenzo Rossi turned toward the door without lowering his gun.
The pistol was no longer aimed at my forehead, but it remained steady in his hand.
Leo had gone still against my chest.
His tiny mouth rested open against my skin, and the faint rhythm of his swallowing had stopped.
I pressed two fingers beneath his jaw.
His pulse fluttered like a trapped moth.
"Why did he stop?" Lorenzo demanded.
The question came out sharp, but fear cracked through the final word.
"I don't know yet."
I shifted Leo higher and watched the monitor beside the crib.
The green line still moved, but the numbers were sliding downward.
His oxygen level dropped from ninety-three to eighty-nine.
Then to eighty-six.
A red warning began flashing across the screen.
The night nurse did not move.
She remained slumped in the upholstered chair with her head tilted against one shoulder.
Her half-empty wineglass caught the moonlight.
The smell in the room had changed.
Beneath the powder, clean linen, and warm milk was something bitter and medicinal.
I had smelled it once before in the hospital after Lily died.
A nurse had injected something into my IV when I became hysterical and tried to leave the recovery room.
Within seconds, my limbs had turned heavy and my tongue had felt too large for my mouth.
The same bitter odor clung to Leo's breath now.
"He has something in his system," I said.
Lorenzo's eyes moved to the sleeping nurse.
"Celeste."
She did not respond.
He crossed the room in two strides and pressed two fingers to her neck.
Then he slapped her cheek hard enough to snap her head sideways.
Her eyes stayed closed.
"She's breathing," he said.
"She may have drugged herself to look innocent."
"Or someone drugged her too."
The voice outside the door gave a quiet laugh.
Lorenzo raised the pistol and fired once into the lock.
The blast exploded through the nursery.
My ears rang.
Leo jerked weakly in my arms, but the door did not open.
A steel plate had dropped over the frame from the hallway side.
This was not a simple bedroom lock.
Someone had sealed us inside.
"Back away," Lorenzo ordered.
He fired twice more near the hinges.
Wood splintered across the carpet, yet the hidden steel held.
Smoke curled from the damaged door.
On the other side, footsteps retreated without hurry.
Whoever had trapped us knew the mansion well enough to use its emergency barriers.
Whoever had whispered my name had expected me to be here.
Leo's oxygen alarm climbed into a shrill continuous tone.
I forced myself to think past the ringing in my ears.
At the hospital, one of the neonatal nurses had taught me how to stimulate a newborn who became too sleepy to feed.
I laid Leo across my knees, supporting his head with one hand.
Then I rubbed the center of his back with two fingers and tapped the soles of his feet.
"Come on, sweetheart," I whispered.
His skin looked gray under the nursery lamp.
His chest rose once.
Then barely moved.
Lorenzo knelt in front of me.
The most feared man in the country looked suddenly helpless.
"Tell me what you need."
"Fresh air and a doctor I can trust."
"I have six doctors on call."
"Someone has been treating him for weeks, and he's getting worse."
I looked directly into his eyes.
"Do you trust any of them now?"
His expression hardened, but he did not answer.
I turned Leo onto his back and used the edge of a clean cloth to wipe a thin film from his lips.
A drop of pale liquid stained the fabric.
It did not smell like milk.
"What is that?" Lorenzo asked.
"I don't know."
I touched the cloth to the tip of my tongue before he could stop me.
The taste was metallic and sharply bitter.
My mouth immediately began to tingle.
I spat into the wastebasket.
"Sedative," I said.
"You tasted it?"
"I needed to know whether it was formula residue."
"That could kill you."
"Your son may already be dying from it."
The words silenced him.
I resumed rubbing Leo's back.
After several terrifying seconds, he coughed.
A thread of liquid ran from the corner of his mouth.
Then he released a thin cry.
The oxygen number rose to eighty-eight.
I exhaled for what felt like the first time since the door slammed.
"Keep crying," I murmured.
"Be angry."
"Stay with us."
Lorenzo placed his hand beneath Leo's tiny foot.
The baby's toes curled weakly against his palm.
Something in Lorenzo's face broke open.
It lasted less than a second, but I saw it.
Grief recognized grief.
The mansion's lights suddenly went dark.
The monitor switched to battery power, casting the room in a green glow.
A mechanical hum started inside the walls.
Cold air stopped flowing from the vent.
Then a sweet chemical smell began seeping into the room.
Lorenzo stood immediately.
"They're pumping something through the ventilation."
He grabbed a receiving blanket and shoved it beneath the nursery door.
I carried Leo to the window.
The glass overlooked a stone courtyard three stories below.
The windows were designed not to open.
Lorenzo struck the center pane with the butt of his pistol.
The glass did not crack.
"Bulletproof," he said.
"Of course it is."
My head was already becoming light.
Celeste stirred in the chair.
Her fingers twitched.
Then her eyes opened.
They were clear.
Too clear for a woman waking from a drugged sleep.
She looked at Lorenzo, then at me holding Leo.
A small smile touched her lips.
"You should have followed the rules," she said.
Lorenzo crossed the room and pressed the barrel beneath her chin.
"Open the door."
Celeste did not flinch.
"I can't."
"Then tell me who can."
"By the time the door opens, it won't matter."
The chemical smell thickened.
My knees weakened.
I pulled the receiving blanket over Leo's face without covering his nose, hoping the cloth would filter something.
"What did you give him?" I asked.
Celeste's eyes shifted toward me.
"Just enough to make him stop fighting."
The calmness in her voice turned my fear into rage.
"He's two months old."
"He was supposed to die quietly."
Lorenzo's gun dug harder beneath her jaw.
"Who ordered it?"
Celeste smiled again.
"You still think orders come from outside this house."
A sound like metal scraping stone came from behind the bookcase.
Lorenzo glanced toward it.
The tall shelves had been built into the wall, but the right side now stood a fraction of an inch forward.
A hidden panel.
Celeste saw us notice it.
For the first time, her confidence vanished.
Lorenzo seized the edge of the bookcase and pulled.
It resisted.
I spotted a brass moon mounted above the shelf.
The moon matched the silver stars decorating Leo's crib.
One point was worn smooth from repeated touch.
"Press that," I said.
Lorenzo shoved the brass point.
The bookcase released with a heavy click.
A narrow black opening appeared behind it.
Fresh air rushed from the passage.
Lorenzo turned to Celeste.
"Move."
She laughed once.
Then she reached under the cushion of her chair.
I saw the flash of a small blade.
"Lorenzo."
He moved before I finished saying his name.
Celeste slashed upward.
The blade cut across his forearm instead of his throat.
He caught her wrist and twisted until the knife fell.
She drove her knee into his ribs and lunged toward me.
I turned my body, shielding Leo.
Her fingers closed around the back of my uniform.
"Give him to me," she hissed.
I slammed my elbow into her face.
Pain shot through my arm.
Celeste staggered, and Lorenzo struck her across the temple with the pistol.
She collapsed beside the crib.
The chemical haze had grown thick enough to burn my eyes.
Lorenzo pulled the secret passage fully open.
"Go."
"What about her?"
"She wanted my son dead."
His voice returned to the cold tone that had made entire cities afraid of him.
"She can breathe what she gave us."
I looked at Celeste lying unconscious on the carpet.
Part of me wanted to leave her.
Another part remembered waking in the hospital alone, powerless, and surrounded by people who had already decided what my life was worth.
"We need her alive," I said.
"She knows who ordered this."
Lorenzo stared at me for one hard second.
Then he grabbed Celeste by the back of her uniform and dragged her into the passage.
I followed with Leo pressed against my chest.
The bookcase swung shut behind us.
The passage was barely wide enough for Lorenzo's shoulders.
Emergency lights glowed along the floor.
Dust covered the stone walls except for a narrow path of recent footprints.
Someone had used this corridor often.
The mansion had been built during Prohibition, when the Rossi family moved liquor through hidden rooms and underground tunnels.
I had heard the maids whisper about escape routes, but I had assumed they were legends.
The corridor turned sharply and descended through a narrow staircase.
Leo's breathing became shallow again.
"We need to get him outside," I said.
"This passage leads to the old chapel."
Lorenzo shifted Celeste's weight over his shoulder.
Blood ran from the cut on his arm and dropped onto the steps.
"My security team will meet us there."
"How do you know your security team isn't involved?"
He stopped.
The question hung in the dark space between us.
Above our heads, someone moved through the passage we had just left.
A beam of light appeared around the corner.
Lorenzo extinguished the emergency lamp nearest us with the heel of his shoe.
Then he pulled me into a shallow recess in the wall.
His body shielded mine and Leo's.
Celeste lay at our feet.
The approaching footsteps were slow and deliberate.
A man began humming.
The melody was a lullaby.
I knew it instantly.
It was the same lullaby I had sung to Lily while she was still inside me.
No one at the Rossi estate had ever heard me sing it.
No one except the nurse who stood beside my hospital bed after Lily was born.
The light drew closer.
I looked down at Celeste.
Her eyes were open again.
She raised one finger to her lips, warning me to stay silent.
Then she mouthed three words.
"He took Lily."
My heart stopped.
The man humming the lullaby reached the corner.
Lorenzo raised his gun.
The beam of light swept across the wall.
Then a familiar voice spoke from the darkness.
"Mara, I know you're in there."
It was my ex-boyfriend.
The man who had pushed me down the stairs.
May you like
The man who was supposed to be running for his life.
And somehow, Mason Cole was standing inside Lorenzo Rossi's hidden passage, humming the song meant for my dead daughter.
