Chapter 1 - The Silver Medal
Sixty million dollars had just changed hands when a baby crawled under my heavy oak desk.
She grabbed my trouser cuff and looked up at me with the exact gray eyes of my dead brother.
No child was supposed to be anywhere near the private office of a ruthless mafia boss.
However, when I saw what was hanging around her neck, I knew she had not gotten into my house by accident.
For eighteen long months, everyone in the family had believed Julian was dead.
My younger brother's car had burned violently beneath a dark overpass outside Newark.
I buried what little remained of him and spent the next year making certain whoever caused that crash regretted being born.
Then a nine-month-old baby crawled right into my heavily guarded office.
She wore a faded yellow onesie and one single white sock.
Instead of crying in fear, she raised both of her tiny arms toward me.
I asked aloud where she had come from.
She just smiled a beautiful, innocent smile.
Men twice my size usually lowered their eyes nervously when they stood around me.
My loyal captains always surrendered their cell phones before stepping foot inside this room.
Even Vincent Rizzo, who had faithfully served my family for thirty years, knocked before entering.
This brave child simply demanded to be picked up immediately.
So I reached down and gently lifted her.
She grabbed my expensive silk tie and settled comfortably against my broad chest.
Then something shiny and silver slipped out from the collar of her onesie.
I completely stopped breathing for a moment.
It was a beautiful Saint Christopher medal.
On the scratched back of the silver metal was a crooked letter J.
I had personally carved that exact letter myself when I was just sixteen years old.
The precious medal belonged entirely to Julian.
Heavy footsteps suddenly rushed down the marble hallway outside.
My trusted maid, Hannah Reed, appeared completely breathless in the open doorway.
The moment she saw the baby resting securely in my arms, her face went totally white.
She whispered my name in absolute terror.
I held up the silver medal and demanded to know whose child this was.
Hannah's hands trembled violently against her apron.
She stammered that the little girl's name was Grace.
I coldly told her that was not the answer to my question.
She frantically explained that her regular babysitter had been hospitalized eleven days earlier.
The daycare wanted two thousand dollars upfront, so she had secretly brought Grace to work to hide her.
I barely heard her desperate financial explanations.
I demanded to know exactly where she had gotten the silver medal.
Silence filled the massive office for a long time.
Then Hannah whispered softly that the baby's father had given it to her.
My grip tightened around the edges of the wooden desk.
I demanded the father's name immediately.
She said she only knew him as a man named Evan Cole.
I stared at her with a terrifying intensity.
She cried and confessed that before he died, he finally told her his real name.
Grace pressed a tiny, warm palm against my stubbled jaw.
Hannah's tired eyes quickly filled with heavy tears.
She finally said the name Julian Caruso out loud.
Everything inside my soul went completely still.
I asked her if she meant my dead brother.
She nodded her head slowly and wiped her crying eyes.
I looked down at baby Grace one more time.
She had beautiful gray eyes with a very thin ring of pure gold around the iris.
They were undeniably Julian's eyes staring back at me.
I asked Hannah exactly how old the child was.
She replied that Grace was nine months and twelve days old.
I calculated the rapid timeline instantly in my head.
Julian had died exactly eight months before this baby was even born.
I asked Hannah if my brother knew about the pregnancy before the fatal crash.
She nodded and touched the fabric of Grace's faded yellow onesie.
She whispered that Julian had bought that specific outfit the night she told him she was pregnant.
For almost two entire years, this quiet woman had cleaned my house before sunrise every day.
She had disappeared for six weeks last year without any explanation.
I had not even bothered to ask her why she was gone.
Now my dead brother's only daughter was sitting safely in my arms.
I asked her why Julian did not just tell me the truth.
Hannah looked nervously toward the empty hallway before answering my question.
She explained that Julian said absolutely nobody could ever know about their secret relationship.
I asked her why he would say something so paranoid.
She said it was the only possible way to keep Grace alive in this dangerous world.
That one sentence completely changed my entire reality.
Julian had not hidden Hannah from me because he did not trust me as a brother.
He had hidden her because someone close enough to know about my mafia family had deeply frightened him.
Then little Grace grabbed my index finger playfully.
Something was tucked tightly inside the folded cuff of her yellow onesie.
It was a tiny folded piece of white paper.
I pulled it free and opened it carefully.
Hannah stared at it in pure confusion and swore she had never seen it before.
There were only six terrifying words written quickly inside the note.
It said that if anything happens, do not trust Vincent.
I read the chilling words twice to make sure my eyes were working.
Then I slowly looked toward the closed double doors of my office.
Vincent Rizzo had been standing directly beside me at Julian's tragic funeral.
He was the exact person who had helped the police identify the burned car.
Less than five minutes earlier, I had sent him downstairs to complete the massive sixty million dollar transaction.
I quickly reached into my pocket for my private cell phone.
There was already a new encrypted text message waiting on the screen.
It was a direct message sent from Vincent.
The message read that we had a problem because the maid's baby was missing.
I looked up at Hannah with a cold realization.
She looked back at me with sheer panic in her eyes.
Suddenly I understood the question was not how Grace had gotten into my secure office.
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The real question was who had already been hunting her inside my own home.
Heavy, deliberate footsteps stopped right outside my locked office door, followed by a loud, aggressive knock.
