The air left my lungs.

Luca froze in the doorway, his hand gripping the wooden frame so tightly his knuckles turned white.

"My mother is dead," he said, his voice dangerously quiet. "She died three years ago."

The nurse blinked, clearly terrified by the sudden shift in his demeanor. "I… I don't know what to tell you, sir. The checks arrive on the first of every month. They are drawn from a private trust in the name of Eleanor Moretti."

Luca turned his head slowly, looking at me.

We both knew what that meant.

Someone was using his late mother's trust. Only two people had ever possessed the authority to sign those documents: Luca, and his uncle, Arthur Moretti.

But Vanessa was the one making the monthly flights.

"Can I see her?" Luca asked, his voice softening as he looked back into the room.

The nurse nodded and stepped aside.

I followed Luca into the small, dimly lit bedroom.

A little girl sat on the floor, surrounded by colored pencils and pieces of paper. She wore a simple white nightgown. Her dark hair fell in soft curls around her small face.

She didn't look up when we entered. She just kept drawing.

Luca slowly sank to his knees, his expensive suit pooling on the cheap linoleum floor.

He didn't say a word. He just looked at her.

I watched his face. I saw the exact moment it hit him.

The little girl didn't look like Vanessa.

And she didn't look like Luca.

She had piercing, unusual green eyes.

"That's..." Luca breathed, the color draining from his face once again. "That's impossible."

"Sir?" I whispered.

"She has my brother's eyes," Luca said, his voice cracking. "Matteo's eyes."

My heart hammered. Matteo Moretti. The younger brother who had died in a tragic boating accident seven years ago. The accident that had nearly destroyed the entire family.

If this child was six years old... that meant she was conceived just before Matteo died.

This wasn't Luca's daughter.

This was his niece.

The little girl finally stopped drawing. She looked up. Her big, green eyes fixed on Luca, then shifted to me.

She didn't look afraid. She looked curious.

She stood up, holding a piece of paper in her small hand, and walked directly toward me.

Not Luca. Me.

She stopped in front of me and held out the paper.

I slowly knelt down to her level, my hands trembling as I took it.

"Thank you, sweetheart," I whispered. "Did you draw this?"

She nodded once.

I looked at the drawing.

It was a picture of a woman. A stick figure, really, but drawn with very specific details. The woman had bright red hair. And around her neck, the little girl had drawn a large, elaborate green circle.

An emerald.

I looked up at Luca. He was staring at the drawing over my shoulder.

His breathing stopped.

"Where did you see this necklace, Isabella?" Luca asked softly, his voice trembling in a way I hadn't thought possible for a man like him.

Isabella pointed a small finger at the drawing. "Mommy," she whispered.

The room went completely silent.

"Your mother wears this necklace?" Luca asked, his eyes wide.

Isabella nodded. "She wears it when she cries."

Luca stood up abruptly, backing away from the child as if he had been burned.

"Mr. Moretti?" I asked, standing up quickly. "What is it?"

"That necklace," Luca said, his voice hollow. "It’s the Moretti Emerald. A family heirloom."

"Who has it?" I asked.

"It went down with the boat," Luca whispered, running a hand through his dark hair. "Matteo took it the night he died. He was going to propose to his girlfriend. But she died in the crash with him."

A chill ran down my spine.

"If she died in the crash..." I started, looking down at the little girl, "...then who is Mommy?"

Before Luca could answer, his cell phone vibrated violently in his pocket.

He pulled it out. It was Daniel.

Luca put it on speaker. "Daniel. Tell me you locked down the estate."

"I did, boss," Daniel's voice was tense, breathless. "But we have a problem."

"Did Vanessa leave?"

"No. She's in her room. But boss... I pulled the security footage from the gatehouse for the last three months, trying to see if anyone else was involved with that employment agent."

"And?"

"I found something else. I’m sending you a screenshot right now."

My phone buzzed in Luca's hand as the image arrived.

He opened it, angling the screen so I could see.

It was a grainy, black-and-white photograph taken by the security cameras at the back gate of the Chicago mansion.

It showed two people standing in the shadows.

One was Vanessa, holding a thick manila envelope.

The other person was taking it from her.

It was Luca's uncle. Arthur Moretti.

"He's blackmailing her," Luca breathed, staring at the screen. "Vanessa isn't running this. Arthur is."

I felt sick to my stomach.

"Boss," Daniel's voice crackled through the phone. "There's something else. Uncle Arthur's men just arrived at the estate. They're asking for Megan."

My blood ran cold.

"What?" Luca barked, his entire demeanor shifting instantly from shock to pure, lethal rage.

"They said she stole something from the library," Daniel replied. "They're tearing her staff quarters apart right now. Boss... they're looking for a coat."