THE MAFIA BOSS CAUGHT VANESSA LYING ABOUT CLAIRE’S INJURIES BEFORE HE EVEN DISCOVERED WHAT WAS HIDDEN BEHIND THE AMETHYST

Vanessa Bellini smiled warmly at the assembled party guests, sipping her champagne as though I wasn’t trembling violently behind the massive gilded frame.

The mirror was monstrous—a towering wall of silvered antique glass framed by hundreds of deep-violet amethyst crystals, nearly five times my body size. Its bottom edge dug painfully into my injured thigh, pinning me in place. My hands gripped either side, knuckles bone-white. Long, superficial cuts ran across both of my forearms, dripping fresh blood onto my torn maid uniform. My right calf had two more shallow gashes beneath shredded stockings, and my left cheek felt heavy, swollen dark purple around my eye.

“Vanessa,” one guest laughed, gesturing toward the piece with a glass of red wine. “That thing is enormous. How do you expect one girl to move it?”

Vanessa waved a dismissive, manicured hand. “It’s worth the trouble. She’s sturdier than she looks.”

My knees nearly buckled. I almost dropped it.

Then Luca Moretti stood up from the leather armchair in the corner.

Forty years old. Intimidatingly tall, muscular, with long jet-black hair parted down the middle in a precise 60:40 split, framing a scarred, impossibly handsome jaw. Tattoos crept up his thick hands, mapping his arms and throat beneath a tailored navy three-piece suit. He was the undisputed head of the Moretti syndicate, a man whose quietest whisper carried more weight than a gunshot.

“Put it down,” Luca commanded, his deep baritone cutting straight through the soft chatter of the room.

Vanessa’s smile flickered. “Luca, darling, she can manage. She’s almost got it set up—”

Luca stepped forward, his eyes dropping to my bandaged left palm where fresh crimson blood had completely soaked through the gauze.

“Put it down. Now.”

He stepped in, taking the crushing weight of the amethyst mirror into his own tattooed hands, lowering it effortlessly to the hardwood floor. His sharp gray eyes swept over my body, taking in the ripped apron, the gashes on my legs, and the purple bruise blossoming across my cheekbone.

“What happened to you?” Luca asked softly, though the edge in his voice made the air in the room turn ice-cold.

Vanessa answered instantly, stepping between us with an over-eager smile. “She’s so clumsy, Luca! She cut herself down in the wine cellar an hour ago breaking a crate of vintage reserve. I told her to go patch herself up, but she insisted on working.”

Luca didn't look at Vanessa. He kept his eyes locked on my trembling face.

“The wine cellar?” Luca asked.

“Yes,” Vanessa chimed in quickly. “She tripped over the bottom step—”

“Claire doesn’t have access to the wine cellar,” Luca interrupted coldly, his gaze finally snapping toward Vanessa. “The wine cellar requires a biometric key code. Only you, my brother, and I have that access.”

Vanessa’s breath hitched. Her hand froze mid-air. “Well... she must have found the door unlocked—”

Luca turned back to me. “Do you have access to the wine cellar, Claire?”

I swallowed down the copper taste of fear in my mouth. “No, sir.”

Silence descended upon the grand drawing room like a lead blanket. The guests stopped murmuring.

Luca turned back to the giant mirror sitting on the floor. He crouched down, his thick fingers tracing the heavy cluster of purple crystals lining the base. He noticed what I had felt when I picked it up—one large amethyst stone near the bottom edge was slightly crooked, sitting flush against a hidden seam.

Luca pressed the stone.

A soft click echoed through the silent room. A tiny hidden compartment popped open at the base of the frame.

Inside lay a single electronic key card.

It wasn't a key to the wine cellar. It was a master key card to Luca’s private penthouse elevator—the restricted top floor of the estate where his private safes, ledgers, and communications were kept.

Luca pulled the card out. Printed on the back was a digital access log sticker, stamped in blue ink. The card had been issued directly in Vanessa’s name. Every single entry log was time-stamped after midnight. Every single entry happened on nights Luca was out of town handling syndicate business in Miami.

Luca stood up slowly, the paper-thin card pinched between his leather-gloved fingers. He looked at Vanessa, his face a unreadable mask of dark fury.

“What were you doing upstairs at 2:14 in the morning last Tuesday?” Luca asked softly.

Vanessa’s face drained of every drop of color. Her lips parted, but no sound came out. She looked frantically around the room, searching for an exit, an excuse, a lie—anything.

Then, from behind the giant mirror, I leaned against the wall and whispered:

“She wasn’t alone.”

Luca’s head snapped back toward me. The ambient light caught the lethal intensity in his eyes. “Who was with her, Claire?”