THE MAFIA BOSS’S THREE-YEAR-OLD WITNESS

At dinner, Vivien sat to my right and laughed at a joke she had heard a hundred times.

She wore the emerald earrings I'd bought her in New York, and her left hand rested beside mine on the table. From the outside, we looked like a couple preparing for a wedding.

Inside, I was counting every lie she'd told me.

"Your mother called this afternoon," she said, cutting into her salmon. "She wants to know whether we're still planning to marry in November."

I kept my expression neutral.

"And what did you tell her?"

"That nothing has changed."

"Good."

Her eyes searched mine for a fraction of a second.

"Is something wrong, Lorenzo?"

There it was. The first test.

Vivien had always been good at reading people. That was one of the reasons I'd considered marrying her. In my world, a man couldn't afford to trust someone who understood nothing beyond the surface.

Unfortunately, I'd mistaken intelligence for integrity.

"Elena's been working too hard," I said. "I noticed she looked exhausted today."

Vivien's knife stopped moving.

"Elena?"

"The housekeeper. Mia's mother."

"Oh." Vivien smiled. "She's always tired. Some people aren't suited to demanding work."

"She's been here six years."

"Which makes it more unfortunate that she's still so incompetent."

I set down my fork.

"Incompetent how?"

Vivien leaned back.

"She misplaced one of your mother's silver trays last week. She also allowed Mia to run through the west corridor while the contractors were working. I was only trying to help."

"By threatening to make her daughter disappear?"

The words escaped before I could stop them.

For one beautiful, revealing second, Vivien's face went completely blank.

Then she laughed.

"Lorenzo, what an awful thing to say."

I watched her closely.

"I didn't say you'd done it."

"No, but you implied it."

"Did I?"

She reached across the table and covered my hand with hers.

"You're under pressure. The wedding, your business, your mother's health. Perhaps you heard something incorrectly."

Perhaps.

That was how clever people escaped accountability. They never denied everything at once. They made you question the first thing you knew to be true.

I smiled.

"You're probably right."

The tension left her shoulders.

That was her second mistake.

She believed my agreement meant surrender.

After dinner, I excused myself to take a call. Instead, I went to the security room, where Rocco was waiting beside three monitors.

My oldest lieutenant had been with me since I was twenty-two. He had watched me bury my father, take control of the Duca organization, and turn a failing shipping company into a legitimate international business that moved more money than some small countries.

He knew when I was angry.

He also knew when I was planning something.

"What have you found?" I asked.

Rocco closed the door.

"First, Elena's employment file was altered six months ago. Her original references are missing. The replacement documents list a private employment agency that doesn't exist."

"Who approved them?"

"Vivien."

"Anything else?"

"Three payments from an account connected to her personal attorney. They went to a company called Northstar Family Services."

"What does it do?"

"On paper? Private relocation and security consulting. In reality, the company has no registered employees, no physical office, and no meaningful business history."

"How much?"

"Forty-eight thousand dollars in total."

I looked at the screen.

"Why would my fiancée pay a nonexistent company?"

"That's what I'm trying to establish."

Rocco opened another file.

"There is one more thing. Someone accessed the nursery security system fourteen times over the last three months. Every time, the cameras went offline for exactly eleven minutes."

My fingers tightened around the edge of the desk.

"Who had access?"

"Four people. You, me, the head of household security, and Vivien."

"Where was Mia during those outages?"

"We don't know. The nursery camera was disabled, and the corridor feed was looped."

For the first time that evening, the room seemed too small.

Mia was three years old.

She liked strawberry yogurt, yellow crayons, and sitting beneath my desk while I signed contracts. She had a habit of calling me Uncle Lorenzo because her mother had taught her to address the older men in the household respectfully.

She trusted everyone until they gave her a reason not to.

Vivien had given her three months of reasons.

"Find out what Northstar does," I ordered. "And nobody touches Vivien's phone, computer, or personal belongings without documenting everything."

Rocco nodded.

"There's another problem."

I turned.

"Go on."

"Someone has been asking questions about your late sister."

The room went silent.

My sister, Sofia, had died four years earlier in a car accident outside Chicago. Her husband had been driving. Both of them were gone by the time the ambulance arrived.

Their daughter, Mia's namesake in a way that had always made me smile, had never existed. Sofia had left no children.

At least, that was what I believed.

"What kind of questions?" I asked.

"Questions about Sofia's private accounts, her medical records, and a trust she established shortly before she died."

"Who asked?"

Rocco hesitated.

"Vivien."

I stared at him.

"How long have you known?"

"Three hours."

"And you waited until now?"

"I wanted to verify it first."