Florence didn’t flinch.

She reached into the pocket of her faded green coat.

Her knuckles were white, trembling slightly with age, but her voice was steady.

“She came looking for the silver key.”

Sebastian’s breath hitched.

The color drained from his face.

For a man who controlled the Chicago underworld, I had never seen him look so utterly shaken.

“My mother’s key?” he whispered. “My father told me it was lost in the river.”

“Your father lied,” Florence said softly. “He was the one who was looking for it.”

Bianca laughed, a harsh, brittle sound.

“A key? We’re stopping our engagement dinner over a delusion about a key?”

She looked at the guests. “Please, everyone, excuse this.”

But Sebastian grabbed Bianca’s wrist.

Not hard enough to bruise, but firm enough to stop her dead.

“Did you go to her apartment?”

Bianca’s eyes darted toward the door.

“My father asked me to check on her.”

“Your father has been dead for five years.”

I stood frozen near the dessert cart.

I knew about the Laurent family. They were the Vitales’ oldest rivals, turned allies through this very engagement.

If Bianca was looking for a key belonging to a woman who died twenty-four years ago, this wasn’t a marriage.

It was a heist.

“Where is the key now, Florence?” Sebastian asked softly.

Florence turned her head.

She looked directly at me.

“I didn’t want to bring it into this house,” Florence said. “So I mailed it to the only person here I knew I could trust.”

My heart stopped.

Yesterday, I had received a small, unmarked padded envelope in the staff mail.

I had slipped it into my apron pocket, assuming it was a replacement part for the vacuum.

I reached into my apron right now.

My fingers brushed against cold, heavy metal.

Sebastian let go of Bianca.

He slowly walked toward me.

“Grace,” he said. “What is in your pocket?”

Chapter 3 – THE NAME ENGRAVED IN THE METAL

I pulled my hand from my apron.

Between my fingers dangled a heavy, antique silver key on a tarnished chain.

It didn’t look like a key to a house or a car.

It looked like it belonged to a vault.

Sebastian stared at it.

He reached out, his large hand shaking slightly as his fingertips brushed the metal.

“I haven’t seen this since the morning she died.”

“Don’t touch it, Sebastian!” Bianca snapped, dropping her elegant facade.

She marched toward us, her burgundy gown sweeping the floor.

“That key doesn’t belong to your mother anymore. It belongs to the Laurent family.”

The entire room of guests gasped.

Sebastian slowly looked up at his fiancée.

“Why would my mother’s vault key belong to your family?”

Bianca lifted her chin.

“Because your mother didn’t die of a sudden heart attack, Sebastian. We all know that. She was collateral damage in a business deal gone wrong.”

Florence let out a quiet sob.

I instinctively stepped in front of the old woman, shielding her.

“You’re lying,” Sebastian said, his voice dropping to a dangerous, deadly calm.

“Am I?” Bianca sneered. “Look at the back of the key, Grace. Read what’s engraved on it.”

My hands trembled.

I flipped the heavy silver key over.

There, stamped into the ancient metal, were two words.

I swallowed hard.

“It says… Laurent Trust.”

Sebastian took a step back, as if he had been shot.

For twenty-four years, he believed his mother was an innocent victim of a rival mob’s bullet.

Now, the very key she had hidden away bore the name of his fiancée’s family.

“She wasn’t a victim, Sebastian,” Bianca said softly, a cruel smile returning to her lips. “Your mother was working for my father. She was going to leave your dad. She was going to take you and run.”

“No!” Florence cried out. “Don’t listen to her!”

Bianca snapped her fingers.

Two large men in suits stepped out from the shadows of the hallway.

“Take the key from the maid,” Bianca ordered. “And lock the old woman in the cellar.”

Sebastian stepped directly in front of me, shielding both me and Florence.

He pulled a heavy, black handgun from his tuxedo jacket.

“Nobody touches them.”

But Bianca didn’t look afraid.

She looked at me with dead eyes.

“Grace, if you don’t hand me that key right now, I’ll make a phone call. And your sister will never see her two children again.”

My blood ran ice cold.

“How do you know about my sister?” I whispered.

Bianca smiled.

“Who do you think has been paying her husband to stay away?”