Chapter 2
The lights went out before Sophie finished cutting her cake.
Music stopped. The room went black. Someone laughed because rich people assumed every surprise had been arranged for them.
Then a gunshot broke the front gate.
Guests screamed and dropped beneath the tables.
I grabbed Sophie's arm.
"Kitchen. Take Noah."
"What about Mom and Dad?"
"I'll bring them."
She heard the order in my voice and froze.
Seven years of burnt dinners, folded towels, and pretending my shoulder hurt because of age disappeared from her face.
"Who are you?"
Another shot hit the camera above the terrace.
"The woman getting you out. Move."
Noah reached us first. He had a cut on his cheek and the iron poker from the fireplace in his hand.
"Three men came through the east doors," he said. "Security isn't answering."
"Pantry. Wine cellar. Lock the inside door."
"You know about that?"
Their grandmother Rose had shown me the cellar passage before she died. She told me every house needed one place where a frightened woman could close a door and know it would hold.
I had believed her because the last door my husband closed had almost killed me.
"Go," I said.
Noah pulled Sophie with him.
I found Claire near the fireplace, helping an older guest who had fallen. David was trying to reach the front hall.
I caught his jacket.
"Your guards are down."
"How do you know?"
"Because no one has returned fire."
He stared at me.
I pointed toward the kitchen. "Your children are moving. Help Claire."
For once, David did not waste time asking why his housekeeper sounded like she owned the room.
He lifted the fallen guest. Claire took the woman's other side.
I pulled the fire alarm.
The bell screamed through the house. Sprinklers burst above the tables. Emergency lights painted the walls red.
The noise ruined the attackers' commands. Water ruined their view.
It also ruined Sophie's cake, Claire's rugs, and the last silk dress Rose had bought her daughter.
Saving people was never free. The bill only changed hands.
A man came through the library with a pistol low beside his thigh.
He saw wet gray hair, a housekeeper's uniform, and an empty hand.
He looked past me.
I snapped a linen napkin across his eyes, drove the heel of my palm into his wrist, and caught the gun before it reached the floor.
The weight was familiar.
So was the small black M cut into the magazine.
I had ordered those marks twenty years ago after a rival crew switched our ammunition. Every Moretti gun had carried one since.
My husband had once placed this family in my hands.
Seven years ago, he placed me in theirs.
The attacker wiped water from his eyes and smiled.
"You recognize it."
I pressed the barrel beneath his chin.
"Who gave you this gun?"
"The family you ran from."
"Name."
"Your husband gave us permission to take you once. Why would tonight be different?"
The words hit the part of me fire had missed.
Luca had not planted the bomb beneath the car.
He had only signed the order that removed my guards, opened the gate, and delivered me to the brother who wanted me punished.
That was the clean version.
The burning car had been less clean.
I struck the attacker above the knee. He folded. I removed the magazine, cleared the chamber, and tied his wrists with two wet napkins.
"Who sent you tonight?"
He laughed. "Ask your husband."
"I asked him once."
"And look how that ended."
Footsteps pounded above us.
David shouted.
I ran toward the stairs.
A broad man in a leather jacket had him against the wall. Claire swung a brass candlestick. He caught it and shoved her aside.
I threw the empty pistol.
It struck his temple. His shot tore into the ceiling.
David tackled him. They hit the banister together.
"Gun!" I yelled.
Claire kicked it beneath a cabinet.
The man drove an elbow into David's face, then turned toward Claire.
I struck his throat with the edge of my hand.
He punched my right shoulder.
Old damage tore awake beneath the scar. My fingers opened when I needed them closed.
He saw the weakness and grabbed my hair.
"Still choosing the husband who sold you?" he asked.
I drove my head into his nose.
"I chose this family."
I used his jacket to pull him across my hip. He hit the floor hard.
Claire stood over him with the candlestick.
"What husband?"
"Later."
The man reached for my ankle.
Claire hit his hand.
"You heard her," she said. "Later."
We pulled David up and ran for the kitchen.
Noah stumbled backward through the door.
Blood covered the side of his shirt.
Sophie caught him before he fell.
The bullet had cut across his ribs. It had missed his chest, but he did not know that yet.
"I'm fine," he said, which meant he was terrified.
I pressed a folded towel to the wound and put his hand over mine.
"Hold hard. Stay with your sister."
The kitchen door opened.
The man from the ballroom stepped inside with two armed men behind him.
He looked at the gun in my hand and Noah's blood on my uniform.
"Enough," he said. "Come with us and the Whitmores live."
"You shot their son."
"He stepped in front of his sister."
Noah tried to stand straighter.
The man raised his pistol.
"Put it down, Mrs. Moretti."
The gunman beside him flinched at my name. His barrel dipped half an inch before he caught himself.
Recognition reached him before courage did.