Four years after a powerful mafia heir cast me aside in a marble hallway, a freezing afternoon in Grant Park brought our terrifying past crashing back.

Adrian stepped closer, his brow furrowing in confusion. "What does that mean? My father is dead, Maya! Marcus is buried in the family crypt at Rosehill! The syndicate answers to me now. Every captain, every warehouse, every legal front—it's all mine. There is no one left to threaten you!"

Maya gave a slow, somber shake of her head. Beneath the gray knit beanie, her brown hair stirred in the biting lake wind.

"Your father didn't act alone, Adrian," she said.

Her voice was entirely devoid of theatrical emphasis, yet it struck him with the chilling clarity of a death sentence.

Behind Adrian, Camille Hart went completely rigid. Her hand, which had been raised to wipe away a smear of mascara from her pale cheek, froze in mid-air. Her breath caught in her throat with a sharp, audible hitch that did not escape Adrian’s notice.

Adrian’s head snapped toward his fiancée. He saw the sudden, guilty terror that flashed across Camille’s face—a micro-expression of raw panic that lasted barely half a second before she attempted to mask it behind a wall of high-society indignation.

"Adrian, she's lying!" Camille gasped, her voice shrill, stumbling backward another pace. "She's trying to manipulate you! She wants money! She’s an opportunist who saw us in the park and—"

"Shut your mouth, Camille," Adrian commanded, his tone dropping into a flat, terrifying monotone that caused the heiress to physically recoil.

He turned his focus back to Maya, his gray eyes narrowing into sharp, predatory slits. "What are you holding back, Maya? What did Marcus do?"

Maya looked at him, her hands resting firmly on the stroller handle, anchoring herself against the rising storm.

"There’s an envelope you need to see," Maya said.

Her voice was steady, low, and completely controlled.

"What envelope?" Adrian demanded, his heart hammering against his ribs like a caged beast. "Where is it? Do you have it with you?"

"I don't carry the things that kept me alive in a public park, Adrian," Maya replied, her eyes never leaving his face. "It's locked in a metal lockbox beneath the floorboards of my apartment in Bridgeport. The key is around my neck."

She reached up with one gloved hand, lightly tapping the small brass key that hung beneath her cream sweater, hidden against her breastbone.

"Four years ago," Maya continued, her words deliberate and measured, "the physician who was brought to that warehouse off Archer Avenue wasn't a mob doctor. He was a licensed obstetrician from Northwestern Memorial—a man whose private clinic was funded entirely by the Hart Foundation."

Adrian’s blood turned to ice. He slowly turned his head to look at Camille.

"And the check?" Maya added, her gaze shifting to the trembling blonde woman in the cream coat. "The five-million-dollar cashier's check that was pushed across the metal table to buy the death of your children? It wasn't drawn on a Vale corporate account, Adrian. Marcus didn't sign it."