MY FOUR-YEAR-OLD SON SAT BESIDE A DYING CRIME BOSS—THEN HE WHISPERED THE NAME HIS MOST TRUSTED MAN FEARED IN THAT LOCKED ROOM

The weight of the platinum key in my apron pocket felt like a block of lead.

I stood in the massive, vaulted kitchen of the Hale estate, staring down at the stainless-steel counter. The clock on the wall read 3:15 AM. Exactly twenty-four hours ago, I had found Owen sitting beside a dying man. Now, that man was lying cold in a refrigerated drawer, and I was officially the head housekeeper of a criminal empire.

It was a trap, obviously. A gilded cage designed to keep me under Eleanor’s thumb until she figured out a clean way to dispose of me and my son without raising police suspicion.

"You're thinking too loud, Claire."

I jumped, spinning around. Thomas Reed, the elderly head of staff who had slipped me the paper turtle earlier, stepped out from the pantry shadows holding a silver tray of steaming black coffee.

"Thomas," I breathed, pressing a hand to my racing heart. "You shouldn't be wandering around down here. Grant’s guards are everywhere."

Thomas set the tray down on the counter and poured two cups. He looked older tonight, the deep lines on his face carved like canyons of exhaustion and regret.

"Grant's guards are currently distracted," Thomas said quietly, taking a sip of his coffee. "Eleanor has them shifting Vincent’s private safes into the basement vault. She’s consolidating power before sunrise, before the other syndicate capos realize Vincent is truly gone."

"She’s insane, Thomas," I said, leaning against the counter. "She killed her own brother over paranoia and greed. And she wants me to play maid to a murderer."

"She’s worse than insane," Thomas corrected, his voice dropping to a raspy whisper. "She’s methodical. Vincent kept her locked away in that east wing for ten years, claiming she was an invalid. But the truth? Vincent paralyzed her legs himself during a violent dispute over their father’s will when they were in their twenties. She spent a decade plotting his demise from a wheelchair while pretending to be his most loyal dependent."

My blood ran cold. "He did that to her?"

"And she returned the favor drop by drop," Thomas replied grimly. He reached into his vest pocket and slid a small, folded piece of parchment across the counter. "If you want to survive this house, Claire, you cannot play her game. You have to change the board."

I unfolded the paper. Inside was a handwritten map of the estate’s subterranean tunnel network—tunnels that dated back to the Prohibition era when the Hale family smuggled whiskey through Chicago.

"What is this?" I asked.

"An escape route," Thomas said. "But not for tonight. Tonight, Eleanor is hosting a midnight summit in the main parlor with the top four syndicate capos. She’s going to announce herself as the new supreme leader of the Chicago syndicate. They will test her. They will doubt her because she’s a woman, and because of her legs."