The silk robe was still hanging on the back of the armchair in the grand study, leaving behind a heavy trail of Bulgarian rose perfume. Valentina was gone, but her disappearance spoke louder than any confession.

For eight years, he had visited her grave every single month. He had laid fresh white roses on her marble headstone. He had grieved her lost life and the stolen child he believed had died with her.

"Sir! The breaching charge is ready!" Marco shouted, placing a small explosive block onto the steel hatch hinges.

"Stand back!" Rocco ordered, tucking the photograph into his breast pocket.

BOOM!

The explosion tore through the lock, blowing the steel hatch inward with a cloud of dust and sparks. Rocco charged through the smoke, his gun raised, sprinting down the narrow brick tunnel that led away from the estate toward the cliffside docks.

The tunnel opened up to the rocky shore where the ocean waves crashed violently against the stone piers. Rain poured down in sheets.

Fifty yards away, a sleek black speedboat was tied to the dock. Valentina was dragging young Leo toward the boat, the wind whipping her damp hair across her face.

"Valentina!" Rocco’s voice cut through the sound of the roaring storm.

She stopped at the edge of the wooden dock, pulling a snub-nosed revolver from her pocket and pointing it directly at Leo's head.

"Don't take another step, Rocco!" she screamed over the noise of the wind. "I swear to God, I will pull this trigger!"

Leo sobbed, his small frame trembling in the cold rain. "Please... don't..."

Rocco stopped twenty paces away, lowering his weapon slightly to keep her calm. "Put the gun down, Valentina. It’s over. Vance is dead. The estate is surrounded. You have nowhere to go."

"I have everything to go for!" she yelled back. "Do you think I wanted this life? Do you think I wanted to be your trophy wife while you spent every night mourning a ghost? I gave you six years of my life! And you never looked at me the way you looked at her!"

"Isabella is dead!" Rocco lied, trying to extract information without letting her know he had found the photograph.

"Is she?" Valentina sneered, a cruel smile touching her lips. "Is she really, Rocco? Ask yourself why you never saw her body before the casket was sealed! Ask yourself why your father insisted on an immediate cremation!"

Rocco’s chest tightened. "What did you do to her?"

"I didn't do anything!" Valentina laughed hysterically. "It was your father and my father! They struck a deal to merge the syndicate lines. Isabella was in the way. They didn't kill her—they kept her sedated in the St. Helena vault! Her mind is gone, Rocco! She doesn't even know her own name!"

While Valentina was screaming into the storm, Rocco caught the movement of a small shadow sneaking behind the wooden crates near the dock.

It was Sophia.

The maid's little girl had followed the tunnel down from the mansion, carrying a heavy metal wrench she had grabbed from the maintenance room.

Rocco made eye contact with Sophia, giving her a subtle, almost imperceptible shake of his head to warn her away. But the eight-year-old girl moved with quiet determination.

Sophia slipped up behind Valentina, lifted the heavy iron wrench, and struck the back of Valentina’s knee with all her strength.

"Ahhh!" Valentina shrieked as her leg buckled under her.

The gun wobbled in her hand. In that split second, Rocco lunged forward, tackling Valentina to the wooden dock and knocking the revolver into the churning black ocean below.

Leo fell back onto the pier. Sophia grabbed the boy's hand immediately. "Run!" she cried, pulling him toward the tunnel safety.

Rocco pinned Valentina to the wet wood, hand cuffing her wrists tightly behind her back.

"It's over," Rocco growled into her ear. "You're going to tell me every single detail. Where Isabella is, who else was involved, and why my father betrayed his own blood."

Valentina spit wet hair out of her face, laughing through her tears. "You think you've won, Don Rocco? Look up at the hill. It's already too late."

Rocco spun around and looked back up toward the main mansion on the cliff above.