A bullet meant for a six-year-old girl tore through my shoulder instead, and before I hit the diner floor, I realized the gunmen hadn't come for Brooklyn's most feared crime boss.
They'd come to murder his children.
And when I threw myself over his twins, Dominic Valentine watched a broke waitress become the only reason his son and daughter were still alive.
Rain had been pounding Sal's Diner for hours, washing the Brooklyn streets in neon and darkness.
I was already exhausted when I arrived for my double shift. I'd spent the afternoon at the hospital signing more paperwork for my mother's cancer treatment, then hurried home when my nineteen-year-old brother Danny's aide canceled.
At twenty-eight, I worked three jobs and still couldn't keep up.
Mom's medical bills had passed $350,000.
Danny needed another spinal surgery we couldn't afford.
Quitting wasn't an option.
My father had taught me that.
Detective Thomas Chen had been killed twelve years earlier while investigating organized crime. Police called it a robbery gone wrong.
Nobody in our neighborhood believed that.
I still heard his voice whenever life cornered me.
Do the right thing, baby girl. Not the easy thing.
That night, Dominic Valentine walked into my section with his six-year-old twins, Gia and Nico.
Everyone in Brooklyn knew Dominic's name.
People lowered their voices when they said it.
He was forty-one, owned half a dozen legitimate businesses, controlled several others nobody talked about, and had supposedly survived three assassination attempts before turning thirty-five.
Some called him a businessman.
Others called him a monster.
The police called him a person of interest in practically everything.
But his children weren't afraid of him.
"Daddy said pancakes for dinner are legal," Gia announced as soon as I approached the table.
"Only because Daddy makes terrible decisions," Nico replied.
I laughed.
Dominic almost smiled.
For a man whose photograph occasionally appeared beside terrifying headlines, he looked strangely ordinary when his daughter was trying to drown pancakes in chocolate syrup.
"Easy," he told her.
"But you said I could have whatever I wanted."
"I said pancakes."
"Chocolate is part of pancakes."
"That's legally questionable."
Gia turned to me. "Miss, tell him."
I glanced at Dominic.
His dark eyes were watching me with unexpected amusement.
"I'm staying out of family court."
Nico giggled.
Dominic's expression softened.
For one brief second, he wasn't the most feared man in Brooklyn.
He was just a tired father taking his children out for dinner.
Then the front window exploded.
Gunshots ripped through the diner.
Customers screamed.
Glass scattered across the floor.
Two masked men stormed inside with their weapons raised.
Dominic overturned the table and reached beneath his jacket.
Then I saw where one attacker was aiming.
Not at Dominic.
At Gia.
I didn't think.
I ran.
Three steps, maybe four.
I threw myself across both children just as the first shot cracked through the diner.
The bullet punched into my shoulder.
Another ripped across my ribs.
Pain burned through my body, and warm blood soaked my apron.
Gia screamed beneath me.
Nico grabbed my hand so tightly his fingernails cut my skin.
"Don't move," I whispered. "I've got you."
Two shots thundered above us.
Then silence.
Dominic was suddenly beside me.
Gia and Nico crawled into their father's arms.
Neither had a scratch.
I tried to breathe.
Dominic knelt in my blood and touched my face.
His hands were shaking.
That scared me more than the bullets.
"Are they okay?" I whispered.
He stared at me for several seconds, then looked at his children.
"They're alive because of you."
My vision began fading.
But just before everything went black, Dominic leaned closer and said something that would drag my father's death, my family's crushing debt, and the most dangerous man in Brooklyn into the same secret.
"Thomas Chen didn't die in a robbery."
Then darkness swallowed me.
---
I woke to the sound of a heart monitor.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
My shoulder felt as if someone had driven a hot metal rod through it.
When I opened my eyes, bright hospital lights stabbed into my vision.
"Emily?"
My mother's voice.
I turned carefully.
Mom sat beside the bed wearing a knitted cap over the hair she'd lost to chemotherapy. Her face was pale, exhausted, terrified.
Danny sat in his wheelchair near the window.
His eyes were red.
"You idiot," he whispered.
I managed a weak smile.
"Good morning to you too."
"You got shot."
"I noticed."
Mom burst into tears.
I immediately regretted the joke.
"Mom."
She took my hand.
"What were you thinking?"
I remembered Gia screaming.
The gun pointing at her.
"I wasn't."
Danny shook his head.
"Sounds like you."
A nurse entered, checked my monitors, and explained that the bullet had passed through my shoulder without hitting the major artery. The second shot had grazed my ribs.
Lucky.
Everybody kept calling me lucky.
I didn't feel lucky.
Then I remembered Dominic's words.
"Where is he?"
Mom's fingers tightened around mine.
"Who?"
"Dominic Valentine."
Danny glanced toward the door.
"Apparently his people have been sitting outside all night."
I stared at him.
"What?"
"Three men in suits. They scared off two reporters and almost made Uncle Raymond pee himself."
"That's not funny."
"It was a little funny."
Mom looked nervous.
"He asked to speak with you when you woke up."
My pulse quickened.
"Did he say why?"
"No."
But I knew.
Thomas Chen didn't die in a robbery.
Twelve years.
For twelve years, I had imagined my father's final moments.
For twelve years, Mom had kept his badge in the same wooden box beside her bed.
For twelve years, police officials had insisted there was nothing more to investigate.
And now Dominic Valentine knew something.
"Tell him to come in."
Mom's face went white.
"Emily—"
"Please."
A minute later, the door opened.
Dominic entered alone.
No expensive overcoat.
No intimidating entourage.
Just a black suit, an open collar, and exhaustion.
Behind him, through the partially opened door, I saw Gia and Nico sitting with a security guard.
Gia spotted me.
Her face lit up.
"Emily!"
Dominic glanced back.
"Stay there."
"But—"
"Gia."
She crossed her arms.
Dominic closed the door.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Finally he said, "The doctors tell me you'll recover."
"I've had better nights."
His jaw tightened.
"I owe you more than I can ever repay."
"I'm not interested in being repaid."
"I assumed you would say that."
"Then tell me about my father."
Silence.
Dominic looked at Mom.
Then Danny.
Then me.
"Thomas Chen was investigating my family."
My mother's breath caught.
"I knew that," I said.
"No. You knew he was investigating organized crime. You didn't know he was specifically investigating my uncle, Vincent Valentine."
I stared at him.
Dominic continued.
"My father ran the family before I did. Vincent was his younger brother. He was violent, ambitious, careless. Your father discovered Vincent was working with corrupt police officers to move weapons through Brooklyn."
Danny leaned forward.
"You're saying cops were involved?"
"Several."
Mom shook her head.
"Thomas would have told me."
"He was trying to protect you."
That sounded exactly like Dad.
It made me angrier.
"How do you know any of this?"
Dominic's eyes met mine.
"Because my father discovered what Vincent was doing."
The room became silent.
"And?" I asked.
"He tried to stop him."
My heart hammered.
"Did your father kill mine?"
"No."
"Did you?"
Dominic didn't blink.
"No."
"Then who did?"
"I don't know."
I laughed bitterly.
"You walk in here twelve years later and tell me my father was murdered because of your family, then you expect me to believe you don't know who pulled the trigger?"
"I know who ordered it."
Every muscle in my body went still.
"Who?"
Dominic paused.
"Vincent."
Mom covered her mouth.
I barely heard her cry.
"Where is he?"
"Dead."
The answer hit harder than I expected.
Five years ago, Vincent Valentine had supposedly died in a warehouse fire.
I remembered the headlines.
No justice.
No trial.
No answers.
Just ashes.
"So that's it?" I whispered. "The man who murdered my father is dead?"
Dominic's expression darkened.
"No."
Something in his voice made my skin crawl.
"The attack at the diner changed everything."
"Why?"
"Because Vincent's network was supposed to have died with him."
Dominic stepped closer.
"The shooters weren't targeting me."
"I figured that out while one was aiming at a six-year-old."
"Exactly."
He looked toward the hallway where his children were waiting.
"Someone wants my children dead, Emily."
"And you think it has something to do with my father?"
"I think the people your father was investigating never disappeared."
I stared at him.
"What aren't you telling me?"
Dominic hesitated.
Then reached inside his jacket.
Danny stiffened.
Dominic slowly removed an old envelope.
He placed it on my hospital blanket.
The paper was yellowed.
My name was written across the front.
Emily Chen.
I recognized the handwriting instantly.
My father's.
The room seemed to tilt.
"Where did you get this?"
"My father gave it to me before he died."
My hands began shaking.
"Your father had a letter from mine?"
"Your father gave it to him."
I looked at my mother.
She was crying silently.
I opened the envelope.
Inside was a single folded page.
Dad's handwriting filled it.
If anything happens to me, find the ledger.
Trust Daniel.
Protect Emily.
The truth is buried where justice watches the water.
My breath stopped.
Danny stared at the letter.
"Trust Daniel?"
Dominic looked directly at my brother.
"No."
He shook his head.
"Your father wasn't talking about Danny."
"Then who?"
Dominic answered quietly.
"Detective Daniel Mercer."
I knew the name.
Everyone did.
Daniel Mercer was now Deputy Commissioner of the NYPD.
And twelve years earlier...
He had been my father's partner.
Before I could speak, Dominic's phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed instantly.
"What?"
A voice shouted through the phone.
Dominic walked toward the window.
"Lock the building down."
He ended the call.
"What happened?" I asked.
He turned toward me.
His face had gone cold.
"The diner shooter we captured just died."
My stomach dropped.
"How?"
"He was being transported."
Dominic's eyes shifted toward the hospital door.
"The police car carrying him crashed."
Danny frowned.
"An accident?"
"No."
Dominic reached beneath his jacket.
This time he removed a handgun.
Mom gasped.
"Dominic!"
He moved toward the door.
"Emily, listen carefully."
"What?"
"The only people who knew that shooter was alive were my men..."
He looked at me.
"...and the police."
Footsteps sounded outside.
Fast.
Heavy.
Then someone screamed.
Dominic raised his weapon.
"Get behind the bed."
The lights suddenly went out.
And from the dark hallway came the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked.
---