Chapter 1
“Daddy, Please Don’t Marry Her!”—The Mafia Boss’s Little Daughter Found a Secret His Fiancée Tried to Hide
“Daddy! Please don't marry Isabella!”
My five-year-old daughter ran toward me, crying.
“She said I have to leave after the wedding!”
I froze.
Tomorrow, I was supposed to marry Isabella Russo.
But now Lily stood barefoot beneath the chandelier, clutching a mysterious black box against her chest.
Isabella rushed forward.
“Gabriel, she's confused!”
I stepped between them.
“Get away from my daughter.”
“Gabriel, please listen—”
“I said step back!”
My name is Gabriel Moretti.
I own seven luxury hotels across New England, and men far more dangerous than Isabella have learned not to cross me.
But nobody had ever made my little girl cry like this.
I knelt beside Lily.
“Sweetheart, what happened?”
Lily wiped her tears.
“I went to Mommy's room to find her pearl hair clip. I wanted to wear it tomorrow.”
My chest tightened.
My wife, Anna, had died three years earlier.
Lily barely remembered her, but she often visited Anna's old dressing room.
I'd never stopped her.
Then Lily pointed toward Isabella.
“She tried to take Mommy's box!”
I looked at my fiancée.
“What box?”
Isabella's face changed.
“Gabriel, it's nothing. She found something that doesn't belong to her.”
“Then why are you so desperate to take it?”
Silence.
Lily held up the small black leather box.
Its brass corners were worn.
Four tiny numbered dials secured the lock.
I'd never seen it before.
“Where did you find this, Lily?”
“Under Mommy's dresser.”
Then she turned it over.
A yellowed note was taped underneath.
The handwriting made my heart stop.
Anna's handwriting.
GABRIEL WILL KNOW THE NUMBER.
Isabella whispered:
“Don't open it.”
I slowly looked at her.
“How do you know what's inside?”
“I don't!”
“Then why are you afraid?”
She said nothing.
I studied the four-digit lock.
Then I remembered something Anna had whispered the day Lily was born.
Four numbers.
The exact minute our daughter took her first breath.
I entered them.
CLICK.
The box opened.
Isabella went white.
Inside were three things.
An old photograph.
A hotel key card.
And a sealed envelope.
I picked up the photograph.
Anna stood outside one of my hotels.
But she wasn't alone.
Beside her stood Isabella.
Smiling.
The date on the back was five years earlier.
My blood turned cold.
Anna had died three years ago.
And Isabella had claimed we first met only two years earlier.
She had known my wife long before I ever knew her.
I raised the photograph.
“Explain this.”
Isabella backed away.
“Gabriel, it's complicated.”
“Did you know Anna?”
No answer.
“ANSWER ME!”
“Yes!”
The word echoed through the foyer.
Lily grabbed my hand.
I looked down at the envelope.
My name was written across the front.
Beneath it, Anna had left one final warning.
IF ISABELLA RUSSO IS IN THIS HOUSE, OPEN THIS BEFORE YOU MARRY HER.
I couldn't breathe.
My dead wife had warned me about the woman I was about to marry.
I reached for the seal.
Isabella suddenly grabbed my wrist.
“Gabriel, please! You don't understand!”
I pulled away.
“Let go.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Anna wasn't the woman you thought she was!”
I stared at her.
“What did you just say?”
Isabella looked toward Lily.
Then whispered:
“Whatever you do, don't read the second page.”
My hand stopped.
The envelope was still sealed.
Nobody had opened it in front of me.
So how could Isabella possibly know there was a second page?
I slowly raised my eyes.
“Isabella… how do you know what my dead wife wrote?”
She stepped backward.
And before she could answer, Lily pointed toward the hotel key card.
“Daddy, I've seen that!”
I turned.
“Where, sweetheart?”
Lily looked directly at Isabella.
“In the room where she keeps Mommy's pictures.”
The blood drained from Isabella's face.
May you like
Then Lily whispered:
“And Daddy… there's a picture of Mommy sleeping in that room.”
