Chapter 1 - The Girl Under the Oak Tree
A Mafia Boss Found His Daughter's Double Starving in a Park. Then His Bodyguard Discovered Something Terrifying.
A starving little girl was abandoned in a Chicago park, and the daughter of the city's most feared mafia boss ran straight toward her, crying, "Daddy, I think she's my sister!" Marcus Blackwell froze when he saw the child's face. She looked exactly like his daughter and had the green eyes of his wife, who had been dead for seven years, but what his bodyguard discovered inside her stuffed rabbit was even more disturbing.
That afternoon was supposed to be perfect.
Just Lily and me.
No business calls. No armed meetings. No reminders that half of Chicago feared the Blackwell name.
My seven-year-old daughter wanted strawberry ice cream.
Instead, she found a little girl who looked like she hadn't eaten in days.
"Daddy! Come here!"
Lily ran toward an old oak tree in Lincoln Park.
My security guards immediately followed.
"Stay back," I ordered.
Something about the child made my chest tighten before I even reached her.
She sat alone on a wooden bench, clutching a filthy stuffed rabbit.
Her blonde hair was tangled.
Her cheeks were hollow.
Silver tape held her broken shoes together.
Then she raised her head.
And my world stopped.
Lily's face.
The same nose.
The same chin.
The same delicate features.
But those eyes...
Bright green.
Grace's eyes.
My wife had been dead for seven years.
I had buried her myself.
"Daddy," Lily whispered, "she looks just like me."
The little girl stared at us.
"What's your name, sweetheart?" I asked.
"Emma."
Her voice was barely audible.
"Where's your mother?"
"She died three months ago."
My stomach twisted.
"And your father?"
She shook her head.
"Who brought you here?"
"Aunt Karen."
"Where is she now?"
Emma looked down at her rabbit.
"She told me to wait."
"For how long?"
"Since it was dark."
It was almost five in the afternoon.
Then I heard her stomach growl.
Emma immediately covered it with her little hands, her cheeks turning pink with embarrassment.
Lily began crying.
"Daddy, please. She's hungry."
I had faced men carrying guns without feeling an ounce of fear.
But watching that little girl apologize for being hungry nearly broke me.
I knelt beside her.
"Emma, nobody's going to hurt you. I promise."
She looked at me with those impossible green eyes.
I swallowed.
"Sweetheart, what was your mommy's name?"
Her lips parted.
Then a voice interrupted us.
"Boss."
My head of security stood behind me, staring at the stuffed rabbit.
"What is it?"
He lowered his voice.
"There's something hidden inside that toy."
Emma suddenly screamed.
"No! Please don't take him!"
She hugged the rabbit so tightly her tiny knuckles turned white.
I reached toward her carefully.
"Emma, what's inside?"
Tears spilled down her cheeks.
Then she whispered something that made every muscle in my body go rigid.
"Aunt Karen said if anybody finds it, I'll disappear like Mommy."
I looked at my guards.
Then at the frightened child who had my daughter's face.
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For the first time in seven years, I wondered whether Grace had taken a secret to her grave.
And whether someone was still willing to kill to keep it buried.
