Chapter 3

The next morning, Lev escalated the war.

He headed down to the basement of a Syndicate-owned warehouse down by the docks. That was where my mother, Rosa Moretti, was being held.

My mother was no fragile trophy wife. Before marrying my father, she had been the daughter of a master counterfeiter in Palermo.

She possessed golden hands that could forge masterpieces. But she was sixty-two now, and her health was failing.

Lev had locked her in a damp, windowless cell that reeked of mildew and copper patina.

Under the harsh glare of an industrial desk lamp, my mother squinted through a jeweler's loupe, etching microscopic serial numbers onto steel plates for counterfeit hundred-dollar bills.

The Syndicate demanded a hundred flawless plates a week. It was precision work meant for laser machinery, not an old woman suffering from arthritis.

When Lev entered the room, flanked by two armed guards, my mother didn't even pause her work. The only sound in the room was the scrape of her etching tool against the steel.

"Mrs. Moretti, the quality of the last shipment slipped," Lev said casually, leaning his shoulder against the concrete wall. "My distributors in New York found flaws in the watermarks."

My mother finally set down her tools. She pulled off the loupe and looked at him.

Her once-bright hazel eyes were clouded over. The endless hours under the glaring lights were rapidly blinding her.

"Go to hell, Lev," my mother said. Her voice was as dry as dust, but her tone was unapologetically cold.

Lev chuckled, though there was zero humor in it. "Is that how you speak to a guest? I remember a time when you used to bake bread for me when I was starving. You used to bandage my cuts."

"I used to think you were human," Rosa shot back, tilting her chin up. "Now I see you're just a rabid dog we made the mistake of letting inside the house."

Lev's smile vanished. The psychological warfare wasn't working. He needed the Morettis to break. He needed them to curse my name and beg for mercy to justify his blinding rage.

But they refused to give him the satisfaction.

Lev snapped his fingers. Yuri, the hulking guard, stepped forward. He grabbed my mother's silver hair and slammed her face hard onto the steel table.

"Let her go!" I shrieked, lunging forward to claw at Yuri's eyes, only for my fingers to dissolve into thin air.

I wailed, "Mom! Mom, please, just tell him I'm dead! Please!"

But I knew she wouldn't.

Before driving to the docks that fateful night, I had sworn my family to secrecy.

I told them that if Lev ever found out I died for him, the guilt would utterly destroy him.

He had endured a lifetime of abuse; if he knew his survival was bought with my blood, he would put a bullet in his own head.

Even while being tortured, my mother was honoring my dying wish.

Yuri drew a hunting knife from his belt and forced my mother's left hand flat against the steel plate.

Lev stepped up, towering over her.

"Where is Clara?" he demanded, his voice devoid of emotion, terrifyingly hollow.

"Where is that coward of a daughter of yours? Tell me, or you lose a finger. Every day you refuse, you lose another piece of yourself."

My mother turned her head, resting her bruised cheek against the freezing steel surface.

She looked up at Lev. She didn't cry, and she didn't tremble. She looked at him with the fierce, heartbreaking pity of a mother watching a terminally ill child.

"My daughter is in a place you will never reach," Rosa whispered. "She is untouchable. She is ten times the man you are."

A violent flash of agony crossed Lev's eyes. He gave Yuri a single nod.

The enforcer brought the heavy pommel of the knife down hard, followed by the blade.

The sickening crunch of severing bone and cartilage echoed in the cramped room.

My mother let out a blood-curdling scream. Her body convulsed, but she clamped her jaw shut, refusing to give Lev what he wanted-she wouldn't beg for mercy.

I collapsed beside her, sobbing hysterically, trying vainly to press my ghostly hands over her bleeding stump to stop the hemorrhage. "I'm sorry, Mom. I'm so, so sorry. I didn't want this. I thought I was saving you."

Lev stared at the blood. His chest he heave sharply, a complex storm of emotion flickering across his face before he ruthlessly suppressed it.

He walked over to a small cot in the corner where my mother's few meager belongings were kept.

He picked up her purse and dumped its contents onto the floor.

A delicate pearl rosary spilled out, clattering crisply against the concrete.

My rosary. The one my father had given me for my First Communion.

Lev froze.

He slowly bent down and picked it up.

He remembered it. I used to wrap it tightly around my knuckles whenever I was nervous.

He stared at the strand of pearls, his thumb gently brushing over the silver crucifix.

For a fleeting second, Lev the Syndicate boss disappeared, and I saw the Leo who used to hold my hand in the dark.

But then, the delusion of betrayal poisoned his mind once again. He assumed my mother kept it as a memento of a daughter who was off living a life of luxury in hiding.

"Damn it!" Lev snapped the rosary with a violent flick of his wrist.

The string broke, sending dozens of white pearls scattering across the filthy basement floor, rolling right into my mother's pooling blood.

My mother gasped, tears finally spilling from her clouded eyes. "No... my baby..."

"Unless you tell me where she is," Lev hissed, his voice trembling with unhinged fury.

He stomped hard on a pearl, crushing it under his heel. "The debt doubles. If you won't give up her safehouse by tomorrow morning, I take another finger. Yuri, clean her up."

Lev turned and stormed out of the room, leaving me kneeling in the blood.