Chapter 1 - THREE SHOTS
The first bullet missed the six-year-old boy by less than an inch.
The second shattered the chandelier.
The third hit Mara.
“GET DOWN!”
Her scream ripped through the Mercer ballroom before the gunfire did.
Caleb Mercer stood frozen beneath a storm of broken crystal, still holding half a chocolate cookie in his tiny hand.
Across the room, a man dressed like a waiter raised a pistol again.
Mara didn’t think.
She ran.
One step.
Two.
Then she threw herself over Caleb.
Bang.
Pain exploded through her shoulder.
Bang.
Something tore across her ribs.
Bang.
The last bullet punched into her side so hard her body slammed against the marble floor.
“MARA!”
Caleb’s scream cut through the chaos.
Guests scattered.
Women in thousand-dollar gowns crawled behind tables. Men reached beneath suit jackets for guns. Security guards stormed through the doors.
Mara barely heard any of it.
She wrapped both arms around Caleb.
“Stay down.”
Her voice sounded weak.
“Don’t move.”
“Mara, you’re bleeding!”
“I know, sweetheart.”
“I’m scared.”
“So am I.”
A shadow fell over them.
Dominic Mercer.
One of the most feared men in New York dropped to his knees beside the maid as if the entire world had just collapsed.
“Caleb!”
“I’m okay, Dad!”
Dominic touched his son’s face, then looked at Mara.
The blood drained from his own.
“Mara.”
She tried to smile.
“Your son’s okay.”
Dominic pressed a hand against the wound in her side.
Blood pushed between his fingers.
“Call the damn ambulance!”
“It’s coming,” someone shouted.
Dominic leaned closer.
“Stay awake.”
“I’m trying.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion.”
Even half-conscious, Mara almost laughed.
Then she saw someone behind him.
A man standing near the ballroom doors.
Gray suit.
Silver hair.
A thin scar above his left eyebrow.
Everyone else was running.
He wasn’t.
He was staring straight at her.
Mara’s heart stopped.
No.
It couldn’t be.
The man whispered something.
Not “Mara.”
Another name.
“Anna.”
Her real name.
A name she had not heard in eight years.
Mara’s face went cold.
Dominic noticed.
“What?”
She tried to speak.
The man near the doorway slowly smiled.
Then he turned and disappeared into the crowd.
Mara grabbed Dominic’s sleeve.
“Don’t…”
“What?”
Her vision darkened.
“Don’t trust…”
“Who?”
But the room vanished before she could finish.
Three months earlier, Mara Ellis had entered Blackthorne House with one suitcase, two fake references, and a promise to herself.
Never let anyone know who you are.
She had believed a mafia fortress was the safest place in New York to disappear.
May you like
She had been wrong.
Because someone inside Blackthorne House already knew exactly who she was.
