CHAPTER 1 No One Could Handle the Mafia Boss’s Daughter—Until a Waitress Walked Into the Chaos
No One Could Handle the Mafia Boss’s Daughter—Until a Waitress Walked Into the Chaos
Willow thought the worst thing inside Josiah Romano’s mansion was the silence.
She was wrong.
The eight-year-old girl had already thrown knives, smashed mirrors, and screamed until grown men stepped backward. But Willow had learned something everyone else missed: Mia Romano wasn’t cruel.
She was grieving.
So when Willow found her kneeling in the mansion library with a hairpin in her hand, trying to break into a locked cabinet, she didn’t call the guards.
She only said, “That is a very criminal version of nothing.”
Mia froze.
Then her small voice cracked. “Mama’s things are in there.”
The cabinet had been locked for two years, ever since Elena Romano vanished and left behind a child who still cried for her in the dark. Josiah had buried everything behind marble walls, armed men, and lies soft enough to sound like protection.
But Mia didn’t want protection.
She wanted one piece of her mother that nobody could take away.
Willow should have stopped her.
Instead, she crouched beside the little girl.
“I will supervise,” she whispered. “There is a difference.”
The lock gave after ten tense minutes.
Inside were the remains of a dead woman’s life.
A silk scarf.
A pearl comb.
A bottle of perfume.
And a stack of letters tied with black ribbon.
Mia reached for them with trembling fingers.
But Willow saw the top envelope first.
Her breath caught.
It was not addressed to Josiah.
Not to Mia.
It was addressed to her.
Her full name.
Willow Devereaux.
Behind them, the floorboard creaked.
Josiah Romano stood in the doorway, staring at the letter like he had just seen a ghost.
Willow’s hand shook as she picked it up.
“What is this?” she whispered.
Josiah did not answer.
And then the alarms began to scream
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