Chapter 1 - The Wrong Ballroom, the Midnight Bullet, and the Woman Nobody Expected
"Checking what?"
The little man holding the black remote swallowed so hard I could see his Adam's apple move.
"The terrace lights, sir."
Nicholas Valenti looked at him without blinking.
"Mickey, we have an entire building full of electricians. Why are you personally checking the terrace lights?"
"Because the fireworks company says somebody changed the control sequence."
For the first time since I had entered the ballroom, Nicholas's hand stopped moving against my waist.
It was a small thing.
Almost nothing.
But standing close enough to feel the tension travel through his arm, I noticed.
"What kind of change?" Nicholas asked.
Mickey glanced at me.
Nicholas didn't.
"She stays."
"Yes, sir." Mickey lowered his voice. "The terrace lighting system was programmed to shut off at midnight for the fireworks. Somebody moved the blackout sequence forward by forty-five seconds."
"Who authorized it?"
"That's the problem. The authorization came from Mr. Bell's office."
A man near the champagne fountain laughed.
Somebody dropped a fork.
The quartet began playing "Silent Night."
And I was standing beside Milwaukee's most notorious businessman, listening to a conversation about a deliberately programmed blackout.
I wanted my ugly Christmas sweater party.
I wanted the terrible cookies Tessa always brought.
I wanted to go home, remove my makeup, and pretend I had never heard the words midnight, terrace, fireworks, and one shot.
Instead, Nicholas said, "Find Owen. Tell him the terrace is closed until further notice."
Mickey nodded and hurried away.
"Who is Mr. Bell?" I whispered.
"My family's attorney."
"Do you trust him?"
"I did ten minutes ago."
That was not the answer I wanted.
Across the ballroom, the two suspicious waiters were gone.
I caught Nicholas looking toward the empty space beside the bar.
"You lost them," I said.
"My men are finding them."
"What happens if they find them?"
"That depends on whether they cooperate."
I looked at him.
"Nicholas."
He looked down.
"Yes?"
"Please don't make me regret warning you."
Something changed in his expression.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he answered quietly, "I'll do everything I can to make sure you don't."
It was a carefully chosen promise.
I appreciated that more than a dramatic one.
"Good."
A woman's voice interrupted us.
"Nicholas, darling, you might have mentioned that you were bringing someone."
I turned.
A tall blonde woman in a midnight-blue gown stood beside us, holding a champagne glass as though it were an extension of her hand.
She was beautiful in a way that suggested a lifetime of expensive appointments.
Her eyes moved over my red sweater.
The stuffed reindeer nose.
My sensible black skirt.
My shoes.
Then she smiled.
A terrible smile.
"How festive."
Nicholas's expression remained unreadable.
"Audrey, this is my sister, Bianca."
Bianca Valenti looked at me again.
"Audrey?"
"Keane," I supplied.
"How unusual."
"I get that a lot tonight."
Her smile tightened.
Nicholas nearly laughed.
I could feel it.
"Bianca," he said, "have you seen Marcus Bell?"
"He was speaking with Uncle Vittorio near the east entrance."
"When?"
"Five minutes ago."
"Find him. Quietly."
Bianca's expression sharpened.
"Is something wrong?"
"Nothing that needs to become a conversation."
She studied him.
Then me.
Whatever she saw made her set down her champagne.
"Understood."
She walked away.
"Your sister doesn't like me," I whispered.
"My sister doesn't like surprises."
"She must be having a terrible evening."
"She is."
His mouth almost curved.
It annoyed me that I noticed.
I had been single for exactly twenty-three days.
Technically, I had been single longer than that, considering Colin Fletcher had apparently spent the final two months of our relationship sleeping with another doctor.
But twenty-three days had passed since I found out.
Twenty-three days since I had walked into his apartment carrying takeout and found Marina Briggs wearing my college sweatshirt.
Twenty-three days since Colin told me I was overreacting because "nothing physical happened until recently."
Apparently, emotional betrayal came with a grace period.
I had promised myself I would not spend Christmas crying over that man.
And now I was pretending to date a mafia boss.
Life had an ugly sense of humor.
"Audrey."
Nicholas's voice pulled me back.
"Stay with me."
"I haven't gone anywhere."
"You're somewhere else in your head."
"That's because my brain is trying to resign."
He looked at my sweater again.
"Your reindeer appears supportive."
I looked down.
The stuffed nose bounced.
I laughed.
It escaped before I could stop it.
An actual laugh.
In the middle of a potential assassination.
Nicholas watched me with an expression I couldn't quite identify.
Then a faint movement beside his grandmother caught my attention.
The elderly woman in the wheelchair was watching us.
Her hair was silver-white, arranged in a neat twist. She wore a burgundy velvet dress and a string of pearls that looked older than the ballroom itself.
One thin hand rested on her lap.
The other moved.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
I recognized the signs before I registered what she was doing.
Is she frightened?
I went completely still.
Nicholas followed my eyes.
Then, to my astonishment, he answered with his free hand.
She is brave.
My mouth fell open.
His grandmother studied me.
You understand me?
I lifted my hands.
Yes, ma'am.
The old woman's face lit up.
It was such a sudden transformation that my chest tightened.
She signed, Finally. Someone interesting.
I smiled.
Nicholas sighed.
"Grandma."
She ignored him.
That sweater is a crime.
I covered my mouth.
She added, But I like her.
"She insulted my clothes," I told Nicholas.
"That's how she expresses affection."
His grandmother signed something else.
Faster this time.
He has never brought a woman to Christmas.
I looked at Nicholas.
He stared at the ceiling.
"Grandma, please."
"Your grandmother is telling me secrets."
"She's been waiting thirty-nine years for an audience."
The woman laughed silently.
Then she reached for my hand.
Her fingers were warm.
Teresa, she signed, touching her chest.
I gave her my name.
She repeated my name sign carefully after I fingerspelled it.
There was something deeply comforting about that small exchange.
I had grown up watching strangers speak around my mother as though she were furniture.
People shouted at her.
People grabbed her hands when she signed.
People told me how wonderful it was that I could "help" her, as though a deaf woman raising a child were some extraordinary inconvenience.
My mother had taught me that communication wasn't a gift handed down by people who could hear.
It was an act of respect.
And Teresa Valenti was looking directly at me with the bright, sharp attention of someone who expected nothing less.
Are you safe here? she asked.
I hesitated.
Nicholas's eyes moved to mine.
I answered honestly.
I don't know yet.
Teresa's smile disappeared.
She gripped my hand.
Then she signed three words.
Neither am I.
A chill moved down my spine.
Before I could ask what she meant, a tall man approached us.
He wore a navy suit and a discreet earpiece.
"Nicholas."
"Owen."
The man glanced at me.
"Your witnesses have left the bar area. One went through the service corridor. We're checking the other."
Nicholas nodded.
"This is Audrey. She's under my protection."
Owen's gaze moved to my sweater.
Then back to my face.
"Understood."
He didn't question it.
Somehow, that made everything worse.
"Owen Price runs my security," Nicholas explained.
Owen offered his hand.
"Miss Keane."
I shook it.
He had a rough scar across his knuckles.
His expression remained professional.
But I noticed something.
As he turned toward Nicholas, his lips moved before his voice did.
"Bell says the terrace is secure."
It was impossible for me to know whether he was lying.
Or whether Bell had lied to him.
Nicholas didn't react.
"Close it anyway."
"Already done."
"Double the security around my grandmother."
"Yes, sir."
Owen moved away.
Teresa signed toward Nicholas.
I want to leave.
He immediately bent beside her.
"Are you feeling sick?"
She shook her head.
Her hands moved again.
Not sick. Afraid.
Nicholas crouched so they were eye to eye.
"What are you afraid of?"
Teresa looked past him.
Toward the ballroom.
For one moment, her expression was so unlike the playful woman who had mocked my sweater that I felt cold all over.
She raised her hands.
The same thing that happened to your father.
Nicholas went still.
Completely still.
I looked away.
It felt like witnessing something private.
Something terrible.
Then Nicholas straightened.
"Audrey, would you stay with her for a minute?"
I nodded.
"Of course."
He turned toward Owen, who was returning from the service hallway, and spoke quietly.
Teresa tightened her fingers around mine.
I knelt beside her.
What happened to his father? I asked.
She studied my face.
Then signed, They told him it was an accident.
My stomach dropped.
Was it?
She looked toward Nicholas.
Her mouth trembled.
No.
Before she could explain, the ballroom lights flickered.
Once.
Twice.
The quartet stopped playing.
A ripple of confusion moved across the room.
Someone laughed nervously.
Then a man's voice came through the speakers.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we apologize for the brief technical interruption. Our Christmas fireworks presentation will begin shortly."
I looked at the grandfather clock near the doors.
11:43 p.m.
Seventeen minutes until midnight.
Why were they announcing fireworks now?
Nicholas was already moving back toward us.
His face had changed.
"Audrey. Take Grandma away from the windows."
I wrapped my hand around Teresa's wheelchair handle.
"Where?"
"The service hallway. Owen will meet you."
The lights flickered again.
A man shouted from the far side of the ballroom.
Then every light went out.
The darkness was instant.
Absolute.
Two hundred people screamed.
Somebody knocked over a table.
Glass shattered.
I couldn't see Nicholas.
I couldn't see Teresa's face.
But I felt her hand grip my wrist.
I bent close.
"It's okay," I whispered, knowing she couldn't hear me.
I touched her shoulder twice, our agreed signal to get her attention, then used the dim glow of a nearby exit sign to give her the simplest sign I could.
Stay low.
She nodded.
I started pushing.
The wheelchair's wheels caught against a chair leg.
I pulled.
Nothing.
Behind me, people were moving in every direction.
The emergency lights finally came on, bathing the ballroom in a weak red glow.
And through the tall terrace windows, I saw a man.
He stood outside in a dark maintenance jacket.
Something long rested against his shoulder.
I saw a tiny reflection along its metal surface.
It took my brain one terrible second to understand.
A rifle.
He wasn't aiming at Nicholas.
Nicholas was fifteen feet away.
The gunman's line of sight passed directly across the space where Nicholas had been standing.
And ended at the wheelchair.
At Teresa.
"DOWN!"
I threw myself against the wheelchair, knocking it sideways behind a marble column.
A shot cracked through the room.
The window exploded.
Glass rained over my shoulders.
People screamed again.
Nicholas shouted my name.
I felt something hot slice across my forearm.
For a moment, I thought the bullet had hit me.
Then I saw blood.
Mine.
A shallow cut ran along my skin where a piece of flying glass had struck.
Teresa was clutching my sweater.
Her face was white.
Nicholas appeared beside us, his handgun drawn, two security men shielding him.
"Are you hit?"
"I don't think so."
"Grandma?"
Teresa shook her head.
Nicholas examined the wheelchair.
His eyes stopped.
Embedded in the wooden armrest was a bullet.
Three inches below where Teresa's shoulder had been.
His face became frighteningly blank.
"Get them downstairs," he told Owen.
Owen reached for the chair.
But Teresa grabbed Nicholas's sleeve.
Her hands shook as she signed.
Not you.
Nicholas crouched.
"What?"
She signed again.
They weren't trying to kill you.
I looked at the bullet.
At the shattered window.
At the old woman trembling in her chair.
Then I understood.
The men at the bar had been watching Nicholas because they wanted to know when he would move away from his grandmother.
The fireworks were supposed to cover a shot.
One shot.
Not for the mafia boss.
For the elderly woman beside him.
Nicholas's jaw tightened.
"Who?"
Teresa's hands moved again.
This time, slowly.
The person who needs me dead before tomorrow.
Then she touched the pearls at her throat.
May you like
And signed something that made Nicholas turn pale.
Your father knew.
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