Chapter 1 - The Man in the Fire
Maisie Ellis dragged the red hose across the burning floor and shouted:
“Don’t die!”
Dominic DeLuca struggled against the ropes around the wooden post and saw the stuffed rabbit beneath her arm.
A faded blue thread had been stitched into one of its ears.
Three letters were sewn beneath it:
“D.D.L.”
Dominic suddenly realized the little girl had not found him by accident.
“Maisie!” he shouted. “Get out!”
The little girl froze.
Her tiny fingers tightened around the brass nozzle.
Flames crawled along an overhead beam. Smoke rolled beneath the roof in thick gray waves. Rainwater leaked through gaps in the wood and hissed whenever it struck the fire.
Maisie stared at him.
“How you know me?”
Dominic stopped fighting the ropes.
That was the question he had hoped she would not ask.
Three years old.
Light brown hair tied loosely with a pink ribbon.
One pink sock.
One bare foot.
A pale pink dress stained with soot.
And the rabbit.
God, that rabbit.
Dominic had seen it before.
Not in person.
In a photograph.
A photograph he had been trying to find for eighteen months.
“Listen to me,” he said. “You need to leave.”
Maisie shook her head.
“You stuck.”
“I know.”
“Fire.”
“I know that too.”
She pointed the nozzle at the flames beside him.
Water sputtered out.
For one glorious second, nothing happened.
Then pressure surged through the line.
The hose jerked violently.
Maisie squealed and nearly fell backward.
Dominic instinctively pulled against the ropes as though he could somehow catch her from ten feet away.
“Let it go!”
She didn't.
The nozzle twisted in her small hands. Water blasted into a shelf, knocking metal cans to the ground. One rolled through the flames.
Dominic's stomach dropped.
“Maisie! Down!”
He twisted his body as far as the ropes allowed.
The can exploded.
A flash of orange fire erupted near the wall.
Maisie dropped to her knees.
Her rabbit slipped from beneath her arm.
She screamed.
Dominic roared against the ropes with everything he had.
The support post groaned.
Maisie crawled toward the rabbit.
“No!” Dominic shouted. “Leave it!”
She grabbed the stuffed animal.
Then she looked at him.
“My Bunny.”
“Yes. You've got Bunny. Now go.”
Another beam cracked above them.
Dominic looked toward the door.
Twenty feet.
That was all.
Twenty feet between Maisie and safety.
But three-year-olds did not understand distance when they were scared.
They understood voices.
Faces.
Simple instructions.
“Maisie,” he said more calmly. “Can you find your mommy?”
She nodded.
“Good. Go get her.”
“You?”
“I'll come after.”
She looked at the ropes.
“You can't.”
Dominic had spent his entire adult life surrounded by dangerous men.
He knew smugglers who had killed for less than a hundred dollars.
He knew politicians who smiled while destroying families.
He knew men who could make someone disappear with one phone call.
Yet nothing had ever made him feel as helpless as the expression on Maisie's face.
She knew he was lying.
A child barely old enough to count knew he could not follow her.
The roof crackled.
Dominic smelled burning fabric.
His shoulder.
He twisted away from the flame licking along the post.
“Please,” he said. “Go.”
Maisie stood.
For a second, he thought she would obey.
Instead she picked up the hose again.
Dominic closed his eyes.
“Of course.”
She dragged it toward him.
One step.
Then another.
Her bare foot slipped on the wet boards.
She fell.
Dominic cursed.
Maisie pushed herself back up.
The stubbornness was familiar too.
Terrifyingly familiar.
He looked again at the rabbit.
Beige fabric.
One floppy ear.
Blue stitching.
It couldn't be.
But it was.
Dominic had ordered that rabbit himself four years earlier.
Long before Maisie had been born.
He had given it to someone else.
Someone who was supposed to be dead.
“Where did you get Bunny?” Dominic asked.
Maisie aimed the hose toward the flames.
“Mommy.”
“Your mother gave it to you?”
She nodded.
“What is your mother's name?”
Maisie frowned.
Smoke made her cough.
Dominic instantly regretted the question.
“Never mind. Go outside.”
“Mommy's Grace.”
Dominic stopped breathing.
The fire roared around them.
He barely heard it.
Grace.
Grace Ellis.
The name landed like a bullet.
He had not heard it spoken aloud in nearly four years.
Not since the night Grace disappeared.
Not since Dominic's father told him she had been killed.
Not since a burned vehicle had been pulled from a ravine seventy miles north of the city.
Not since Dominic had identified what remained of her silver necklace.
But Grace Ellis was Maisie's mother.
Which meant Grace had survived.
And somehow she had been living close enough to the DeLuca estate for her three-year-old daughter to wander onto the property.
Dominic looked toward the shed door.
“Maisie, where is your mother right now?”
The little girl pointed vaguely outside.
“Flowers.”
“The garden?”
Maisie nodded.
Dominic's heart began hammering.
The estate's rear gardens were hosting a charity luncheon that afternoon.
Dozens of guests.
Employees.
Caterers.
Security.
And Grace?
No.
It wasn't possible.
Unless she had come here deliberately.
Dominic suddenly understood something.
The smoke.
The unlocked shed.
Maisie.
Someone had arranged this.
Someone wanted the girl to find him.
Or wanted her caught in the fire with him.
“Maisie, listen carefully.”
She stared at him.
“You must run to your mommy.”
“Get you?”
“Yes. Tell her Dominic is here.”
Maisie tilted her head.
“Dom...nic?”
“Yes.”
“Domic.”
“Close enough.”
A loud snap sounded behind him.
Dominic turned.
A burning shelf collapsed.
Flames surged across the floor.
“Go!”
Maisie ran.
Her small feet slapped against wet boards.
She hugged Bunny against her chest.
Dominic watched her reach the doorway.
Then she disappeared into the smoke.
Relief hit him so hard his knees weakened.
At least she was out.
Now he needed to survive long enough to learn why Grace Ellis's daughter had his rabbit.
Dominic twisted his wrists again.
Whoever had tied him knew what they were doing.
Three separate knots.
Industrial rope.
His hands were bound behind the post, limiting movement.
He remembered waking forty minutes earlier.
Head pounding.
Blood on his temple.
The smell of gasoline.
He had come to the shed after receiving an anonymous message.
COME ALONE IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO GRACE.
He had known it could be a trap.
He had gone anyway.
Because Grace's death had never made sense.
The vehicle fire had destroyed almost everything.
No body had been conclusively identified.
His father, Carlo DeLuca, had insisted there was no reason to investigate further.
Dominic had spent years pretending he believed him.
Then six months ago, someone began sending him photographs.
Grace leaving a grocery store.
Grace standing outside a small house.
Grace holding a little girl.
Always from far away.
Always grainy.
Never enough to prove anything.
One picture had shown the child hugging a beige rabbit.
Dominic recognized it immediately.
That was when he had started searching.
And now someone had tied him inside a burning shed.
Footsteps pounded outside.
Dominic looked up.
“Maisie?”
A figure appeared through the smoke.
Not Maisie.
A man.
Tall.
Dark jacket.
Black gloves.
Dominic's relief vanished.
The stranger entered without hesitation.
“You're hard to kill,” he said.
Dominic recognized the voice.
The man who had called him earlier.
“You set the fire.”
The stranger smiled.
“I planned to.”
“Why?”
“To finish what should've been finished four years ago.”
Dominic stared at him.
“Grace.”
The man's smile disappeared.
“You should have forgotten her.”
Dominic pulled against the rope.
“She's alive.”
The stranger walked closer.
“Not for long.”
Dominic's blood went cold.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Where is she?”
The stranger crouched.
“You're asking the wrong question.”
Dominic glared at him.
“What question should I ask?”
The man leaned close enough for Dominic to smell rain on his coat.
“Ask why Grace hid your daughter from you.”
Dominic went still.
The fire seemed to vanish.
Sound dropped away.
Only one word remained.
Daughter.
“No.”
The stranger laughed softly.
“You really didn't know?”
Dominic looked toward the door where Maisie had disappeared.
Three years old.
Grace vanished almost four years ago.
The timeline.
The rabbit.
The eyes.
He had been too shocked to notice.
Maisie's eyes were gray.
So were his.
“No,” Dominic whispered.
The stranger stood.
“Carlo made sure of that.”
Dominic's head snapped up.
“My father?”
The man stepped backward.
Before Dominic could speak again, a high-pitched voice came from outside.
“Domic!”
Maisie.
Dominic's heart stopped.
“No! Stay outside!”
But she appeared in the doorway.
And behind her stood a woman.
Soaked from the rain.
Pale.
Terrified.
Alive.
Grace Ellis.
Dominic forgot the fire.
Forgot the ropes.
Forgot the man standing ten feet away.
Grace looked exactly as he remembered her, except thinner and harder around the eyes.
She saw Dominic.
Then the stranger.
Her face changed.
“Maisie, run.”
The stranger reached inside his coat.
Grace screamed.
Dominic threw his weight sideways.
The burning support beam cracked.
The entire post began to fall.
The stranger drew something black from beneath his jacket.
May you like
And Grace whispered the name Dominic had spent his whole life trusting.
“Uncle Matteo.”
