The giant lunged.

I didn’t run.

Instead, I grabbed the silver serving tray from the station and swung it with everything I had.

The metal struck his wrist.

The knife flew across the marble floor, sliding beneath an overturned chair.

For half a second, the entire restaurant went silent.

The giant looked at me.

Then he laughed.

“You’re brave. I’ll give you that.”

I stepped backward, keeping the serving tray between us.

“You’re making a mistake.”

His smile disappeared.

“Do you know who I am?”

I stared at the small black tattoo behind his left ear.

Three interlocking circles.

My stomach тιԍнтened.

I knew exactly who he was.

And more importantly, I knew why he had come.

“Your name is Anton Volkov,” I whispered.

His expression changed.

Victor, still seated behind me, slowly raised his head.

“What did you just say?”

Anton stopped moving.

Nobody in that restaurant had introduced him.

Nobody had even mentioned his name.

Yet I had recognized him immediately.

“How do you know that name?” Anton demanded.

I didn’t answer.

Instead, I looked at the small red light blinking on the ceiling camera.

Then I looked toward the restaurant’s security office.

“Because I’ve seen you before.”

Anton took another step.

“Where?”

“Eight years ago.”

His jaw тιԍнтened.

For the first time, the enormous man seemed uncertain.

Victor stood up.

“Lily, get behind me.”

I shook my head.

“Don’t.”

His gray eyes narrowed.

“Excuse me?”

“He’s not here to kill you immediately.”

Victor stared at me as though I’d lost my mind.

I continued.

“He’s waiting for someone.”

Anton suddenly smiled.

“Smart girl.”

Then he reached inside his jacket.

I grabbed a champagne bottle from the service station and raised it defensively.

“Don’t!”

He stopped.

“You’re protecting the wrong man, sweetheart.”

Victor moved closer.

“Who sent you?”

Anton looked at him.

“Your father.”

The words struck Victor harder than the bullet.

“My father has been ᴅᴇᴀᴅ for eleven years.”

Anton laughed quietly.

“That’s what you were told.”

Victor’s expression turned cold.

“Explain.”

Before Anton could answer, every light in the restaurant went out.

Someone screamed.

A chair crashed.

Then I heard three heavy footsteps moving toward the kitchen.

“Victor!” I shouted.

Something grabbed my arm.

I swung the bottle instinctively.

A hand caught my wrist.

“Easy, Lily.”

It was Victor.

He pulled me behind the marble service counter just as emergency lights flickered on.

Anton was gone.

So were two of the restaurant’s security guards.

But something had been left behind.

A small black envelope on Victor’s table.

His name was written across it.

Victor opened it.

Inside was a pH๏τograph.

A little girl stood beside a woman outside a hospital.

The pH๏τograph was old, perhaps fifteen years.

Victor stared at it.

Then his face changed.

“Where did you get this?”

I looked at the woman.

I recognized her.

My mother.

And the little girl was me.

Victor turned toward me.

“Who is that woman?”

“My mother.”

He looked back at the pH๏τograph.

“What’s her name?”

“Elizabeth Carter.”

Victor’s fingers тιԍнтened around the picture.

“Elizabeth…”

He whispered the name as if it had awakened something buried deep inside him.

Then he looked at me.

“Your mother worked for my family.”

I nodded slowly.

“She was your father’s personal accountant.”

Victor went completely still.

“How do you know that?”

“Because she told me before she disappeared.”

For several seconds, neither of us spoke.

Then Victor asked the question that changed everything.

“Your mother disappeared?”

I nodded.

“Eight years ago. She left one night and never came home.”

“Did she ever tell you why?”

I looked toward the shattered restaurant entrance.

“She told me never to trust anyone with the Castellano name.”

Victor’s expression hardened.

“Then why did you save me?”

I looked directly into his eyes.

“Because my mother also told me something else.”

“What?”

“That if I ever met a Castellano man wearing a silver watch with a broken eagle on it, I should give him a message.”

Victor slowly looked down at his wrist.

His silver watch had a tiny crack across the eagle emblem.

It had belonged to his father.

He removed it.

“What message?”

I swallowed.

“She said to tell him that the little girl from room seventeen remembers everything.”

Victor nearly dropped the watch.

“Room seventeen?”

He grabbed my shoulders.

“Where did you hear that?”

I pulled away.

“You’re hurting me.”

He immediately released me.

“I’m sorry.”

His voice had changed.

The ruthless billionaire was suddenly a frightened man searching through memories he couldn’t understand.

Before he could ask another question, his phone rang.

The caller ID displayed:

UNKNOWN NUMBER.

Victor answered.

A distorted male voice came through the speaker.

“Mr. Castellano. I see you’ve met the waitress.”

Victor’s eyes narrowed.

“Who is this?”

“Someone who knows why your father was murdered.”

The restaurant seemed to disappear around us.

Victor gripped the phone.

“My father died in a car accident.”

“That’s what they told you.”

The caller laughed.

“Your father was going to expose a secret worth billions. Elizabeth Carter discovered the evidence. And your little waitress knows where it is.”

Victor turned toward me.

The caller continued.

“Bring the girl to the old Castellano estate before midnight. Come alone.”

Then the line went ᴅᴇᴀᴅ.

Victor immediately handed his phone to one of his surviving guards.

“Trace that call.”

“Yes, sir.”

I stepped away.

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Victor looked at me.

“Lily, whoever those men are, they’re going to come after you.”

“They’ve been coming after me for eight years.”

He frowned.

“What?”

I reached into the pocket of my uniform and pulled out a small silver key.

My mother had given it to me on the night she disappeared.

She had told me never to lose it.

Never to show it to anyone.

And never to use it unless someone mentioned room seventeen.

I placed it on Victor’s table.

“This belongs to your family.”

He stared at the key.

An inscription was engraved along its edge.

C-17.

Victor’s face went pale.

“Where did you get this?”

“My mother.”

He took a step backward.

Then he whispered something I wasn’t prepared to hear.

“Room seventeen wasn’t a H๏τel room.”

“What was it?”

Victor looked toward the darkened entrance.

“It was a private room beneath my father’s estate.”

He paused.

“A room where my father kept records of every person who worked for him.”

I frowned.

“Why would my mother hide a key to that room?”

Victor didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, he called his head of security.

“Get the car ready. We’re going to the estate.”

I shook my head.

“No.”

He turned.

“Lily—”

“I’m not your employee, Mr. Castellano. And I’m certainly not your prisoner.”

For the first time, a faint smile appeared on his face.

“Fair enough.”

Then he surprised me.

He placed his father’s silver watch in my hand.

“Keep this.”

“Why?”

“Because if what you’re telling me is true, my father trusted your mother with something he never trusted me with.”

He looked directly into my eyes.

“And I think you’ve just become the most important person in my life.”

At 11:38 p.m., we arrived at the abandoned Castellano estate.

The mansion stood behind enormous iron gates, surrounded by trees and an old stone wall.

Victor had brought only two trusted guards.

The others had been ordered to remain outside.

I followed him through the entrance hall.

Everything smelled of dust and old wood.

Portraits of former Castellano family members covered the walls.

Victor stopped in front of his father’s portrait.

“That man,” he said quietly, “was the only person who ever protected me.”

I studied the pH๏τograph.

Then I noticed something strange.

The painting had been moved slightly.

Behind it was a narrow metal panel.

Victor pressed his thumb against a hidden scanner.

Nothing happened.

I took out the silver key.

There was a small opening beneath the panel.

The key fitted perfectly.

A click echoed through the hallway.

The wall slowly opened.

Behind it was a narrow staircase leading underground.

Victor looked at me.

“After you.”

I shook my head.

“You’re the billionaire. You go first.”

He almost smiled.

Then we descended.

At the bottom was a steel door.

A faded number had been painted across it.

17.

My hands trembled as I inserted the key.

The lock turned.

Inside was a small room filled with filing cabinets, old pH๏τographs, and several locked metal boxes.

Victor switched on the lights.

Then he stopped.

On the wall hung a pH๏τograph of my mother.

Beside it was a pH๏τograph of Victor as a little boy.

And between them was a handwritten note.

Victor approached it.

His lips moved as he read.

Then his face became completely expressionless.

“What does it say?” I asked.

He didn’t answer.

I stepped closer.

The note contained just one sentence.

If Elizabeth’s daughter ever returns, tell her the truth about the night her father died.

I stared at the words.

“My father?”

Victor slowly turned toward me.

“Lily…”

His voice was barely audible.

“Your mother told everyone your father abandoned you.”

I nodded.

“She said he died before I was born.”

Victor looked back at the pH๏τographs.

“She lied.”

My entire body went cold.

“What?”

He opened one of the metal boxes.

Inside was a birth certificate.

A pH๏τograph of a young man.

And a document bearing the official seal of the Castellano family.

Victor picked up the pH๏τograph.

Then he looked at me.

“Lily, the man in this picture was my older brother.”

I couldn’t breathe.

Victor continued.

“His name was Adrian Castellano.”

He turned the birth certificate toward me.

Under the father’s name were two words.

Adrian Castellano.

I stared at the document.

Then I looked at Victor.

“You’re saying…”

He nodded slowly.

“You’re my niece.”

I took a step backward.

The enormous hitman.

The mysterious recording.

My mother’s disappearance.

The secret room.

Suddenly, everything connected.

But Victor wasn’t finished.

He pulled out another document.

It was dated eight years earlier.

At the bottom was a signature I recognized immediately.

My mother’s.

And beneath it was a statement that made Victor’s hands begin to shake.

Elizabeth Carter had witnessed Adrian Castellano’s murder—and had identified the man responsible.

Victor looked at me.

“Do you know who she identified?”

I shook my head.

He turned the paper around.

There was a name.

A name belonging to someone Victor had trusted with his entire empire.

His current chief executive.

His father’s closest friend.

And the man who had stood beside Victor at every family funeral.

ANTON VOLKOV.

Then a sound came from the staircase.

Three slow footsteps.

A familiar gravelly voice echoed through the underground room.

“Well, well…”

Anton appeared in the doorway.

But this time, he wasn’t holding a knife.

He was holding an old pH๏τograph.

He looked at me and smiled.

“Little Elizabeth’s daughter. You finally found your family.”

Victor stepped in front of me.

“You’re not leaving this room alive.”

Anton laughed.

“That’s exactly what your father said.”

Then he placed the pH๏τograph on the table.

Victor looked down.

And the color drained from his face.

Because the pH๏τograph showed Adrian Castellano.

Alive.

Standing beside a woman.

A woman who looked exactly like me.

Anton leaned closer and whispered:

“There’s one more thing your uncle doesn’t know, Lily.”

He smiled.

“Your father didn’t die eight years ago.”

And somewhere in New York, a man who had been missing for fifteen years had just received a message:

YOUR DAUGHTER HAS FOUND THE CASTELLANOS.

TO BE CONTINUED…