"The Maid Made His Silent Sister Laugh—Then the Mafia Boss Discovered the Secret She Had Buried for Three Years**

Santiago took the grand staircase three steps at a time.

The corridor leading to the east wing was littered with shredded fabric. Pillows were disemboweled, their white goose feathers swirling in the drafty air like a bizarre indoor blizzard.

Standing in the center of her demolished bedroom was Sophia.

Her face was translucent, streaked with frantic tears. She had pulled every blue curtain down from the tall Victorian windows. Her expensive cashmere blankets—all navy and sky blue—had been hacked to ribbons with a pair of silver vanity shears. In their place, she stood draped in an ugly, oversized olive-green sweater that Ruby had accidentally left hanging behind the bathroom door.

"Sophia," Santiago said, keeping his hands open, palms forward, stepping slowly across the feathers. "Sweetheart, drop the shears."

Sophia met his eyes. For seven years, her gaze had been empty—a glass doll without a pulse. But today, her pupils blazed with wild, feral fury. She raised her hands and made three violent, jagged motions in sign language.

Santiago stopped, helpless. He had fifty men on his payroll who spoke five languages, men who could crack Swiss bank encryptions and translate dead Latin texts. But he couldn't read three words from the girl whose life he had sworn to protect.

"I don't understand," he whispered, a rare crack appearing in his iron armor. "Sophia, please. Write it down."

He kicked the digital slate toward her.

With a guttural shriek of rage, Sophia brought her heel down on the glass screen, shattering it into spiderwebs. Then, she backed herself into the narrow corner between her wardrobe and the wall, pulled her knees to her chest inside Ruby’s green sweater, and clamped her hands over her ears.

"She hasn't eaten since you fired the girl, Mr. Santiago," Mrs. Delaney whispered from the doorway, weeping softly. "She threw the broth at the nurse. She refuses her water. The private physician says if she goes another twenty-four hours without fluids, her kidneys will fail."

Santiago walked over to the ruined window. Outside, the Chicago rain hammered against the glass. He was the undisputed master of this city. Politicians took his calls at three in the morning. District attorneys shredded indictments when he whispered their children's names.

Yet inside his own castle, he was entirely powerless.

He looked at Sophia. She was rocking rhythmically, her face buried in Ruby’s faded green sweater, breathing in the scent of the only person who had treated her like a human being instead of a tragic monument.

Santiago turned to Tomas.

"Get the car."

"Where are we going, boss?"