Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO NEVER SAT
“Sit.”
Alessandro Moretti looked down at the tiny fingers wrapped around two of his.
Nobody ordered Alessandro Moretti to do anything.
Not judges.
Not politicians.
Not men holding guns.
Certainly not three-year-old girls wearing pink socks with strawberries stitched across the ankles.
Yet Emma tugged his hand again.
“Sit here.”
She pointed at the rug beside Bruno.
Sophia’s face had gone completely pale.
“Emma, Mr. Moretti is busy.”
“No.”
Emma looked at Alessandro with the grave authority only toddlers seemed capable of possessing.
“He came for Bruno.”
“Yes,” Alessandro said.
“Bruno sleeping.”
“I can see that.”
“You wake him, he grumpy.”
Alessandro glanced at the Cane Corso.
One yellow eye opened.
The dog looked at him.
Then closed it again.
Traitor.
Emma patted the rug.
Alessandro had sat across from men who planned murders without blinking. He had negotiated with people who considered mercy a weakness. He had walked through gunfire with blood soaking through his shirt.
But somehow refusing this child felt unnecessarily cruel.
So he sat.
Sophia made a small sound.
Alessandro looked up.
“Problem?”
“No, sir.”
“You look concerned.”
“I’m deciding whether I’m hallucinating.”
The corner of his mouth moved.
Barely.
Emma immediately noticed.
“You smiled.”
“I did not.”
“You did.”
“Go back to sleep.”
“I’m not sleepy.”
Thirty seconds later, she curled against Bruno’s chest and closed her eyes.
Alessandro remained seated.
At some point Sophia brought him coffee.
He accepted it without comment.
The apartment was nothing like the main house.
No marble.
No imported furniture.
No security monitors hidden behind carved wood panels.
The employee cottage had two small bedrooms, a narrow kitchen, a secondhand couch, and drawings taped to the refrigerator with magnets shaped like fruit.
One drawing showed Sophia.
Another showed Emma.
A third showed a large black dog beside a stick figure with very broad shoulders.
Alessandro stared at it.
“What is that?”
Sophia followed his gaze.
She immediately looked embarrassed.
“Emma draws everybody.”
“Is that supposed to be me?”
“I believe so.”
“Why am I square?”
“She says you’re built like a refrigerator.”
Alessandro slowly turned toward her.
Sophia pressed her lips together.
He could see the laughter she was trying to suppress.
“My daughter lacks diplomacy.”
“Clearly.”
“She also thinks Bruno is your baby.”
Alessandro looked at the dog.
“That explains his personality.”
Sophia laughed before she could stop herself.
The sound surprised both of them.
It was soft.
Warm.
Normal.
Something Alessandro did not hear often inside his house.
For several seconds nobody spoke.
Then Bruno shifted.
The dog’s enormous body stiffened.
His head lifted sharply.
Alessandro’s expression changed immediately.
“What?”
Sophia looked toward the door.
Bruno was staring at it.
His ears angled forward.
A low growl rolled through his chest.
Not frightened this time.
Alert.
Alessandro stood.
Emma stirred.
“Stay here.”
He walked to the window beside the door and moved the curtain half an inch.
A black SUV sat beyond the employee cottages.
Its lights were off.
Engine running.
Alessandro had never seen the vehicle before.
His hand moved beneath his coat.
“Marco.”
He said the name quietly.
Less than thirty seconds later his phone vibrated.
“We see it,” Marco said.
“Who?”
“Unknown plates.”
“Take them.”
The SUV suddenly reversed.
Fast.
Too fast.
It shot backward along the service road.
Two of Alessandro’s security vehicles moved from opposite directions.
The SUV cut across the frozen lawn, crashed through a hedge, and disappeared through a maintenance gate that should have been locked.
Marco cursed through the phone.
Alessandro’s eyes hardened.
“Who opened that gate?”
“We’re finding out.”
The call ended.
Sophia was standing behind him.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“That wasn’t nothing.”
“You and Emma stay inside tonight.”
Her face changed.
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
Sophia folded her arms.
Alessandro recognized immediately that he had made a tactical error.
She was not one of his men.
Orders did not calm her.
They frightened her.
“What was that vehicle doing here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was someone watching us?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was it because of you?”
That question he could answer.
Probably.
Instead he said, “Doors stay locked.”
Sophia stared at him.
“I have a child.”
“I’m aware.”
“Then don’t give me half an explanation and expect me to sleep.”
Alessandro stepped closer.
His voice lowered.
“My entire property will be locked down tonight. No one gets near this cottage without my people seeing them. You will be safer here than almost anywhere in Chicago.”
“Almost?”
His jaw tightened.
Sophia noticed.
“Wonderful.”
Bruno stood.
Slowly.
Painfully.
Then he walked past Alessandro and planted himself beside Emma.
The meaning was unmistakable.
If danger came, Bruno had chosen where he would stand.
Alessandro looked at the dog.
“So that’s how it is.”
Emma, half asleep, reached one small hand toward him.
“You stay too.”
Sophia turned.
“Emma.”
“What?”
“We do not invite our employer to sleep on the couch.”
Emma looked confused.
“Why?”
Because he owns half the neighborhood, Sophia thought.
Because armed men stand when he enters rooms.
Because rumors say people disappear after disappointing him.
Instead she said, “Because he has his own house.”
Emma considered the mansion visible through the snowy windows.
“Too big.”
Alessandro said nothing.
The child was not wrong.
His house had forty-two rooms.
Some he had not entered in years.
Three dining rooms.
A ballroom.
Two libraries.
A private chapel his mother had used.
A wine cellar larger than this entire cottage.
And no one waiting for him.
He looked at Emma asleep against Bruno.
Then at Sophia.
Then back toward the strange tire marks cutting across the snow outside.
Something cold moved through his chest.
Not fear.
Recognition.
Someone had been watching the cottage.
Which meant someone knew Bruno was here.
Someone knew Emma mattered to the dog.
And perhaps worse—
Someone had realized Emma mattered to Alessandro too.
He stepped toward the door.
“I’m increasing security.”
Sophia nodded.
“Thank you.”
He paused.
“Mrs. Carter.”
“Yes?”
“If you see anyone you don’t recognize, you call me.”
“Security?”
“Me.”
Her eyes lifted.
He placed a card on the table.
One number.
Handwritten.
Sophia stared at it.
She knew enough about Alessandro Moretti to understand what that meant.
Men had worked for him twenty years without receiving his private number.
He turned toward Emma.
The child was asleep again.
“Good night.”
“Mr. Moretti?”
He looked back.
Sophia hesitated.
“Thank you for not dragging Bruno away.”
Alessandro glanced at his dog.
“I’m beginning to suspect that wouldn’t have been possible.”
He left.
Outside, Marco waited beside the path.
His face was tense.
“We found the maintenance gate.”
“And?”
“Lock wasn’t broken.”
Alessandro stopped.
“Meaning?”
“Someone opened it from inside.”
Snow moved through the courtyard between them.
Marco lowered his voice.
“We may have a problem in the house.”
Alessandro looked back through the cottage window.
Emma’s small figure was visible beside Bruno.
His expression emptied.
“No.”
Marco understood immediately.
It was worse than a problem.
Someone inside Alessandro Moretti’s organization had just shown interest in a three-year-old child.
And Alessandro knew exactly what happened when men mistook innocence for leverage.
“Find them,” he said.
Marco nodded.
“And Marco?”
“Yes?”
“Nobody goes near Sophia or Emma without my approval.”
“What about staff?”
“Nobody.”
Marco hesitated.
“Even family?”
Alessandro looked toward the mansion.
May you like
Especially family.
“Especially family.”
