Chapter 1 - THE MEN AT THE GATE
“They came for her.”
For one terrible second, I thought Victor Moretti had lost his mind.
Then another burst of gunfire exploded outside.
Glass shattered somewhere in the front hall.
The doctor threw himself to the floor.
One of Victor’s guards rushed through the doorway, blood soaking the sleeve of his white shirt.
“North gate is down!”
Victor’s expression changed instantly.
The man who had touched my daughter’s forehead with surprising gentleness disappeared.
In his place stood the Victor Moretti New York whispered about.
Cold.
Controlled.
Terrifying.
“How many?”
“Eight confirmed. Maybe twelve.”
“Police?”
“Nothing yet.”
Victor looked down at Lily.
She was crying now, weak little sobs against the blankets.
My mind could barely understand what was happening.
“Who are they?” I demanded.
Victor ignored me.
He lifted Lily from the stroller.
I lunged at him.
“Give me my baby!”
His eyes snapped toward mine.
“Hannah, listen carefully. If you want your daughter alive, you do exactly what I say.”
“I don’t even know you!”
“But the men outside do.”
Another explosion shook dust from the ceiling.
Victor handed Lily back to me and grabbed my shoulder.
“Stay close.”
He led us through a hidden door behind a giant painting in the library.
I would later learn the mansion had been designed with escape corridors between the walls.
At that moment, all I knew was that I was running barefoot across freezing stone because one of my shoes had fallen off somewhere behind me.
Lily burned against my chest.
The doctor followed with his emergency bag.
Two armed guards moved behind us.
We reached a narrow staircase.
Victor stopped.
“There’s a tunnel beneath the wine cellar. It exits three blocks east.”
“Then let’s go!”
He didn’t move.
His face had gone strangely distant.
“They know about Elena.”
My heart stopped.
“My mother?”
Victor turned toward me.
“That locket was never jewelry.”
I looked down.
The silver pendant rested against Lily’s blanket.
I had seen it every day of my life.
My mother had worn it until the night she disappeared.
Later, when police returned her belongings, the locket had been inside a sealed envelope.
“What is it?”
“A key.”
“To what?”
Victor opened his mouth.
A scream came from upstairs.
Then footsteps.
Fast.
Too close.
Victor drew his pistol.
“Move.”
We descended into the basement.
The wine cellar looked like something from a hotel, with hundreds of bottles stacked behind iron gates.
Victor pressed his palm against a brick.
A section of wall opened.
We hurried through.
The doctor examined Lily while we moved.
“Her fever is dangerously high.”
“How dangerous?”
“She needs a hospital.”
I almost laughed from panic.
“There are men shooting at us!”
“I understand,” he said quietly. “But she may have pneumonia.”
My knees weakened.
Victor heard him.
“Can you stabilize her?”
“For a little while.”
“Do it.”
The tunnel ended in an underground garage beneath an abandoned townhouse.
Three black SUVs waited inside.
Victor opened the rear door of the middle vehicle.
“You ride with me.”
“No.”
He stared at me.
“I’m taking my daughter to a hospital.”
“And the second you walk into a public emergency room, they will find you.”
“Who?”
“The people who killed Elena Rossi.”
The words struck harder than the gunfire.
“My mother died in a car accident.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
“No. She didn’t.”
I stared at him.
He looked almost ashamed.
“Elena was murdered.”
I couldn’t breathe.
For twenty-three years, I had believed the same story.
Rain.
A bridge.
A car found in the river.
My mother gone.
I was six years old.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
Behind us, one of the guards shouted.
The townhouse door burst inward.
Victor shoved me into the SUV.
Bullets punched through the concrete wall.
The driver accelerated before the door fully closed.
I hit the seat.
Lily screamed.
Victor pulled us down.
The rear window shattered.
Two SUVs followed us into the street.
Snow sprayed beneath the tires.
I pressed my face against Lily’s hat and whispered the only words I could think of.
“Mommy’s here.”
Victor was speaking rapidly into a phone.
“Prepare St. Vincent’s private wing.”
Pause.
“No public records.”
Pause.
“Call Dr. Keller.”
He ended the call.
I looked at him.
“You have a hospital?”
“I have doctors.”
“You said they killed my mother.”
His eyes shifted toward Lily.
“I said they killed Elena.”
“What does that have to do with my daughter?”
Victor didn’t answer.
Our driver cut through traffic.
A black pickup truck appeared behind us.
One of Victor’s men looked back.
“They’re still on us.”
The truck accelerated.
Victor opened the center console and removed another weapon.
I stared at him.
“No shooting with my baby in here!”
For the first time, something almost human crossed his face.
“I agree.”
The SUV suddenly turned down an alley.
The second Moretti vehicle slammed sideways behind us, blocking the entrance.
The pursuing truck crashed into it.
Metal screamed.
Our driver kept going.
Ten minutes later, we entered an underground medical facility beneath what looked like an ordinary Manhattan office building.
Doctors were waiting.
They took Lily from my arms.
I tried to follow.
A nurse stopped me.
“We need room.”
“She needs me.”
“She needs oxygen first.”
The doors closed.
I stood there holding nothing.
My arms felt wrong without her.
Victor remained several feet away.
His expensive suit was dusted with plaster.
There was blood on his cuff, though I didn’t know whether it belonged to him.
I crossed the room and slapped him.
The sound echoed.
Every guard froze.
Victor didn’t move.
“Tell me the truth.”
He rubbed his cheek once.
Then he looked at his men.
“Leave us.”
They hesitated.
“Now.”
When we were alone, Victor sat down slowly.
“I met Elena when she was nineteen.”
I said nothing.
“She worked at a small restaurant in Little Italy. She was fearless. Too fearless.”
“You loved her?”
Victor’s silence answered.
I felt sick.
He continued.
“My father was still alive then. The Moretti family was at war with another organization. The Valenti family.”
I knew the name.
Everyone in Brooklyn did.
The Valentis had faded from the newspapers years ago.
At least, that was what people thought.
“Elena wasn’t involved,” Victor said. “But her father was.”
“My grandfather?”
“Salvatore Rossi kept records.”
“What kind of records?”
“Everything.”
Victor leaned forward.
“Politicians. Judges. Bankers. Police commanders. Businessmen. Men who built careers by pretending they had never met people like us.”
My stomach tightened.
“And the locket?”
“Salvatore created a backup.”
I touched the pendant.
Victor nodded.
“The engraving is part of a cipher.”
I stared at him.
“My mother gave me this when I was a child.”
“She was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
“From me.”
The words were so quiet I almost missed them.
I stepped back.
Victor looked directly into my eyes.
“Elena discovered someone inside the Moretti family was selling information to the Valentis. She believed I was involved.”
“Were you?”
“No.”
“Then who was?”
“I never found out.”
A door opened.
The doctor appeared.
I forgot everything else.
“Lily?”
“She’s responding to medication. Her temperature is coming down.”
My knees almost collapsed.
“Can I see her?”
“In a few minutes.”
I covered my mouth.
Relief hurt more than fear.
The doctor looked at Victor.
“There’s something else.”
Victor’s face hardened.
“What?”
“The child has a small scar below her left shoulder.”
I frowned.
“She’s had it since birth.”
Victor went perfectly still.
The doctor continued.
“It isn’t a scar.”
“What are you talking about?”
He looked uncomfortable.
“It appears to be a birthmark.”
Victor whispered something in Italian.
I turned.
“What?”
He looked at me as though the floor had vanished beneath him.
“Elena had the same mark.”
“So?”
“Her father had it too.”
I stared.
Victor stepped closer.
“Hannah, who is Lily’s father?”
The question enraged me.
“That is none of your business.”
“It may be the only thing that matters.”
“Her father left before she was born.”
“Name.”
“Michael Hayes.”
Victor’s face lost all color.
That frightened me more than the gunfire.
“What?”
He reached for his phone.
“Victor, what?”
He made a call.
When someone answered, his voice was ice.
“Find Michael Hayes.”
A pause.
“Immediately.”
I grabbed his wrist.
“Why?”
Victor looked at me.
“Because Michael Hayes isn’t the man you think he is.”
“What does that mean?”
He lowered the phone.
“It means he works for the Valentis.”
The room tilted.
“No.”
“I’ve seen his face.”
“No.”
“He’s one of Dominic Valenti’s people.”
I backed away.
Michael.
The man who had brought me coffee every morning when I was pregnant.
The man who had once painted our tiny bedroom because I said the gray walls made me sad.
The man who disappeared three weeks before Lily was born, leaving only a text message saying he couldn’t be a father.
Victor’s men rushed into the hallway.
One held a tablet.
“Boss.”
Victor looked at the screen.
His expression became murderous.
“What is it?” I asked.
The guard hesitated.
Victor took the tablet.
A security image showed the men attacking his mansion.
One stood in front.
Tall.
Dark coat.
Scar beside his jaw.
My breath stopped.
Michael.
He was holding a rifle.
And around his neck hung a matching silver chain.
Victor enlarged the image.
A second pendant appeared beneath Michael’s shirt.
The same symbol as Lily’s locket.
My hands began to shake.
Victor looked toward the medical room where my daughter lay.
Then back at me.
“They didn’t just know you were at my house.”
His voice was grim.
“They were waiting for you to bring her there.”
And somewhere in the silence between us, I understood something terrible.
My supervisor had not randomly assigned me to the Moretti estate.
Someone had sent me there.
Someone who knew about the locket.
Someone who knew about Lily.
Someone who wanted Victor Moretti to see her.
The doctor opened the door.
“You can see your daughter now.”
I took one step.
Then Victor’s phone rang.
He answered.
His face changed.
“What?”
The voice on the other end was loud enough that I heard three words.
“They took him.”
Victor looked at me.
“Who?”
His guard swallowed.
“Your brother.”
I froze.
“I don’t have a brother.”
Victor’s eyes remained fixed on mine.
“Yes,” he said.
May you like
“You do.”
And the man who had been hidden from me my entire life had just been kidnapped by the same people who wanted my baby.
