Chapter 2 - THE CHILD WITH THE BLACK CROSS
His name was Leo Moretti.
He was six years old.
He had dark hair, solemn brown eyes, and a small scar above his left eyebrow.
The last time I had seen him, he was an infant sleeping in his mother's arms.
My younger brother, Matteo, had been twenty-nine when he died.
Officially, his death was the result of a boating accident off the coast of Sicily.
Unofficially, I had never believed it.
Matteo was an excellent swimmer.
He knew boats better than most captains.
And he had called me three days before his death, saying he'd discovered something dangerous inside our family's business.
We argued.
I told him to wait until I returned from New York.
He said he couldn't.
Then he disappeared.
His wife, Sofia, vanished shortly afterward.
I searched for her.
For the baby.
For answers.
Nothing.
Eventually, my men told me Sofia had taken the child abroad and wanted no contact with the Moretti family.
I accepted that explanation because I had no evidence to contradict it.
I hated myself for accepting it.
Now Leo had appeared beside me after an explosion.
And someone had tried to remove him from the hospital.
Grace sat beside my bed while I explained what little I knew.
She listened without interrupting.
When I finished, she looked toward the door.
“Does Vanessa know he's your nephew?”
I hesitated.
“She knows Matteo had a son.”
“That wasn't my question.”
I looked at her.
Grace held my gaze.
“Mr. Moretti, she recognized him.”
My chest tightened.
“How?”
“I don't know.”
She paused.
“But she tried to arrange his transfer before anyone had confirmed his identity.”
I stared at the ceiling.
For years, I had believed Vanessa Bellini was the one person outside my family I could trust.
Our engagement was arranged partly through business interests, but I had grown fond of her.
She was intelligent.
Beautiful.
Confident.
And she knew exactly how to move through the world I'd inherited.
Now I wondered whether I'd mistaken familiarity for loyalty.
A soft knock sounded.
My security chief, Luca Romano, entered.
Forty-two.
Broad shoulders.
A face marked by an old knife scar.
He had served my father before me.
“Boss.”
I nodded.
“Report.”
Luca glanced at Grace.
I tightened my grip on her hand.
“She stays.”
He accepted it immediately.
“The explosion occurred at Warehouse Seventeen.”
I frowned.
“That property was closed.”
“Someone reopened it under a temporary logistics permit.”
“Who?”
Luca hesitated.
“Bellini Holdings.”
The room went silent.
I looked at him.
“Vittorio?”
He nodded.
“And there's something else.”
“What?”
Luca placed a photograph on the bed.
It showed a woman leaving the warehouse three hours before the explosion.
Dark hair.
A gray coat.
A small child holding her hand.
Sofia.
My brother's widow.
Alive.
I stared at the photograph.
Then Luca said:
“We found blood in the warehouse office.”
My heart hammered.
“Whose?”
He looked at me.
“We don't know yet.”
I closed my eyes.
May you like
Somewhere in Manhattan, my brother's widow might be bleeding.
And the only person who knew what had happened was a six-year-old boy clutching a broken black cross.
