Chapter 3 - THE MOTHER’S TERRIFYING SECRETThe private medical wing beneath the Reichi Estate in Brookline looked more like a NASA facility than a mob hideout. High-tech monitors beeped quietly in the sterile room. Stainless steel walls reflected the blue LED ambient lighting, while two armed guards stood at rigid attention outside the double-reinforced steel doors.
Matteo stood behind the glass observation window, his arms crossed over his chest. He had traded his blood-stained coat for a clean black button-down, but the dark circles under his eyes revealed the storm raging inside his mind.
Across the hall, in a luxury private suite, Emma was fast asleep, wrapped in a heated cashmere blanket, holding a stuffed bear one of Matteo’s men had rushed to buy from a 24-hour store. She was safe for now. But Matteo knew safety in his world was an illusion that lasted only until the next magazine was loaded.
Inside the ICU room, Sarah Peterson stirred.
Her eyelids fluttered open. She let out a soft, pain-filled groan as her hands instinctively reached out, searching the space beside her hospital bed.
"Emma..." she rasped, her voice choked with panic. "Emma! Where is my baby?!"
Matteo pushed the heavy door open and stepped into the room. "She's safe, Sarah. She's in the next room, sleeping. Nobody can hurt her here."
Sarah turned her head toward the sound of his voice. Her eyes, swollen and bruised, widened as they focused on his face. She froze. The heart monitor attached to her chest began to beep frantically, jumping from 75 beats per minute to 130.
"You..." Sarah choked out, shrinking back against the pillows as if she were looking at a ghost. "No... no, no, no! It can't be you!"
Matteo frowned, taking a step closer. "Sarah, calm down. You're bleeding internally. You had a severe concussion. I’m the one who received Emma’s text. I brought you here."
"Get away from us!" Sarah screamed, her voice cracking with raw terror. Tears spilled over her bruised cheeks. "How did you find us?! Derek promised... he promised he wouldn't tell you!"
Matteo stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes darkened. "Derek promised you? What are you talking about, Sarah? I didn't search for you. Emma texted a wrong number—my number—by absolute chance."
"There are no chances with your family!" Sarah cried out, gasping for air as the nurses rushed into the room to stabilize her. "You think I don't know who you really are, Michael?! Or should I call you Matteo Reichi now?!"
Matteo signaled the nurses to step back. The room became deathly quiet except for the erratic rhythm of the heart monitor.
"You knew?" Matteo asked, his voice dropping an octave. "You knew I was alive?"
"I knew the night you vanished nine years ago," Sarah wept, her body shaking violently. "I found out who you really were when men with guns came to my apartment looking for Michael Rodriguez! They told me what you did! They told me you were a monster who traded your own family for power!"
"That’s a lie!" Matteo snapped, the composure he had maintained all night finally cracking. "I faked my death to protect anyone connected to me! I built this empire so no one could ever touch the people I care about again!"
"You protected no one!" Sarah spat, looking at him with deep, burning resentment. "Do you want to know why Derek was in my house, Michael? Do you want to know why he was hitting me?!"
Matteo gripped the edge of her bedframe, his knuckles turning stark white. "Tell me."
Sarah leaned forward, despite the excruciating pain in her ribs, and looked him straight in the eye.
"Derek wasn't my boyfriend. He was a guard hired by the Sokolov family," Sarah whispered, her words cutting through Matteo like shards of glass. "Nine years ago, when I realized I was pregnant with your child, Nikolai Sokolov found me. He didn't kill me. He made a deal. He said if I ever told you Emma existed, he would butcher her in front of me. He forced me to live under constant surveillance, keeping Emma as an insurance policy against you!"
Matteo felt the floor beneath him disappear.
All these years, he believed he was playing chess with his enemies, controlling Boston from the shadows. In reality, his worst enemy had been holding his bloodline hostage, waiting for the exact right moment to strike.
"And tonight..." Sarah sobbed, her strength fading, "tonight Derek got drunk because Nikolai gave the order. Emma turned eight today, Michael. The contract was up. Nikolai doesn't want to kill Emma... he wants to raise her to take your throne and destroy everything you built from the inside!"
Before Matteo could process the horror of her words, the red emergency lights throughout the underground facility suddenly began to flash, accompanied by a deafening klaxon alarm.
The main power grid died, plunging the facility into pitch darkness before the emergency generators flickered to life.
Vincent’s voice blared through Matteo’s radio headset, laced with sheer panic.
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"Boss! We’ve got a breach at the North Gate! It’s not just a hit squad—it’s a full military assault! And Boss... they didn't come through the doors... they’re already inside the air ducts!"
HOOK FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER:With the medical facility plunged into darkness and Russian mercenaries dropping from the ceilings, Matteo must make an impossible choice: defend the woman who kept his daughter secret for eight years, or reach Emma before Nikolai Sokolov’s personal assassin executes his terrifying real plan.
