Chapter 1 - The Blood Lineage
The air in Serafina turned into liquid glass.
Elena’s voice didn’t tremble. It was a cold, surgical steel blade running straight through five years of my deliberate silence.
“She is mine.”
I couldn’t breathe. My hand, the same hand that signed away her life without a second glance, froze mid-air, holding a cheap purple crayon. The little girl—my eyes, my jaw, my family’s century-old dark curse etched directly onto her innocent face—stared up at me with an eerie, unbothered calm.
“Elena...” My voice sounded like crushed gravel. “Look at her eyes. Do not lie to me.”
Before Elena could answer, heavy footsteps echoed across the polished marble. A man stepped out from the shadowy alcove near the kitchen, impeccably dressed in a tailored charcoal suit that screamed old European money. He was taller than me, his silver-streaked hair swept back, his posture carrying the quiet, deadly aura of someone who owned armies, not just corporations.
Marco immediately shifted behind me, his hand slipping inside his jacket toward his holster. “Don Dominic,” Marco hissed softly. “We have a breach.”
The stranger didn't even look at Marco. He walked directly to table nine, rested a large, ringed hand gently on Elena’s shoulder, and looked down at me with absolute contempt.
“Dominic Valenti,” the man said, his voice thick with a high-society French-Italian accent. “You are as predictable as you are foolish. You cleared this restaurant for a corrupt judge who isn't coming. I bought his debt three hours ago. Judge Whitmore is currently on a flight to Geneva, and his entire bench belongs to me.”
My eyes snapped from the child to the man. “Who the hell are you?”
“Julian Moretti,” Elena spoke up, her voice ringing clear through the dead-silent restaurant. She placed her hand over the man’s hand on her shoulder. The gesture was simple, deliberate, and designed to tear my heart out of my chest. “My husband.”
The world tilted.
Husband?
“You’re married?” I choked out.
“Three years now,” Elena said, her hazel-gold eyes locking onto mine with an icy satisfaction. “Julian restored everything you destroyed, Dominic. When your family’s doctors declared me ‘defective’ and threw me into the gutter with a thousand-dollar settlement check, Julian took me to Zurich. He found real doctors. He found the truth.”
She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the white tablecloth, her gaze merciless.
“I was never infertile, Dominic. You were poison. Your stress, your toxic family, your blood-soaked lifestyle—or perhaps, it was just God’s way of ensuring a monster like you never reproduced. But miraculous things happen when a woman is loved instead of caged.”
My chest heaved. I stepped forward, ignoring Julian’s presence, my eyes locked on the little girl. “She has the Valenti gold in her eyes, Elena! You can lie to the world, but you cannot rewrite genetics! That girl is a Valenti!”
Julian stepped between me and the table, blocking my view of the child. “She is a Moretti by law, by name, and by blood, Valenti. And if you take one more step toward my family, my men outside will paint this marble floor with your underboss.”
Marco pulled his piece. The faint clack of a firearm cocking echoed in the room.
Instantly, four laser dots—bright, blood-red beams—appeared on Marco’s chest and my forehead through the rain-slicked windows of Serafina. Snipers. He had positioned snipers on the rooftops across the street. In my own territory.
“Lower the weapon, Marco,” I said quietly, never taking my eyes off Julian.
Marco hesitated, then slowly holstered his gun.
Julian smiled—a dry, victorious smirk. “Smart boy. Elena, darling, bring Bella. Our car is waiting.”
Elena stood up gracefully, lifting the little girl into her arms. Bella wrapped her tiny arms around Elena’s neck, her dark, gold-flecked eyes remaining fixed on me over her mother’s shoulder. As she passed me, the child reached out her hand and pointed at the purple crayon still clutched in my fist.
“My crayon,” she whispered in a tiny, crystal-clear voice.
My heart shattered into a million jagged pieces. I held it out to her, my hand shaking violently. She grabbed it, gave me a small, secret smile, and rested her head on Elena’s shoulder.
“Don’t look for us, Dominic,” Elena said, stopping right beside me. Her perfume—jasmine and rain—flooded my senses, bringing back a flood of memories from a life I had brutally discarded. “You traded me for an empire. Go rule your cold kingdom alone.”
They walked out into the pouring Manhattan rain, leaving me standing in the middle of Serafina.
For five years, I thought I was a king. Tonight, I realized I was just a ghost standing in a room full of blood and lies.
“Boss,” Marco whispered, wiping sweat from his forehead. “What do we do? Do I call the crew? We can block their motorcade before they hit the bridge.”
“No,” I rasped, staring at the empty table, at the faint purple crayon mark on the white linen. “Find out everything about Julian Moretti. Find out every medical record, every hospital, every birth certificate registered under Elena’s name in Europe over the last five years.”
May you like
I turned to Marco, my eyes burning with a dark, unhinged fire.
“If that child is mine, I will tear down New York to get her back. And if she isn't... I will burn the world down for what they took from me.”
