Chapter 4 - The House with the Green ShuttersThe drive from Chicago to Harrow Falls took nine hours through a relentless, blinding autumn downpour.
Damian didn’t let his driver take the wheel. He drove his black Mercedes SUV himself, pushing the speedometer past eighty, ninety, a hundred miles an hour through the dark, empty stretches of Indiana and Ohio turnpikes.
His mind was a swirling vortex of ghosts, rage, and a suffocating, unbearable grief.
A son.
He had a son.
He had walked into a hospital room nine years ago, looked down at a tiny baby with strong lungs and a stubborn little mouth, and walked away because a treacherous parasite in a tailored suit had whispered poison into his ear.
He remembered Isabella’s eyes as she told him: When the result proves Eli is your son, you will not come back here expecting tears, forgiveness, or a second chance.
She had known. Even then, when the entire world had turned against her, she had known the truth. And she had walked into the wilderness alone rather than let a criminal empire taint her child.
By the time the Mercedes rolled quietly into Harrow Falls, the sky was just beginning to bruise with the first gray light of dawn.
The town was asleep. The maple-lined streets were slick with fallen leaves, and the old brick storefronts stood like silent sentinels in the mist.
Damian parked two blocks away from Caldwell Street. He didn’t want the roar of the engine to wake the neighborhood.
He walked the remaining distance on foot, his heavy boots crunching softly against the wet gravel. The collar of his black overcoat was turned up against the chill, and his breath plumed white in the crisp morning air.
He found it easily.
Number 142 Caldwell Street. A modest, two-story house with white siding, peeling green shutters, and a massive maple tree spreading its branches over a neat, modest front lawn. A child’s red bicycle lay parked beside the porch steps, its training wheels slightly scuffed.
Damian stopped at the property line.
His heart—a muscle that had remained cold and steady through execution-style hits, federal interrogations, and cartel wars—began to hammer against his ribs like a trapped bird.
He walked up the wooden steps. Each board creaked beneath his weight.
For the first time in his life, Damian Moretti was afraid.
Not of a rival bullet. Not of a prison cell. But of the look in a woman’s eyes when she opened the front door and realized the nightmare she had escaped had finally tracked her down.
May you like
He raised his hand.
He knocked twice.
