Chapter 2 - The Shadow of the Past
The sirens blared, tearing through the quiet night like a wounded beast. Gunfire rattled in the distant courtyard, heavy and rhythmic.
Moretti didn't panic. He stood up slowly, a dark, lethal composure settling over him like iron armor. He snapped orders to his men without looking away from my mother’s body.
“Vance, stabilize her. If her heart stops, yours stops. Julian, seal the sub-basement bunker. Move Lily there now.”
“No!” I shrieked, scrambling off the chair and grabbing Moretti’s tailored trousers. “I want to stay with Mommy! Don't leave me!”
Moretti paused. The ruthless mob boss looked down at a weeping three-year-old holding his pants leg, and for a fraction of a second, his lethal demeanor melted. He scooped me up into his arms again, pressing my face against his shoulder.
“Nobody is touching you, Lily. I swear it on my life,” he murmured into my hair. Then he glared at Julian. “Change of plans. She stays with me.”
He carried me straight into his private office—a room no living soul entered without his written permission. He set me down behind a massive mahogany desk and hit a hidden switch beneath the grain. A steel wall slid down, sealing the room into an impenetrable fortress.
Monitors flickered to life across the dark wall, showing camera angles of the compound. Armed men in black tactical gear were breaching the outer courtyard, led by a tall man with a silver cane and a cruel, sharp smile.
“Vincenzo,” Moretti growled.
Vincenzo was Moretti’s younger brother—and the lieutenant who had claimed four years ago that Clara had died in a car explosion on the coast.
The intercom on the desk buzzed with static. Vincenzo’s smooth, poisonous voice filled the sanctuary. “Brother… open the doors. I know she’s in there. I brought the antidote for your little secret. But it comes with a price.”
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Moretti leaned over the mic, his knuckles turning stark white. “If you step foot on the second floor, Vincenzo, I will tear your empire apart brick by brick.”
“Ah, but Dominic,” Vincenzo sneered over the speaker. “You don't understand. She didn't hide from you because she was scared of me. She hid in your mansion because she was hiding from YOU.”
