Chapter 1 - The Shadow Over Corven Tower The heavy brass revolving doors of the Corven Tower spun slowly, letting in a bitter gust of Manhattan winter wind that smelled of sleet and exhaust. Dominic Moretti did not flinch. As the supreme head of the Moretti crime family, he was a man carved out of silence, iron, and uncompromising authority. Men twice his size trembled when he spoke; federal investigators spent decades trying to pin a single ghost of a crime on his ledger without success.
When Nora whispered, “We wish you’d open just once,” and little Ella pressed her empty paper cup against the cold glass, something cracked behind Dominic’s ribs—a memory of a past he had buried under billions of dollars and layers of criminal protection. Instead of stepping into the private elevator, Dominic knelt on the marble floor. He bought them food, learning that thirty-eight days ago, their mother, a cleaning woman in this very building, had vanished into thin air.
Behind him, Nico Falcone, the head of building security, smiled with practiced, oily politeness. "I'll have child services handle them, Mr. Moretti. They shouldn't be wandering the lobby."
Dominic stood up slowly, his eyes locking onto Nico with a chilling intensity. "They aren't going anywhere until I find out who let them starve in a building I own."
