Chapter 1 - The Weight of a Secret
The silence in the grand office after the exit of the associates felt heavy, vibrating with an unspoken tension that could shatter glass. Lorenzo Morty remained on one knee before little Mia, his sharp blue eyes fixed on the child's face, searching for something buried deep within his own past.
Alina stood frozen a few feet away, her fingers digging into the worn fabric of her maid's apron. Her mind raced wildly. In the underworld of New York, Lorenzo Morty was an apex predator. People didn't just walk into his office uninvited, and children certainly didn't call him "Daddy" and live to tell the tale. She expected him to draw a weapon, to summon his guards back, or to throw them both onto the cold winter streets.
Instead, Lorenzo slowly reached out, his calloused, powerful fingers gently brushing a stray curl of brown hair from Mia's forehead.
"She looks like you," Lorenzo said, his voice quiet, almost absent, as if he were speaking to a ghost. "Yet she has my eyes."
Alina’s breath hitched. "Sir, please. She’s only three. She doesn't know what she's saying. Children pick up words, they mix things up—"
"Do they?" Lorenzo cut her off smoothly, rising to his full, towering height. The casual warmth vanished, replaced instantly by the terrifying aura of the mafia boss who ruled the eastern seaboard. "Tell me, Alina, why would a child who has lived in the servants' quarters for six months wander into the most heavily guarded room in this house and look at me instead of a stranger?"
May you like
Alina swallowed hard, her mouth tasting like ash. "I... I don't know."
"Lying to me is a fatal error," Lorenzo stepped closer, casting a towering shadow over her. "You have thirty seconds to explain why my blood is running around my estate like a stray kitten before I decide whether to lock you in the basement or throw you both out to the wolves."
