Chapter 5 - Locker 418
Union Station was crowded, bright, and too public for the kind of fear I felt.
Dominic had wanted to send men without us.
I refused.
“If there’s something connected to the baby, I want to know.”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“I know.”
That surprised him.
I think Dominic Moretti was used to people obeying fear. He did not know what to do with someone who had already survived the worst thing life could do to her.
Locker 418 was in a forgotten corridor near the old baggage area.
Dominic opened it with Bianca’s silver key.
Inside was a phone.
A photograph.
And a small stuffed lion.
The same kind of lion Matteo had in his bassinet.
I picked up the photograph first.
It showed Dominic standing beside a man who looked like him—same dark hair, same sharp features, same cold eyes.
But the man in the photo was smiling.
“Victor,” Dominic said.
“What happened to him?”
Dominic’s voice dropped. “Ten years ago, Victor disappeared after trying to take control of the family business.”
“Disappeared?”
“In our world, that usually means dead.”
The phone rang.
All of us froze.
Dominic answered.
A distorted voice spoke through the speaker.
“Hello, little brother.”
Dominic’s face went white.
“Victor.”
I could hear the smile in the other man’s voice.
“You kept my name buried for ten years. I almost admire that.”
“You’re alive.”
“Disappointed?”
“What do you want?”
“Everything you took.”
“I took nothing.”
“You took Father’s loyalty. His money. His men. His city.”
“I took responsibility after you tried to kill him.”
The voice went quiet.
Then colder.
“And now I’ll take what matters to you.”
Dominic’s hand tightened around the phone.
“If you come near my son—”
“Oh, I already did.”
My stomach dropped.
Victor continued. “The tablet was a warning. The next one will not be.”
The call ended.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Then the station lights flickered.
One of Dominic’s guards turned sharply.
“Boss.”
A man in a baseball cap stood at the far end of the corridor.
He raised a gun.
Dominic shoved me down.
The shot hit the locker above us.
People screamed and ran.
Dominic’s men fired back, but the shooter vanished into the crowd.
I was on the floor, my hands over my head, shaking so violently I could barely breathe.
Dominic crouched beside me.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
He searched my face, his own full of something I had not seen before.
Guilt.
“This is why Bianca told you to leave,” he said.
I looked at the bullet hole in the locker.
Then at him.
“No,” I said quietly. “This is why I can’t.”
Dominic stared at me.
“Your brother tried to kill a newborn. If I leave, he will find someone else to hurt. Someone else will miss what I saw.”
“You don’t understand what you’re choosing.”
“I understand exactly what I’m choosing.”
I stood.
“I’m choosing Matteo.”
May you like
For the first time, Dominic Moretti looked afraid of losing someone who was not his son.
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