Chapter 2 - THE LOCKET ELENA LEFT BEHIND
The second explosion blew out three windows on the east side of the mansion.
I screamed and threw myself over Lily.
Victor Moretti caught both of us before we hit the marble floor.
“Down.”
His voice was no longer cold.
It was lethal.
Men in black suits rushed through the hallway as another burst of gunfire rattled against the front gates.
Victor pulled me behind a thick stone column.
Lily began crying.
That frightened me more than the bullets.
Her cry was weak.
Thin.
Almost exhausted.
“Please,” I whispered. “She’s sick.”
Victor looked toward the doctor.
“Get them downstairs.”
The physician grabbed his medical bag.
One of Victor’s men appeared from the corridor.
“Boss, west gate is compromised.”
“How many?”
“Eight, maybe ten.”
“Rinaldi?”
“Looks like them.”
Victor’s face hardened.
I clutched Lily tighter.
“Who are the Rinaldis?”
Victor looked at me.
“People who should not know your daughter exists.”
That answer made no sense.
“I’m a cleaner.”
“No.”
His eyes dropped to the silver locket.
“You’re Elena Rossi’s daughter.”
“Yes.”
“That makes you something very different.”
Before I could ask what, Victor grabbed my arm.
“Move.”
We ran.
A hidden door behind the library opened into a narrow staircase descending beneath the mansion.
I had cleaned houses for wealthy people before.
None had bunkers.
The room below had steel walls, monitors, medical supplies, weapons, and enough food to survive a siege.
The doctor laid Lily on a leather couch.
I immediately went beside her.
Victor stayed near the door.
“Temperature?”
“One hundred three point six,” the doctor answered.
My chest tightened.
“She needs a hospital.”
“Roads aren’t secure,” Victor said.
I turned on him.
“I don’t care about your roads. My daughter needs help.”
His eyes snapped toward mine.
For half a second, I remembered who I was shouting at.
The most feared man in New York.
Then Lily coughed.
I stopped caring.
“If she gets worse because your enemies are outside, I swear to God, Victor Moretti, I will carry her through those gates myself.”
Everyone in the room went silent.
Victor stared at me.
Then something strange happened.
He nodded.
“Doctor?”
“She needs fluids, medication, and monitoring. I can stabilize her here.”
“How long?”
“If it’s viral, we should see improvement within several hours.”
Victor looked toward one of his men.
“Bring everything he asks for.”
“Yes, boss.”
Only then did Victor turn back to me.
“Lily comes first.”
I didn’t know whether to thank him or hate him.
So I did neither.
I sat beside my daughter while the doctor placed a tiny IV in her arm.
She cried softly.
“Mommy.”
“I’m here.”
Her fingers closed around mine.
Victor watched.
Not like a crime boss.
Like a man seeing something he had lost a long time ago.
When Lily finally fell asleep, I stood.
“Now tell me.”
Victor did not pretend he misunderstood.
“Where did Elena get the locket?”
“She said it belonged to her family.”
“When did she give it to you?”
“Before she died.”
His jaw tightened.
“How?”
“Cancer.”
Victor went completely still.
“What?”
“My mother died of cancer six years ago.”
“That’s not possible.”
I stared at him.
“You keep saying that.”
“Because Elena Rossi was reported dead twenty-seven years ago.”
I laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“My mother was very much alive after that.”
Victor stepped closer.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-six.”
Every trace of color left his face.
The room changed.
I felt it.
Marco, the tall man near the monitors, turned slowly toward Victor.
Victor stared at me.
“When is your birthday?”
“March fourteenth.”
His breathing stopped.
“Year?”
I told him.
Marco whispered something under his breath.
I became angry.
“What?”
Victor walked toward a chair but did not sit.
“Elena disappeared in June.”
“So?”
“She disappeared nine months before you were born.”
My skin prickled.
“No.”
He looked at the locket.
Then at me.
“Elena and I were together.”
I stepped backward.
“No.”
“Hannah.”
“Don’t.”
My mother had told me almost nothing about my father.
Only that he was gone.
That he came from a dangerous family.
That loving him had cost too much.
As a child, I imagined he had abandoned us.
As an adult, I stopped asking.
Victor’s voice became quiet.
“She never told me she was pregnant.”
“That doesn’t make you my father.”
“No.”
He looked devastated.
“It doesn’t.”
I crossed my arms.
“Then what happened twenty-seven years ago?”
Victor looked toward the steel door.
“My father discovered Elena and I were planning to leave New York.”
“Why?”
“My family and the Rossis had been enemies for years.”
I stared at him.
“You’re saying my mother was from another crime family?”
“Her father controlled the docks in Red Hook.”
I almost laughed.
My mother had clipped grocery coupons.
She worked at a public library.
She hated driving over the speed limit.
“She was a librarian.”
“She became one after she disappeared.”
Victor looked toward Lily.
“But before that, Elena Rossi was the only daughter of Matteo Rossi.”
“Who was he?”
“The man my father hated most.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Victor continued.
“Elena wanted out. So did I.”
“You?”
A faint, bitter smile touched his mouth.
“I wasn’t always this.”
“What stopped you?”
“My older brother found out.”
“What happened?”
“A warehouse burned.”
His voice changed.
“I was told Elena was inside.”
My anger faded slightly.
“You thought she died.”
“I watched them carry out a body wearing her bracelet.”
Silence.
“For twenty-seven years, I believed my decision to run away with her got her killed.”
I touched the locket.
“Then why are people shooting at Lily?”
Victor looked at Marco.
Marco stepped forward.
“There was something hidden inside Elena’s family after the fire.”
“What?”
“A ledger.”
Victor answered this time.
“Names, accounts, politicians, judges, cops, businessmen. Evidence connecting three families to crimes going back decades.”
“What does that have to do with my baby?”
“Elena’s father arranged a dead-man inheritance.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The ledger could only be claimed by his bloodline.”
I shook my head.
“My mother never mentioned any ledger.”
“She wouldn’t have.”
“Why?”
“Because people would kill for it.”
A loud metallic sound came from the security monitor.
Marco leaned toward the screen.
“Boss.”
Victor looked.
One attacker had reached the inner courtyard.
He held something up toward a camera.
A photograph.
Marco enlarged the image.
My stomach dropped.
It was me.
Leaving my Brooklyn apartment three days earlier.
Holding Lily.
Someone had written across the photograph in black marker.
LAST ROSSI HEIR.
I felt sick.
“No.”
Victor stared at it.
“They’ve been watching you.”
“How long?”
“We’ll find out.”
I grabbed his sleeve.
“No. You tell me why they called Lily the heir.”
Victor’s eyes moved to mine.
“Because if Elena was your mother and I’m your father, then you carry both bloodlines.”
“That still makes me the heir.”
He shook his head.
“Not under Matteo Rossi’s trust.”
“What trust?”
“The inheritance passes to the youngest living descendant once the previous generation has a child.”
My mouth went dry.
I looked at Lily.
Eight months old.
Sleeping under a white blanket while medicine dripped into her tiny hand.
Victor’s voice dropped.
“The moment Lily was born, whatever Elena’s father hid became legally hers.”
I stared at him.
“So they want money?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“They want what the trust protects.”
“And where is it?”
His gaze dropped to the silver locket around Lily’s neck.
Victor walked closer.
“May I?”
My entire body resisted.
But slowly, I unclasped it.
Victor turned the locket over.
The symbol on the back looked like a rose wrapped around a sword.
He pressed the center.
Nothing happened.
Then he twisted the outer rim.
Click.
A tiny compartment opened.
Inside was a narrow piece of metal no larger than a fingernail.
Marco cursed.
“What is that?”
Victor stared at it.
“A bank key.”
My pulse hammered.
“To where?”
Victor looked at me.
“Your mother didn’t give you jewelry, Hannah.”
Outside, another burst of gunfire shattered the winter night.
Victor closed his fist around the tiny key.
May you like
“She gave you the reason she spent twenty-seven years hiding.”
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