Chapter 4 - Old Blood, New War
Naomi saw Marco again two days later.
Not by choice.
She had left her apartment before sunrise, wearing a baseball cap, oversized coat, and sunglasses despite the gray February sky. She had planned to meet Julie at a coffee shop in Astoria, where Lily was supposed to be eating pancakes and watching cartoons.
Instead, she found a black SUV parked across the street.
Marco stood beside it.
No bodyguards visible.
No dramatic entourage.
Just Marco in a dark wool coat, his black hair damp from rain, his face harder than she remembered and more tired than she expected.
For one impossible second, Naomi forgot how to hate him.
Then she remembered everything.
“You found me,” she said.
His gaze swept over her face like he was trying to memorize every feature he had lost.
“I did.”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“I know.”
“You have exactly thirty seconds before I call the police.”
Marco nodded. “Fair.”
Naomi folded her arms.
He took one step closer, then stopped when she stiffened.
“I didn’t know,” he said.
She laughed once, sharp and humorless. “That’s your opening line?”
“I didn’t know you were pregnant. I didn’t know you were alive. I didn’t know my father threatened you.”
“Your father is dead.”
“Yes.”
“And yet somehow he still controls every conversation we have.”
Marco looked down for a moment.
When he looked back up, his eyes were raw.
“I spent five years thinking you died because of me.”
Naomi’s anger faltered despite herself.
“You thought I died?”
“I was sent proof.”
“By who?”
“I don’t know. But I will.”
She stared at him.
Marco had always been dangerous. That was no secret. But there was a difference between the man she remembered and the one standing before her now.
The old Marco had been ambitious, guarded, magnetic.
This Marco looked like a man who had lost something sacred and only just discovered it had been stolen.
“You don’t get to make me feel sorry for you,” Naomi said quietly.
“I’m not asking you to.”
“Good.”
“I’m asking you to let me protect Lily.”
Naomi’s expression hardened again.
“You don’t get to claim her because you suddenly found out she exists.”
“She’s my daughter.”
“She’s my daughter too.”
“I know.”
“No, Marco. You don’t.” Her voice cracked despite her effort. “You don’t know what it was like to raise her alone. You don’t know what it was like when she had a fever at two in the morning and I had no one to call. You don’t know what it was like when she asked why other kids had dads at school events. You don’t know what it was like to tell her that her father loved her when I didn’t even know if that was true.”
Marco took the words without defending himself.
That made it worse.
“I would have been there,” he said.
Naomi’s eyes filled with tears. “But you weren’t.”
The silence between them stretched.
Then Marco’s phone rang.
He checked the screen and his face changed.
Luca.
“Tell me,” Marco said.
Naomi watched his expression turn colder with every second.
“What happened?” she demanded.
Marco ended the call.
“Julie’s apartment was broken into.”
Naomi’s heart stopped.
“Lily?”
“Safe. Luca moved them before anyone got inside.”
“Who did it?”
“We don’t know.”
Naomi stepped back, panic rising fast. “This is because of you.”
“It’s because someone knows Lily exists.”
“This is your world.”
“Yes.”
“And you brought it to us.”
“No,” Marco said, his voice suddenly fierce. “My father brought it to you five years ago. I’m trying to end it.”
Naomi wanted to scream at him.
Instead, she saw the truth in his face.
Fear.
Not for himself.
For Lily.
Marco’s phone buzzed again. He read the message, then handed the phone to Naomi.
A photograph filled the screen.
It showed Lily leaving the airport with Julie.
Taken from far too close.
Below it was a message.
The daughter belongs to the bloodline. Bring Naomi Ellis to Brooklyn by midnight. Come alone, Marco. Or the little girl disappears.
Naomi’s knees nearly gave out.
Marco caught her elbow before she fell.
She jerked away immediately, but not before she felt the familiar warmth of his hand.
“You can’t go,” she whispered.
“I have to.”
“It’s a trap.”
“Yes.”
“They’ll kill you.”
“Maybe.”
Naomi stared at him.
Five years ago, she had thought he left because she and their unborn child were not worth fighting for.
Now he was prepared to walk into a trap for a child he had known for forty-eight hours.
Her heart hated him for making her doubt herself.
“What do they want?” she asked.
Marco’s gaze went distant.
“My father’s old lieutenant, Salvatore Rizzo. He believes the Moretti family belongs to him now.”
“And Lily?”
“Lily is leverage.”
Naomi’s face crumpled with rage. “She is not a weapon.”
“No,” Marco said. “She isn’t.”
Then he looked at her with an intensity that made the world narrow around them.
“She’s our daughter.”
The word our broke something open inside her.
Before Naomi could answer, a car door opened behind them.
Luca stepped out.
“Boss,” he said. “We need to move.”
Marco didn’t look away from Naomi.
“I can get you both somewhere safe.”
Naomi shook her head. “I don’t trust you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Then why should I come with you?”
“Because whoever sent that message already knows where Julie lives.”
Naomi’s breath trembled.
Marco lowered his voice.
“You can hate me later. You can leave after this is over. You can tell Lily I’m the worst man alive if that’s what you need.”
His eyes dropped for a second.
“But please don’t make the mistake of thinking I won’t burn down every piece of my father’s old world to keep her safe.”
Naomi looked at the black SUV.
At Marco.
At the city around them.
Then she stepped toward the car.
Not because she trusted him.
Not yet.
But because a mother would walk through hell for her child.
May you like
And Marco Moretti was offering to lead the way.
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