Chapter 2 - THE QUESTION DAMIAN COULD NOT ANSWER
“Do you have any children?”
Damian Conti had been asked questions by prosecutors, rival bosses, federal agents, and men who believed they were about to die.
None had ever made him hesitate like that.
The black sedan moved through Manhattan traffic while rain traced silver lines down the windows. The little girl sat beside him in a booster seat Nico had somehow acquired in less than ten minutes. Her mop and blue bucket were in the trunk. The ridiculous yellow gloves remained on her hands because she had refused to remove them.
Damian looked at her.
“What’s your name?”
She blinked.
“You didn’t ask before.”
“No.”
“My mama says that’s rude.”
From the front passenger seat, Nico looked straight ahead with heroic discipline.
Damian ignored him.
“You’re right.”
The little girl considered whether the apology was sufficient.
“Lily.”
“Lily what?”
“Lily Monroe.”
Something in Nico’s posture changed.
Damian noticed.
“You know the name?”
“No.”
“You moved.”
“I have a bad back.”
“You’re thirty-nine.”
“Ancient.”
Lily giggled.
Damian almost did too.
Then she repeated her question.
“Do you have children?”
His amusement vanished.
“No.”
“Why?”
He looked out the window.
“No reason.”
“That’s not a reason.”
Nico coughed.
Damian stared at the back of his head.
Lily leaned closer.
“You don’t like kids?”
Three months earlier, he could have answered immediately.
No.
Children were loud, sticky, unpredictable, and impossible to negotiate with.
Instead he said, “I don’t know.”
Lily nodded as though this was reasonable.
“I like me.”
“That is useful.”
“Mama likes me too.”
Damian looked at her.
“I’m sure she does.”
“She says I’m her best thing.”
The sentence struck somewhere beneath his ribs.
He did not respond.
The car stopped outside an aging brick apartment building in Washington Heights.
Damian stared at it.
“You live here?”
Lily nodded.
Third floor.
No elevator.
The hallway smelled like radiator heat, old cooking oil, and damp plaster.
By the time they reached apartment 3C, Lily was tugging Damian’s hand.
“Mama?”
She opened the door herself.
The apartment was small.
Clean.
Too cold.
A chipped blue mug sat on a crate beside the sofa.
Damian noticed it immediately.
Because Lily had mentioned nothing about it.
Yet somehow that tiny object looked exactly like something a woman with no money but too much pride would keep for years.
Then he saw her.
She lay curled beneath a thin blanket on the sofa.
Dark hair stuck to her forehead.
Skin pale.
Breathing shallow and fast.
Lily ran.
“Mama!”
The woman stirred.
Her eyes opened.
Then widened when she saw Damian Conti standing in her living room.
“No.”
Her voice was barely there.
Damian frowned.
“That’s an unusual greeting.”
She pushed herself up.
Failed.
“Lily, come here.”
“Mama, I got help.”
“I see that.”
The woman looked at Damian.
Fear entered her expression.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
Damian noticed.
“You know who I am.”
“Everyone knows.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
She looked away.
Damian crouched beside the sofa.
“What’s your name?”
“Claire Monroe.”
Nico was already calling a private physician.
Claire heard him.
“No hospital.”
Damian looked at her.
“You can’t breathe.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re lying.”
“I don’t have insurance.”
“That is irrelevant.”
“It isn’t to me.”
“It is today.”
She tried to sit again.
A violent cough bent her forward.
Lily began crying.
“Mama.”
Damian reacted before thinking.
He lifted Lily into his arms.
She buried her face against his shoulder.
Claire stared.
Perhaps because Damian Conti was holding her child.
Perhaps because he looked more frightened than she did.
The private doctor arrived twenty-three minutes later.
Pneumonia.
Severe dehydration.
Oxygen dangerously low.
Another twelve hours without treatment might have put Claire in intensive care.
Damian listened in silence.
Then said, “Move her.”
Claire immediately protested.
“No.”
The doctor looked confused.
Damian didn’t.
“You need care.”
“I can recover here.”
“Not in this apartment.”
“It’s my apartment.”
“Your heat barely works.”
“It works.”
Lily whispered, “Sometimes.”
Claire closed her eyes.
Damian almost smiled.
“Traitor,” Claire murmured.
Lily hugged him tighter.
The doctor suggested a private clinic.
Claire refused again.
Damian stared at her.
“Why are you afraid to leave?”
Her eyes snapped toward him.
“I’m not.”
“You were afraid when you saw me.”
“You’re Damian Conti.”
“That explains common sense, not this.”
Her face hardened.
“You don’t know me.”
“No.”
“Then stop acting like you do.”
He should have become angry.
Instead, Damian sat on the coffee table.
“Fine.”
She looked surprised.
“Tell me what I don’t know.”
“I don’t owe you my life story because you happen to employ me.”
“No.”
He nodded toward Lily.
“But she walked into my house carrying a mop because she thought you might die.”
Claire’s face broke.
She looked toward her daughter.
Lily slipped from Damian’s arms and crawled beside her mother.
“I was helping.”
Claire kissed her hair.
“I know, baby.”
Damian looked away.
He had seen men shot without feeling what he felt watching that.
The doctor interrupted.
“She needs oxygen and antibiotics now.”
Claire closed her eyes.
Damian said quietly, “Come to my house.”
Her eyes opened.
“No.”
“Medical staff can treat you there.”
“No hospital records.”
Her expression changed.
Too late.
Damian caught it.
“Why are hospital records a problem?”
“They’re not.”
“Another lie.”
Nico ended his phone call.
“Boss.”
Damian looked up.
Nico’s expression had changed completely.
“What?”
He glanced at Claire.
Then Lily.
“We need to talk privately.”
Damian stood.
The two men stepped into the hallway.
Nico lowered his voice.
“I ran Monroe.”
“And?”
“Claire Monroe doesn’t exist before four years ago.”
Damian’s eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“Social Security record begins late. No school history. No employment before New York.”
“Fake identity.”
“Looks like it.”
Damian looked through the open door.
Claire held Lily beneath the blanket.
“What else?”
Nico hesitated.
“The address flagged in an old surveillance file.”
“Whose?”
Nico stared at him.
“Luciano Vescari.”
Damian went still.
Vescari.
The one rival who had managed to survive every war Damian’s father started.
The man who controlled the remaining docks Damian had failed to take.
The man Damian had humiliated six months earlier by cutting off access to three shipping unions.
“What connection?”
“We don’t know.”
Damian’s expression hardened.
Then Nico added, “But I found another name.”
“What name?”
“Claire Rossi.”
Damian stopped breathing.
He knew Rossi.
Not Claire.
Her father.
Anthony Rossi had been Vescari’s accountant fifteen years earlier.
He disappeared after stealing financial records rumored to contain evidence enough to bury half the Vescari organization.
Everyone assumed he was dead.
Nico continued.
“Claire Rossi was his daughter.”
Damian looked back toward the apartment.
The sick maid.
The child.
The fake name.
The fear of hospitals.
The gates she desperately needed.
He understood enough to become dangerous.
“Who is Lily’s father?”
Nico shook his head.
“Unknown.”
Damian went back inside.
Claire saw his face and knew.
“What did you find?”
“Your real name.”
She went pale.
Lily looked between them.
Damian kept his voice low.
“Claire Rossi.”
Her eyes filled.
“Please.”
“Why is Vescari looking for you?”
She stared.
“He isn’t.”
“Your building is in an old Vescari surveillance file.”
“That was years ago.”
“He knows you’re alive?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does he know about Lily?”
Claire’s silence answered.
Damian’s jaw tightened.
“Pack a bag.”
“No.”
“Claire.”
“You do not understand.”
“Then explain.”
She looked at Lily.
Then at Damian.
“When my father disappeared, he left something behind.”
“What?”
“A ledger.”
Damian went completely still.
The Vescari ledger.
Men had died trying to find it.
Claire whispered:
“I know where it is.”
Nico swore softly.
Damian stared.
“And Vescari knows you know.”
“Yes.”
“Then why the hell were you cleaning my house under a false name?”
Claire looked toward her daughter.
“Because no one would search for Anthony Rossi’s daughter inside Damian Conti’s mansion.”
For the first time that day, Damian had no answer.
Then his phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
A familiar older voice said:
“Enjoying your new maid, Damian?”
Luciano Vescari.
Damian’s blood turned cold.
“You have something that belongs to me.”
Damian looked at Claire.
Then Lily.
“Do I?”
Vescari laughed softly.
“The woman can keep her father’s memories.”
A pause.
“I want the book.”
The call ended.
Claire closed her eyes.
Damian stared at the phone.
Three months earlier, Lily had asked whether he had children.
Now he understood the real answer.
Not by blood.
Not yet.
But if anyone came through that door for the frightened little girl clinging to her mother—
May you like
they were going to discover he had become something much more dangerous than a man with no weaknesses.
He had become a man with something to protect.
