Chapter 2 - The Boy With Storm’s Eyes
The lobby went silent.
Not quiet.
Silent.
The kind of silence that happened when everyone in the room understood something dangerous had just been spoken aloud.
Leo stood in front of Storm Moretti with his small hand stretched out, waiting patiently for his silver toy car. He had no idea that three men in black suits had moved toward the exits. He had no idea that his mother’s entire body had gone cold.
Storm looked down at him.
Then he looked at me.
“How old is this boy?” he asked again.
My throat tightened.
“Six,” I said.
Storm’s jaw flexed once.
Six years.
Exactly six years since I had signed away every trace of myself and disappeared from New York carrying a secret beneath my heart.
Leo frowned at Storm’s hand.
“My car,” he reminded him.
Storm blinked, as if the child’s voice had dragged him out of some violent thought. Slowly, he placed the silver toy car in Leo’s palm.
Leo inspected it carefully.
“You scratched it.”
Storm looked at the small mark along the side of the car.
“I did.”
“You should say sorry.”
One of Storm’s men shifted uncomfortably.
Nobody told Storm Moretti what to do.
Nobody.
But Storm lowered himself to one knee in front of my son.
“You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Leo studied him with the serious expression he wore whenever adults disappointed him.
Then he nodded once.
“Okay.”
I grabbed Leo’s hand.
“We have to go.”
Storm rose to his full height.
“No.”
The single word landed like a locked door.
My pulse began to race.
“I have a consultation scheduled,” I said, forcing my voice to stay steady. “Your office requested my company.”
“I know.”
“You knew I would be here?”
“I knew Juliet Carmichael was the designer assigned to the Dalton project. I did not know she had a six-year-old son with my face.”
The lobby felt suddenly too bright. Too exposed.
I crouched beside Leo and placed both hands on his shoulders.
“Sweetheart, go sit on that sofa with Mr. Luca.”
Leo looked at the man standing nearest to us.
“I don’t know Mr. Luca.”
“You do now,” Storm said.
Leo turned to me.
“Is he safe?”
The question broke something inside me.
I looked at Storm.
For six years, I had asked myself that same question.
Was he safe?
Was any part of the Moretti world safe?
“No,” I said quietly. “He is not.”
Storm’s eyes darkened.
But he did not argue.
Luca, one of Storm’s oldest guards, walked Leo toward the seating area. Leo held his silver car in one hand and looked back at me twice.
When he was far enough away, Storm stepped closer.
“You told him I was dead.”
“I told him what I had to tell him.”
“You told my son I was dead.”
I felt anger rise through my fear.
“You paid me to disappear.”
“I paid you to leave New York.”
“You said never contact you again.”
“I thought you were leaving because you hated me.”
“I was.”
Storm’s expression hardened.
“But that was not the whole truth,” I continued. “The whole truth was that I was pregnant, terrified, and smart enough to know what your life would do to a child.”
His eyes went still.
For the first time in my life, I saw Storm Moretti truly lose control.
Not loudly.
Not violently.
But his face drained of color, and the hand at his side curled into a fist.
“You were pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“And you hid my child from me for six years.”
“I protected him for six years.”
“From me?”
“From everything connected to you.”
A sharp sound came from behind us.
Storm’s younger brother, Matteo, had entered the lobby.
He looked from me to Leo, then to Storm.
“Oh,” he said.
That one word held shock, calculation, and immediate danger.
Storm turned toward him.
“Not a word.”
Matteo raised both hands. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“You were thinking it loudly.”
Matteo looked at Leo again.
The resemblance was undeniable.
Storm’s gray eyes.
Storm’s black hair.
Storm’s sharp cheekbones.
Even the way Leo stood with his chin raised, as if he refused to be intimidated by anyone.
Matteo’s expression changed from surprise to concern.
“Storm,” he said carefully, “if we can see it, others will too.”
I felt my stomach drop.
Storm looked toward his men.
“Lock down every camera feed from this lobby,” he ordered. “Erase visitor records from the last hour. No one leaves until I know who saw them.”
“No,” I snapped.
Storm turned toward me.
“You do not get to trap us in here.”
“You think this is about control?” he asked, his voice low. “Juliet, there are people who would kill to learn I have a son.”
“And whose fault is that?”
His gaze held mine.
Mine.
The word remained unspoken between us.
Storm finally looked away.
Then Leo called from the sofa.
“Mom?”
I walked to him immediately.
He was holding Luca’s phone.
“I drew something,” he said.
On the screen was a picture Leo had made using a children’s drawing app.
A tall black figure.
A smaller figure beside him.
And me between them.
Above the tall figure, Leo had written one word.
Dad?
My eyes filled with tears.
Storm stood several feet away, watching.
Leo looked up at me.
“Is that the man who gave me the car back?”
I swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Is he really my dad?”
Before I could answer, a gunshot cracked somewhere outside the hotel.
The windows shook.
Guests screamed.
Storm’s men drew weapons.
And Storm grabbed Leo into his arms with one swift movement.
“Everybody down,” he ordered.
Then he looked at me.
May you like
“Someone already knows.”
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