Chapter 3 - MY BROTHER’S DAUGHTER
I did not sleep.
At sunrise, I stood outside the garden cottage while Chicago slowly turned gray beyond the estate walls.
Seven years.
That was how long Adrian had been dead.
Seven years since I identified what remained of him after the warehouse fire.
Seven years since I stood at his funeral and told myself grief was weakness.
Seven years of killing every part of me that remembered what it felt like to be someone’s older brother.
And all that time, he had a daughter.
Ten feet behind me, the cottage door opened.
Claire stepped onto the porch wrapped in a wool blanket.
“You should be in bed.”
“So should you.”
“I’m not sick.”
“No.”
Her voice was weak.
“Just angry.”
I turned.
She looked worse in daylight.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because Adrian told me not to.”
“He told you?”
“Before he died.”
My jaw tightened.
“Start at the beginning.”
Claire lowered herself into a wicker chair.
I stayed standing.
“Adrian and I met eight years ago.”
“Where?”
“At Northwestern Memorial.”
I frowned.
“He wasn’t sick.”
“No. I worked in medical records.”
That surprised me.
“You weren’t a housekeeper.”
“I’ve been a lot of things since then.”
She looked toward the garden.
“He came to the hospital after one of his men was hurt. I was working late. We talked.”
“Adrian talked to everyone.”
“He did.”
A tiny smile touched her mouth.
“He made people feel like they were the only person in the room.”
That sounded exactly like my brother.
Adrian had been warmth where I was discipline.
He remembered birthdays.
Names.
Waiters.
Doormen.
Children.
He could walk into a funeral and leave with three new friends.
I had spent seven years being angry at him for dying.
“When did you know what he was?”
“Two months later.”
“And you stayed.”
“For longer than I should have.”
“You loved him.”
Claire looked at me.
“Yes.”
The answer hurt more than I expected.
“Why hide Zoe?”
“Because three weeks before the warehouse fire, Adrian came to me terrified.”
“Adrian wasn’t afraid.”
“Yes, he was.”
I stared at her.
“He just didn’t show you.”
That landed harder than it should have.
“What scared him?”
“He had discovered someone inside your organization was selling information.”
“Keller?”
“I don’t know.”
“He never gave you a name?”
“He said he wasn’t sure.”
I looked toward the mansion.
“Then why tell you to disappear?”
“Because I was pregnant.”
The world seemed too quiet.
“He knew?”
“Yes.”
“And he told no one?”
“He wanted to tell you.”
“Then why didn’t he?”
“Because he thought someone was watching him.”
Claire pulled the blanket tighter.
“He gave me cash, a fake ID, and an address in Wisconsin. He told me if anything happened, I was never to contact the Romano family.”
“Why?”
“He said whoever killed him would watch you first.”
I sat across from her.
“Then why come here eight months ago?”
Her eyes dropped.
“Because I ran out of money.”
“That’s not enough.”
“No.”
She breathed slowly.
“Someone found us.”
My body went still.
“When?”
“Last year.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“What happened?”
“We were living outside Madison. I came home from work and our apartment door was open.”
“Anything stolen?”
“No.”
“What was moved?”
Claire looked at me.
“Zoe’s baby photographs.”
Cold traveled through me.
“They wanted you to know.”
“Yes.”
“So you came to Chicago.”
“I thought the safest place was somewhere no one would expect.”
“My house.”
“I used another name.”
“Apparently not well enough.”
“No.”
I leaned back.
“Who hired you?”
“Mrs. Russo.”
The mansion’s longtime housekeeper.
Teresa Russo had worked for my family since before Adrian was born.
She had interviewed Claire and accepted her without telling me.
That deserved a conversation.
“Did Teresa know?”
“Not at first.”
“At first?”
Claire nodded.
“She figured it out two months ago.”
“How?”
“Zoe found one of Adrian’s photographs.”
I closed my eyes briefly.
“And Teresa said nothing to me.”
“I begged her.”
“Why?”
“Because you frighten me.”
At least she was honest.
“You think I would hurt Adrian’s child?”
“No.”
She hesitated.
“I thought you might take her.”
That stunned me.
“What?”
“You’re Luca Romano.”
“I’m aware.”
“You have power. Lawyers. Money. A family name. I had nothing.”
Claire’s voice cracked.
“If you decided Zoe belonged with the Romanos, what exactly was I supposed to do?”
I stared at her.
“I would never take a child from her mother.”
“You don’t know what desperate people imagine.”
No.
I did.
I simply did not enjoy hearing it.
From inside came a small cough.
Both of us turned.
Zoe stood in the doorway.
Her hair was tangled.
Her teddy bear dragged from one hand.
“Why are you mad at Mama?”
Claire’s face changed immediately.
“I’m okay, sweetheart.”
Zoe looked at me.
“You yelling?”
“No.”
“Your face is yelling.”
Against every possible expectation, I laughed.
Claire stared at me.
Zoe seemed pleased with herself.
Then she walked onto the porch and climbed onto her mother’s lap.
Claire winced from the effort but held her anyway.
I looked at them.
Family.
My brother’s family.
A family he had hidden because he believed being connected to us could kill them.
Maybe he had been right.
“Zoe,” I said.
She looked at me.
“Did your mother ever show you a picture of your father?”
Claire stiffened.
Zoe nodded.
“He’s in Mama’s blue box.”
“Do you know his name?”
She thought.
“Adrian.”
My throat tightened.
“What did Mama tell you about him?”
“That he made pancakes wrong.”
Claire smiled through tears.
“He did.”
“And he sang bad.”
“He absolutely did.”
“And he went to heaven before I came.”
Her voice became smaller.
I looked away.
Adrian had never known this child.
Never held her.
Never watched her destroy expensive shoes.
Never heard her hum while she worked.
Zoe tilted her head.
“You knew him?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
I looked at Claire.
She did not stop me.
“He was my brother.”
Zoe went completely still.
Then she whispered, “You’re my uncle?”
The word hit somewhere I had no armor.
“Yes.”
She stared at me for several seconds.
“Like Uncle in cartoons?”
“I don’t watch cartoons.”
Her expression became deeply disappointed.
Claire covered a smile.
“Then what do uncles do?”
I had no idea.
Adrian and I had no nieces or nephews.
I ran companies.
Settled wars.
Buried enemies.
I could negotiate a million-dollar contract without notes.
But one six-year-old had just asked a question that left me helpless.
“I suppose I’ll learn.”
Zoe considered that.
Then she slid off Claire’s lap and came toward me.
I expected a question.
Instead, she wrapped both arms around my neck.
I froze.
Completely.
Claire covered her mouth.
Zoe whispered, “Now Mama can’t lose our house?”
My eyes closed.
“No.”
“Promise?”
I remembered the cabinet.
The red crayon.
The darkness.
“Yes.”
She released me.
“Okay.”
Simple as that.
Children believe promises until adults teach them not to.
I intended to make sure she never learned that lesson from me.
By noon, Claire was sleeping under the doctor’s supervision.
Zoe ate pancakes in my kitchen.
She declared mine worse than Adrian’s, which felt statistically impossible.
Then Marco entered.
His face told me the morning had become more dangerous.
“Keller talked.”
I looked at Zoe.
Marco understood.
“Office.”
We moved to the study.
I closed the door.
“What did he say?”
“He claims he wasn’t selling you to an enemy family.”
“What was he doing?”
“Helping someone get inside the estate.”
“Who?”
“He refuses to name them.”
“Then he hasn’t talked.”
“He gave us something else.”
Marco placed a photograph on the desk.
An old surveillance image.
Adrian.
Alive.
Taken six days before the warehouse fire.
Standing outside a restaurant with Keller.
I stared at it.
“Dante said Adrian approached him first.”
“For what?”
“To investigate someone inside the family.”
I looked up.
“Keller was working with Adrian?”
“According to him.”
“Then why betray me now?”
Marco’s face hardened.
“Because he says Adrian left instructions.”
“What instructions?”
“If anyone ever discovered Zoe, Keller was supposed to move Claire and the child before the wrong person reached them.”
I stared at him.
“By opening my gate to armed men?”
“That’s the problem.”
Marco placed another photograph beside the first.
Captured last night from a traffic camera.
One of the cars waiting outside the estate.
The passenger in the rear seat had turned toward the window.
Older now.
But recognizable.
My heart stopped.
“No.”
Marco said nothing.
I picked up the photograph.
The man had Adrian’s eyes.
Adrian’s nose.
A scar above his eyebrow from when I pushed him through a greenhouse door at sixteen.
Impossible.
I had buried my brother.
I had stood beside his coffin.
But the man outside my gate looked exactly like him.
Marco spoke quietly.
“Keller says the people outside weren’t there to kill you.”
I looked up.
“What did they want?”
“He says they came to collect Zoe.”
I stared at my dead brother’s face in the photograph.
“Why?”
Marco swallowed.
May you like
“Because Adrian Romano may not have died seven years ago.”
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