Chapter 4 - The House on the River
Theo was crying.
Not loudly.
That made it worse.
He clung to Matteo’s coat with both hands, his small body shaking as Matteo crouched over him near the diner counter. Rosie had ducked behind the register. Two customers were on the floor near the window, one of them bleeding from a cut on his forehead.
The bullet had missed Theo by less than a foot.
Less than a foot.
I could not breathe.
“Elise!” Rosie called. “Are you hurt?”
I looked down at myself.
There was glass in my hair. A shallow cut ran across my forearm. My hands were trembling so badly that I could barely close them.
But I was standing.
Theo was alive.
That was all that mattered.
Matteo’s men moved through the diner with frightening efficiency. One stood at the broken entrance. Another spoke urgently into an earpiece. A third checked the back alley.
I recognized the man with the earpiece.
Luca Bianchi.
Matteo’s longtime head of security.
Six years ago, Luca had been the one who drove me to doctors’ appointments when Matteo was unavailable. He had once brought me a bag of lemon cookies from a bakery in Little Italy because he overheard me say I missed them.
Now he saw me and went pale.
“Mara,” he said.
“Don’t,” I whispered.
His eyes moved toward Theo.
Then toward Matteo.
Understanding crossed his face.
“Oh.”
Matteo stood slowly, Theo still in his arms.
“Who fired?” he asked.
Luca’s expression hardened.
“Dark SUV. No plate. We’re pulling surrounding camera footage.”
“Find them.”
“Already working on it.”
Matteo looked at me.
“We need to leave.”
“No.”
His eyebrows drew together.
“No?” he repeated.
“I’m not leaving with you.”
“A gunman just fired into this diner.”
“And going anywhere with you will make it worse.”
“Mara.”
“Don’t use that name.”
His voice lowered.
“They know you are here.”
“Maybe they were shooting at you.”
“No.” Matteo’s gaze shifted to Theo. “They were shooting at him.”
The words made me cold.
The diner seemed to disappear around me. The screaming customers, the shattered window, the smell of rain and gunpowder—all of it faded behind one awful thought.
Someone knew Theo existed.
Someone had waited until Matteo found us.
Someone had decided to send a message.
Theo lifted his face from Matteo’s shoulder.
“Mommy?”
I reached for him.
Matteo handed him to me carefully.
My son wrapped his arms around my neck so tightly that I could barely swallow.
“Was that thunder?” he whispered.
I closed my eyes.
“Yes,” I lied. “Just very loud thunder.”
Matteo watched me.
He knew it was a lie.
But he said nothing.
Outside, police sirens grew louder.
Luca stepped beside Matteo.
“Police will be here in two minutes. We have a vehicle ready through the back.”
“I’m not running from the police,” I said.
Matteo looked at the front of the diner.
“I’m not worried about the police.”
His phone rang.
He checked the screen.
His expression changed.
“Who is it?” I asked.
He did not answer.
“Matteo.”
He showed me the screen.
Unknown number.
Then he answered and put it on speaker.
A distorted male voice filled the room.
“You found your family quickly.”
Matteo’s face became ice.
“Who are you?”
“Someone who has waited a long time for you to remember what loss feels like.”
Theo buried his face in my shoulder.
Matteo’s hand went to the back of Theo’s head, protective without asking permission.
“If you want something,” Matteo said, “say it.”
“I want you to suffer.”
The voice sounded almost amused.
“You stole six years from me, Vieri. Now I will take everything you have left.”
The call ended.
Luca immediately began tracing the signal.
Matteo stared at the phone.
Then he looked at me.
“This was not random.”
“No,” I said.
He stepped closer.
“Who knew you were pregnant?”
My mind raced.
No one.
I had told no one except the doctor at a private clinic. I had not even told my best friend, because Matteo’s world had taught me that information was power and power was dangerous.
Then I remembered.
The night I disappeared.
The note.
The envelope of cash.
And the name printed at the bottom of the burner phone message.
Not a full name.
Just an initial.
R.
I had never told Matteo because I had believed telling him would get him killed.
But now Theo had been targeted.
The secret had already failed.
“There was a message,” I said quietly.
Matteo’s eyes narrowed.
“What message?”
“Six years ago. The night I left.”
Luca stopped moving.
I continued, though every word felt like a betrayal of the life I had been trying to protect.
“Someone told me to disappear. They said if I stayed, you would die. They said they knew I was pregnant.”
Matteo’s face changed.
“Who sent it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said there was an initial.”
I stared at him.
He remembered everything.
Even the details I had not spoken yet.
“R,” I whispered.
Matteo went still.
Luca looked at him sharply.
“Matteo,” he said carefully, “that could mean—”
“I know what it could mean.”
“Who?” I demanded.
Matteo did not answer.
“Who is R?”
His silence gave me the answer before he said it.
“Raffaele Moretti,” Luca murmured.
I had heard the name once.
Years ago.
Never directly from Matteo.
Only whispered by frightened staff after a charity gala: Moretti is back in the city. Vieri won’t like it.
Matteo looked at me.
“Raffaele Moretti was my father’s partner.”
“Was?”
“He disappeared fourteen years ago.”
“And now?”
“And now,” Matteo said, looking toward the rain-dark street, “he may have come back for revenge.”
Police lights flashed across the diner windows.
Matteo’s security team formed a tight circle around us.
Theo looked up at me.
“Mommy, are we going home?”
I looked at the small apartment we had left that morning.
The cracked blue mug on the counter.
Theo’s school backpack by the door.
The secondhand couch where we watched cartoons on Saturdays.
The quiet little life I had fought so hard to build.
Then I looked at the broken glass in Booth Seven.
At the bullet hole.
At Matteo.
“No,” I said softly.
Not because I wanted to return to Matteo’s world.
But because that world had already found us.
May you like
“We’re not going home.”
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