Chapter 7 - The Secret in the Blood
“Move!” Detective Morales shouted.
Luca’s team rushed into the warehouse from both sides. The radio exploded with voices, commands, and the sound of boots striking concrete.
I was already out of the van.
“Ma’am, stay back!” one officer yelled.
I ignored him.
For six years, I had run because I believed survival meant disappearing. But I was done disappearing.
Inside the warehouse, emergency lights flickered red.
Matteo stood near the table, one hand pressed against his shoulder. Blood stained his shirt.
“Matteo!” I ran toward him.
He turned.
“I’m fine.”
“You are bleeding.”
“It missed anything important.”
“That is not how bullets work.”
Luca appeared from behind a shipping crate.
“Moretti escaped through the east loading bay,” he said. “We have units after him.”
Matteo looked toward the open doors.
“No,” he said. “He wanted us here.”
A distant engine roared outside.
Then Detective Morales’ radio crackled.
“Possible secondary target. River house perimeter breached.”
I stopped breathing.
“Theo,” I whispered.
Matteo’s face changed.
The SUV ride back felt longer than any road should be.
Matteo refused medical treatment until we reached the house. Luca applied pressure to his shoulder while he gave orders into two phones at once.
“Get Sofia and Theo into the panic room.”
“Seal the gates.”
“Check every camera.”
“Find out who breached the perimeter.”
Nobody spoke to me.
But I was watching Matteo.
He kept looking at the dinosaur Theo had lent him. Rex sat on the seat beside him, one plastic arm raised as if he could fight an army.
Matteo picked it up.
His fingers closed around it.
“He asked if I would come back,” Matteo said quietly.
“You will.”
“I promised him.”
“You will keep it.”
His eyes met mine.
For the first time, I saw fear unguarded in his face.
Not fear for himself.
For Theo.
When we reached the river house, the front gate was bent inward. Two security vehicles had been damaged. One guard sat on the ground while a medic treated a wound on his forehead.
Luca ran ahead.
“Where are they?” Matteo demanded.
“Panic room,” the guard said. “Sofia got Theo inside before the men reached the house.”
“Did they take anything?”
The guard hesitated.
“One of them got into Mr. Vieri’s office.”
Matteo went still.
“What was in there?”
“Nothing visible. The safe was untouched.”
But Matteo was already moving.
In the office, the drawers had been opened. Files scattered across the floor. A painting hung crookedly above the fireplace.
Then Matteo walked to the wall and pressed his hand against the frame.
A hidden compartment opened.
Inside was an old wooden box.
Empty.
“What was in it?” I asked.
Matteo’s expression became unreadable.
“My father’s records.”
“Medical records?”
He nodded.
I understood.
Moretti had not come for money.
He had come for proof.
For blood.
For the secret that Matteo had been told his whole life: that he could never have a child.
A secret that had shaped every choice he made.
A soft sound came from the hallway.
“Theo wants you.”
Sofia stood near the door. Her face was pale, but steady.
Matteo walked quickly toward the panic room.
When the steel door opened, Theo ran into him.
“Daddy!”
Matteo dropped to one knee despite the blood on his shirt.
Theo wrapped both arms around his neck.
“Bad men came,” he whispered.
“I know.”
“Did you make them go away?”
Matteo held him tighter.
“We are working on it.”
Theo pulled back and looked at his shoulder.
“You got hurt.”
“It’s just a scratch.”
Theo frowned. “Big scratches need hugs.”
Before Matteo could respond, Theo hugged him again.
Matteo closed his eyes.
I looked away because the tenderness in that moment felt too private.
But later, after Theo fell asleep between Sofia and me in the panic room, Matteo sat in the kitchen while the doctor stitched his shoulder.
“I need to tell you something,” I said.
He looked up.
“I knew you believed you could not have children.”
“Yes.”
“But I never believed it was true.”
His brow furrowed.
“Why?”
“Because when I found out I was pregnant, the doctor said there was no reason to assume anything was impossible. I wanted to tell you.”
“You should have.”
“I know.” My throat tightened. “But the message came that same night. I was terrified. I thought if you knew about Theo, you would fight everyone. And I thought they would kill you.”
Matteo stared at the table.
“My father lied to me.”
“Yes.”
“And Moretti knew.”
“Yes.”
He laughed once, bitterly.
“All these years, I thought I was protecting you by keeping you away from my life. You were protecting me from it.”
I sat across from him.
“We both made choices out of fear.”
“And Theo paid for them.”
The words hurt because they were true.
Then Luca entered.
“We caught one of Moretti’s men,” he said. “He gave us a location.”
Matteo stood.
“Where?”
Luca looked at me.
“An old private clinic in Staten Island.”
I felt cold.
“The clinic where you had your pregnancy appointment,” I whispered.
Matteo’s eyes turned dark.
Moretti had not just watched us.
He had planned our lives from the beginning.
May you like
And now, he was going back to where Theo’s story had started.
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