Chapter 2 - THE MAN STILL STANDING IN MY HOUSE
For several seconds after Sophia told Lily I was her father, nobody moved.
Not me.
Not Sophia.
Not Enzo.
Not even my mother, watching us from the upper landing.
The ballroom behind me had gone almost completely silent.
Two hundred people had come to Moretti House expecting champagne, music, and an engagement announcement.
Instead, they were watching me kneel in a service hallway while a three-year-old child offered me half a Christmas cookie.
I took it.
I still had it in my hand when Isabella appeared.
“Dominic?”
Her voice was soft.
Controlled.
Exactly the voice she used whenever other people were close enough to hear.
I stood.
Sophia tightened her arms around Lily.
Isabella looked from her to the child.
Then to the letter in my hand.
Something changed in her expression.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
Tiny.
But I saw it.
I had spent my entire adult life surviving because I noticed tiny things.
“Do you know her?”
I asked.
Isabella went still.
Sophia looked at her too.
“No.”
Too fast.
My chest tightened.
“Interesting.”
“Dominic.”
“We’ll discuss that later.”
Isabella’s face paled.
Behind her, guests had started whispering.
I turned toward Enzo.
“Close the gates.”
He nodded immediately.
“No one leaves?”
“No one connected to family or security.”
I glanced toward politicians and business guests gathering coats.
“The other guests can go.”
“Record every vehicle.”
“Yes.”
Sophia’s face changed.
“I’m leaving.”
I turned.
“No.”
Fear flashed through her so violently that I hated myself the second the word came out.
I softened my voice.
“I’m sorry.”
She stared at me.
“You can leave if you want.”
“I am asking you not to until you tell me why you came here tonight.”
Lily rested her head against Sophia’s shoulder.
Sophia looked exhausted.
More exhausted than any thirty-something woman should look on Christmas Eve.
“I didn’t come to see you.”
That hurt more than I expected.
“Why did you come?”
She looked toward Lily.
Then reached into the pocket of her housekeeping apron.
She pulled out a folded piece of paper.
“I received this yesterday.”
She handed it to me.
Computer printed.
No handwriting.
IF YOU WANT THE GIRL TO KEEP THE NAME REED, COME TO MORETTI HOUSE CHRISTMAS EVE. 9:30 P.M. SERVICE ENTRANCE. COME ALONE. TELL DOMINIC NOTHING.
Below:
A photograph.
Lily leaving preschool.
My blood became ice.
“This was taken when?”
“Monday.”
“Where?”
“Stamford.”
So that was where they had been.
Connecticut.
Only forty miles away.
Four years of searching.
Forty miles.
My mother had hidden Sophia and my daughter close enough to reach in an hour.
I forced that thought aside.
“Why bring Lily?”
“I didn’t.”
Sophia’s voice broke.
“She was supposed to stay with my neighbor.”
“The neighbor’s son was taken to the emergency room this afternoon.”
“I couldn’t leave her.”
“So?”
“I called the staffing agency and picked up a last-minute housekeeping shift here.”
“I thought if I entered as staff, I could find whoever sent the note without walking through your front door.”
Enzo frowned.
“Who hired you?”
“Hannah Pierce.”
I remembered Lily saying Mommy went to help Miss Hannah.
“Hannah knows?”
“Only that I needed work.”
“She watched Lily in the staff lounge.”
“Then someone called Hannah upstairs.”
“When she came back, Lily was gone.”
My eyes moved toward ballroom.
Someone had taken a three-year-old from the staff lounge and placed her under my staircase.
Not random.
Placement.
A message.
“Did anyone touch her?”
Sophia’s face tightened.
“I don’t know.”
I crouched again.
“Lily?”
She looked.
“Did anyone bring you to the stairs?”
She thought.
“A man.”
Every muscle in my body locked.
“What man?”
Sophia kissed her hair.
“You can tell him.”
Lily looked toward ballroom.
“He said Mommy told him I could see the big tree.”
“What did he look like?”
“Old.”
Enzo coughed.
I almost smiled.
“Older than me?”
She nodded.
Not helpful.
“Hair?”
“White here.”
She touched sides of her head.
“Not all white.”
“Glasses?”
“No.”
“Tall?”
She shrugged.
“He smelled like Grandpa’s church.”
Sophia frowned.
“Grandpa?”
“My dad wears aftershave before church.”
Lily explained.
I looked at Enzo.
He understood.
Heavy cologne.
Older man.
Someone Lily trusted enough because he sounded official.
Then Lily added:
“He had same ring.”
She pointed at my right hand.
The Moretti crest ring.
My father had given it to senior male members of the family.
Not employees.
Not security.
Family.
My mouth went dry.
“How many men in the house are wearing this?”
Enzo answered:
“Five.”
Me.
My cousin Antonio.
My second cousin Michael.
My father’s cousin Franco.
And—
My uncle Luca.
Luca Moretti.
My father’s younger brother.
Sixty-two.
Vice chairman of Moretti Maritime.
Family consigliere before people started using nicer corporate titles.
The man who stood beside me at my father’s funeral.
The man who had once broken three fingers punching a wall after I was shot in Brooklyn because he blamed himself for not seeing the threat coming.
The man who had spent four years telling me Sophia had probably left because normal women eventually realized what men like us were.
He was still inside the ballroom.
I looked toward Enzo.
“Where’s Luca?”
His jaw tightened.
“I’ll find him.”
“No.”
I caught his arm.
“Do not approach.”
Enzo understood.
I did not know enough.
That had become a recurring theme tonight.
Sophia said:
“Dominic.”
I turned.
“I want Lily out of here.”
“Yes.”
Immediate.
She looked surprised.
“Where?”
“You choose.”
“I don’t know who followed me.”
“Then my guesthouse?”
“No.”
Fair.
“Hotel?”
“No Moretti property.”
Fair again.
“My lawyer can arrange a private residence.”
“Whose lawyer?”
“Independent.”
She laughed bitterly.
“You have independent lawyers?”
“Occasionally.”
That almost made her smile.
Almost.
Then I looked at Enzo.
“Rebecca Sloan.”
Enzo nodded.
Rebecca had represented me on matters where even my family did not get to know the questions.
Former federal prosecutor.
No sentimental loyalty to Morettis.
I trusted her because she had once told me, to my face, that three of my cousins were idiots and I was enabling them.
“Have Rebecca arrange somewhere Sophia chooses.”
I looked back.
“No men inside unless you approve.”
“No cameras inside.”
“Security outside only.”
“You choose whether I know address.”
Sophia stared.
“You’d agree to that?”
“My mother controlled your movements once.”
“I won’t repeat it.”
Something in her face shifted.
Not trust.
But perhaps the first brick under it.
Lily tugged my sleeve.
“Are you coming?”
The question hit like a knife.
I looked at Sophia.
Her eyes immediately hardened.
“Not tonight.”
I nodded.
“Not tonight.”
Lily frowned.
“Why?”
I had no answer a three-year-old needed.
Sophia saved me.
“Because Mommy and you are having a sleepover somewhere new.”
Lily looked suspicious.
“Does it have pancakes?”
Sophia laughed through tears.
“I’ll find pancakes.”
Good.
I stood.
Then Isabella spoke from behind me.
“What about our guests?”
I had almost forgotten her.
That realization told me everything.
I faced her.
“There is no engagement announcement.”
The hallway became colder.
“Dominic.”
“The engagement is over.”
Sophia looked away.
Isabella’s face went perfectly still.
“Because she appeared?”
“No.”
I glanced toward my mother.
“Because I just learned I have a daughter.”
“And because you looked at Sophia like you recognized her.”
Isabella’s composure cracked.
“I told you I don’t know her.”
“We’ll see.”
She whispered:
“You’re humiliating me.”
I thought of Sophia being shown photographs of herself pregnant and afraid.
I thought of four years.
My daughter hidden under staircase.
“I’m ending an engagement.”
“I’m not putting you on trial.”
“Go home.”
Isabella’s eyes filled.
“My father—”
“Can call me tomorrow.”
“Dominic.”
“Not tonight.”
She removed the Moretti diamond necklace with trembling fingers.
I shook my head.
“Keep it until lawyers inventory family pieces.”
That offended her more than if I had ripped it away.
Good.
No spectacle.
No revenge.
Just ending.
I escorted Sophia and Lily to a private vehicle after Rebecca’s people arrived.
Before Lily climbed in, she turned.
“You forgot.”
“What?”
She pointed to cookie still in my hand.
I looked down.
Half crushed.
“I’ll keep it.”
She smiled.
“My big half.”
“Yes.”
Then she climbed inside.
Sophia paused.
“Dominic.”
I looked.
“The man who took the photographs four years ago…”
My pulse changed.
“What?”
“I saw him once.”
“Where?”
“Outside my graduate school.”
“When?”
“Three days before your mother came to me.”
“Did you recognize him?”
“No.”
“Tonight?”
Sophia looked toward the mansion.
“Yes.”
Everything inside me became very still.
“Who?”
She hesitated.
Then whispered:
“Your uncle.”
Luca.
The vehicle pulled away.
I watched until red taillights disappeared through snow.
Then I returned inside.
The ballroom had emptied except family, close associates, security, and my mother.
Luca Moretti stood beside fireplace drinking my father’s whiskey.
He smiled when I approached.
“There he is.”
My uncle opened his arms.
“Hell of a Christmas.”
I looked at his right hand.
Moretti crest ring.
Then his coat.
Dark wool.
And the old amber cologne my father used to wear before Mass.
Luca lifted his glass.
“You going to tell me why Enzo is treating house like a crime scene?”
I looked at the man who had hugged me when my father died.
The man Sophia had just identified.
I thought about grabbing him by throat.
Instead I smiled.
“Sit down, Uncle.”
May you like
For the first time that night—
Luca Moretti stopped smiling.
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