Chapter 4 - The Eyes Alejandro Could Never Forget
Alejandro did not react immediately.
That was how Marco knew he was most dangerous.
Anger did not make Alejandro Moretti loud.
Real anger made him quiet.
The kind of quiet in which other people suddenly became aware of exits.
But standing beside the lake, with Emma's hand still in his, Alejandro could not afford anger.
Not yet.
Isabella watched him carefully.
“You need to say something.”
“I need to know who.”
Emma looked between them.
“Who what?”
Alejandro lowered himself beside her.
“Your mother and I need to talk about something boring.”
Emma narrowed her eyes.
“Adults say boring when they don't want kids to know.”
Alejandro almost smiled.
“You're very suspicious.”
“Mama says it's good to ask questions.”
Alejandro looked pointedly at Isabella.
“I can see that.”
Isabella did not appreciate the comment.
Emma returned to arranging stones.
Alejandro stood.
“Twenty feet.”
“What?”
“We talk twenty feet away. She stays where we see her.”
Isabella nodded.
They moved toward a tree.
Alejandro kept Emma in his peripheral vision.
“Start.”
Isabella wrapped both arms around herself.
“It was the week before I disappeared.”
“Who threatened you?”
“I never saw his face.”
“Voice?”
“Distorted.”
“Phone?”
“Burner.”
“How do you know it wasn't a prank?”
Isabella laughed once without humor.
“Because whoever called knew what I'd eaten for breakfast.”
Alejandro's expression sharpened.
“They knew the doctor I'd visited.”
He went still.
Isabella continued.
“I was eight weeks pregnant.”
Alejandro shut his eyes.
Eight weeks.
She had known.
For a moment the noise of the park faded.
He remembered their final weeks together.
Isabella becoming tired.
Refusing wine.
Getting sick one morning and claiming she had eaten something bad.
Alejandro had noticed.
But he had been consumed by negotiations, territorial disputes, a federal investigation.
He had noticed everything except the woman standing beside him.
“You should have told me.”
“I was going to.”
“When?”
“That night.”
“The night we fought?”
She nodded.
Alejandro remembered it.
He had come home after two in the morning.
Isabella had been waiting.
She told him she could not live inside a fortress anymore.
He had accused her of being dramatic.
She asked whether he intended to spend the rest of his life surrounded by guns.
He told her his life was what it was.
She had said, Then maybe there isn't room in it for me.
Alejandro had answered with pride instead of love.
Maybe there isn't.
The next morning she was gone.
For six years, he had believed those three words had driven her away.
Maybe there isn't.
Now he discovered something worse.
“After I left your house that night,” Isabella said, “the phone rang.”
“You left after the argument?”
“I walked to the corner. I needed air.”
Alejandro said nothing.
“The caller told me congratulations.”
His jaw tightened.
“They knew I was pregnant before you did.”
“Who else knew?”
“My doctor.”
“Name.”
“She died two years ago.”
“Natural?”
“Cancer.”
Alejandro filed it away.
“Who else?”
“Nobody.”
“Family?”
“No.”
“Friends?”
“No.”
Isabella glanced at Emma.
“They sent me a photograph.”
“Of what?”
“Your car.”
Alejandro waited.
“There was a red mark drawn over the passenger seat.”
His face hardened.
“And another photograph of the Moretti house. My bedroom window circled.”
“You should have come to me.”
“They said if I did, they would know.”
“You believed them?”
“They knew everything.”
“So do I.”
“And look at your life.”
The words landed hard.
Isabella's eyes filled.
“Three months before that, somebody shot at your car.”
“I survived.”
“Your driver didn't.”
Alejandro's voice lowered.
“That was my responsibility.”
“And if our baby had been in the car?”
He had no answer.
Isabella continued.
“They told me I had twelve hours to disappear. If I stayed, they would wait until the baby was born.”
Alejandro felt something cold crawl through him.
“What exactly did they say?”
Isabella hesitated.
“Tell me.”
“They said Moretti blood ends easier when it's young.”
Alejandro looked toward Emma.
The little girl was trying to balance a green stone.
Her entire life had existed outside his awareness because somebody had used her unborn life as leverage.
His anger became something deeper.
“Where did you go?”
“Everywhere.”
“That's not an answer.”
“Philadelphia first. Then Vermont. Connecticut. Maine. I changed names. Jobs. Apartments.”
“You did this alone?”
“For the first year.”
“And afterward?”
“I got help.”
“From whom?”
She looked away.
Alejandro saw it.
“Isabella.”
“A priest.”
“Name.”
“Father Gabriel.”
“Last name?”
“Rossi.”
Alejandro stopped.
He knew the name.
Everybody in the Moretti organization did.
Father Gabriel Rossi had once been close to Alejandro's father.
Not criminally involved.
At least according to every file Alejandro had ever seen.
But close enough to know family history.
Close enough to know safe houses.
Close enough—
“Where is he?”
“Retired. Upstate.”
“When did you last speak?”
“Two years ago.”
Alejandro pulled out his phone.
Isabella grabbed his wrist.
“Don't.”
He looked at her hand.
She released him.
“If somebody is watching,” she said, “calls will make it worse.”
“Somebody accessed my family records last night.”
Isabella's fear returned.
“What records?”
“Medical history.”
Her eyes immediately moved toward Emma.
Exactly as Alejandro's had.
The eyes.
Whoever accessed those records might be confirming lineage.
Alejandro called Marco.
“Find Father Gabriel Rossi.”
Marco answered immediately.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Quietly.”
“Anything else?”
“Send two cars to my location.”
Isabella shook her head.
Alejandro ignored her.
Marco asked, “Why two?”
“One for me.”
A pause.
“And the other?”
Alejandro looked at Emma.
“For my daughter.”
Silence.
Marco had known Alejandro for fifteen years.
Had seen him wounded.
Arrested.
Betrayed.
Had helped bury his father.
Had watched him become head of the Moretti family.
Nothing in that history prepared him for those three words.
“Your what?”
“Later.”
“Alejandro—”
“Now, Marco.”
The call ended.
Alejandro returned to Emma.
She looked up.
“Are you leaving?”
“No.”
“Mama looks scared.”
“I know.”
“Are bad people coming?”
Isabella quickly said, “No.”
Alejandro looked at her.
Then at Emma.
Children deserved reassurance.
But not lies.
“Maybe.”
Isabella's eyes flashed.
Emma swallowed.
Alejandro crouched.
“But they're not going to hurt you.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I'm not going to let them.”
Emma studied him.
“You promise?”
Again.
That word.
Alejandro's promises had always been transactions.
Now they were becoming emotional obligations to a child he had known for one day.
“I promise.”
Emma nodded, accepting it completely.
That trust frightened him more than her doubt would have.
The cars arrived twelve minutes later.
Four black vehicles, not two.
Marco had overreacted.
For once Alejandro approved.
Men stepped out.
Every one of them froze when they saw Emma holding Alejandro's hand.
Alejandro ignored their expressions.
He placed Isabella and Emma in the second SUV.
“I'll ride with you,” he said.
Isabella looked at him.
“To where?”
“My house.”
“No.”
“It is the safest property in the state.”
“It is also the first place they'll expect.”
“They already know enough to access my records. Hiding is finished.”
“You don't get to decide that.”
Alejandro leaned closer.
“Somebody threatened my child before she was born. Somebody may have found her. I lost six years because you decided alone once. We will not make that mistake twice.”
Isabella stared at him.
There it was.
Not cruelty.
Not command.
Pain.
She saw it.
Her anger softened slightly.
Emma tugged Alejandro's sleeve.
“Do you have a big house?”
He looked at her.
“Yes.”
“Bigger than ours?”
Isabella muttered, “Much bigger.”
Emma smiled.
“Does it have cookies?”
Alejandro considered.
“I own people who can make cookies.”
Isabella stared at him.
“That is not how you phrase having employees.”
Emma giggled.
Alejandro unexpectedly smiled.
His men saw it.
Every last one.
Their faces suggested witnessing a solar eclipse would have been less surprising.
Alejandro got into the SUV.
As they pulled away, he looked through the rear window at the lake.
The tiny stone house remained on the bench.
Something about leaving it behind bothered him.
But what waited ahead mattered more.
Because within the hour, Emma Delgado would enter a home filled with men who feared Alejandro Moretti.
And those men were about to discover the most dangerous secret their boss had ever possessed.
May you like
He had something to lose.
Before the Moretti gates even opened, Marco called with worse news: Father Gabriel Rossi had disappeared that morning—and somebody had left eleven black roses inside his empty church.
