Chapter 2 - THE EAGLE AND THE ROSES
The next morning at 6:00 AM, I opened our apartment door to pick up the morning paper—and froze.
Engraved directly onto the center of our wooden door frame was a gleaming silver crest: an eagle resting over a shield of roses. It matched the coin Signora Moretti had given Mia the night before.
Standing in the narrow hallway was Marco, the driver, alongside two formidable men in gray charcoal suits.
"Elena Vance?" Marco asked, bowing his head slightly in respect.
"Who are you?" I stammered, pulling my robe tighter around myself, stepping back into the doorway. "How did you find where we live?"
"Signora Sofia Moretti requests your presence at the family estate in Long Island," Marco stated calmly. "She has arranged for a private car to transport you and your daughter. You are invited for breakfast."
"The Moretti family..." My voice faltered.
Everyone in the tri-state area knew the name Moretti. They owned shipping yards, commercial real estate, hotels—and held iron control over the organized underbelly of New York. The matriarch Mia had saved was Sofia Moretti, the widow of the late syndicate founder and the mother of Julian Moretti, the current ruler of the organization.
An hour later, a bulletproof luxury SUV delivered us through massive wrought-iron gates into a sunlit estate surrounded by pine trees and high stone walls.
Inside the grand dining room, Sofia Moretti was sitting at the head of a long mahogany table, wearing a dark velvet dress.
Beside her sat her son, Julian Moretti. He was thirty-five, broad-shouldered, with sharp dark eyes, a tailored charcoal shirt, and a look of cold, unrelenting authority. He looked like a man who hadn't smiled in a decade.
"Mother," Julian said, his deep voice filling the room as we entered. "Is this the housekeeper and her child you mentioned?"
"She is the child who showed me humanity when your high-paid security guards failed to keep track of me on 5th Avenue," Sofia replied firmly, gesturing toward the empty seats beside her. "Sit down, Elena. Mia, my dear, come try the pastries."
Mia immediately brightened up, sliding into the soft chair next to Sofia, entirely unbothered by the heavy atmosphere or the armed men standing quietly by the doors.
"Mr. Moretti," I said nervously, staying standing. "We don't want any trouble or money. We just wanted to make sure your mother was safe yesterday."
Julian stood up slowly, stepping around the table until he was standing right in front of me. His presence was overwhelming, yet he looked down at me not with anger, but with intense scrutiny.
"My mother has severe heart arrhythmia, Miss Vance," Julian said quietly. "Her medication was sabotaged yesterday afternoon before she walked out of the pharmacy. If your daughter hadn't given her water and kept her awake until my driver located her, she would have suffered a fatal stroke on that sidewalk."
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My breath hitched. "Sabotaged?"
"Someone inside my estate tried to murder my mother," Julian revealed, his dark eyes burning with lethal intent. "And your daughter saw the person who gave my mother the altered prescription bottle right before she collapsed."
