Chapter 7 - THE SISTER IN THE SHADOWS
Pier Seventeen was deserted at midnight.
I went alone.
Technically.
Dominic had men positioned six blocks away.
Lorenzo monitored traffic cameras.
A sniper watched the roofline.
But when I walked toward the warehouse at the end of the pier, no one stood beside me.
I carried no visible weapon.
The steel door opened.
A woman waited inside.
Alessia Romano looked like me.
That was the first terrible thought that crossed my mind.
Same brown eyes.
Same heavy brows.
Same expression people mistook for calm when rage lived beneath it.
She wore black trousers and a gray coat.
No jewelry.
No visible gun.
“Little brother.”
“Don’t call me that.”
One corner of her mouth lifted.
“That’s fair.”
“Where are they?”
“Safe.”
“If Elena is hurt—”
“She isn’t.”
“Leo?”
“Asleep.”
“Mateo?”
Alessia’s expression changed.
“He’s complicated.”
My heart tightened.
“What does that mean?”
“It means he’s four years old and has spent most of his life being moved every time someone got close to the truth.”
“You did that?”
“Sometimes.”
I moved toward her.
She didn’t retreat.
“Why?”
“To keep him alive.”
“From who?”
Alessia looked at me for a long moment.
“Your mother.”
I almost laughed.
“She’s dead.”
“Now.”
“Explain.”
Alessia walked toward a table.
A laptop waited there.
She opened a video.
My mother appeared on-screen.
Teresa Moretti.
Alive.
Healthy.
Three years earlier.
She sat inside Bellini’s office.
The audio was clear.
“He cannot keep the boy,” my mother said.
Bellini answered, “Valentina will never agree.”
“Then Valentina becomes part of the problem.”
My blood turned to ice.
Bellini leaned back.
“You want the child removed?”
“I want Luca restored.”
“To what?”
“To himself.”
My mother’s voice cracked slightly.
“Ever since Mateo was born, he talks about leaving. Selling the clubs. Closing the routes. Turning Moretti Shipping legitimate.”
Bellini shrugged.
“Maybe fatherhood changed him.”
“That is exactly what I’m afraid of.”
I could barely breathe.
My own mother.
The woman who kissed Mateo’s forehead every Sunday.
The woman who told me she loved him more than life.
Alessia paused the video.
“She believed your son made you weak.”
I whispered, “Did she order the accident?”
“No.”
“Then who killed Valentina?”
“Bellini.”
My eyes rose.
“Why?”
“Because Valentina discovered what he was doing with the disappearance network.”
“What was he doing?”
“Selling children.”
Nausea hit me.
“Not all of them. But enough.”
Alessia’s face hardened.
“Your father built a system to disappear children when powerful families needed secrecy. Bellini turned it into a market.”
I wanted to deny it.
I couldn’t.
“Valentina found proof.”
“Yes.”
“Why did she come to you?”
“Because she found my name in your father’s files.”
Alessia sat down.
“She thought I hated all Morettis.”
“Didn’t you?”
“I did.”
A sad smile touched her face.
“Then your wife showed up at my apartment with a baby in her arms.”
Mateo.
“She told me you didn’t know the truth. She said you wanted out.”
My throat tightened.
“She asked me to help destroy the network.”
“And you agreed?”
“Eventually.”
“What happened the night of the accident?”
Alessia’s eyes moved away.
“Valentina was supposed to bring Mateo to me.”
My body went rigid.
“She was leaving me?”
“No.”
Alessia snapped the answer.
“She was getting your son out for forty-eight hours because she believed Bellini planned to take him.”
I said nothing.
“She intended to tell you everything after she had evidence safe with federal investigators.”
“But she never arrived.”
“No.”
“The crash.”
“Yes.”
“Bellini caused it.”
“He hired a mechanic to cut the steering line.”
My vision blurred with rage.
“And Mateo?”
“Wasn’t in the car.”
I stopped.
“What?”
“Valentina changed the plan at the last minute.”
Alessia looked directly at me.
“She gave Mateo to Caterina Bellini.”
“Why would she trust Bellini’s wife?”
“Because Caterina was helping us.”
That explained everything and nothing.
“Caterina took Mateo to a safe apartment. But Marcus Bellini found out.”
My hands curled.
“He took my son.”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t he kill him?”
“Because your mother wouldn’t allow it.”
I stared.
“Teresa wanted Mateo gone from you. Not dead.”
A twisted kind of mercy.
“She forced Bellini to hide him.”
“Why fake the funeral?”
“To break you.”
That hurt more than I expected.
Alessia spoke quietly.
“Your mother believed grief would turn you back into the man your father trained.”
She was right.
It had.
“She got exactly what she wanted,” I whispered.
“Yes.”
I looked at the frozen image of Teresa on the screen.
After Mateo’s funeral, I became crueler.
Colder.
More ruthless.
My mother had hugged me through my grief while privately celebrating what it had created.
I turned away.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried.”
“When?”
“Three days after the funeral.”
I faced her.
“What?”
“I came to your office.”
“No.”
“Salvatore’s men stopped me downstairs.”
My chest tightened.
“He told me you had ordered me killed.”
“Why?”
“Because Salvatore had discovered Bellini’s trafficking and was blackmailing him.”
Everything connected.
Everyone protecting a different piece of corruption.
“And Valentina?”
Alessia’s voice softened.
“I arrived at the crash after Bellini’s men.”
“Was she alive?”
A pause.
My heart stopped.
“Was she alive?”
“For six minutes.”
The warehouse blurred.
“She asked about Mateo.”
Alessia’s voice shook.
“She knew he was safe at that moment.”
I couldn’t speak.
“She gave me this.”
Alessia reached beneath her coat.
A wedding ring.
Valentina’s.
I recognized the tiny scratch near the diamond.
My knees nearly failed.
“They told me it was lost in the crash.”
“She made me promise to protect Mateo.”
Alessia placed the ring in my palm.
“And you did?”
“I tried.”
“For three years you let me believe he was dead.”
“I was trying to keep Bellini from moving him permanently.”
“You could have told me.”
“You were executing people for making accounting mistakes.”
I flinched.
“You were not the husband Valentina trusted anymore.”
“She was dead.”
“And you made her death your excuse to become everything she feared.”
I wanted to hit something.
Instead, I looked at the ring.
She was right.
That was worse.
“Where is Leo?”
“Upstairs.”
I moved.
Alessia blocked me.
“Wait.”
“Move.”
“You need to understand why I took him.”
“I don’t care.”
“Bellini knows Leo exists.”
I stopped.
“How?”
“Elena used a clinic in Queens for a prenatal scan. One technician recognized genetic markers connected to the old Moretti fertility file.”
My blood went cold.
“Bellini has been looking for the remaining embryos for years.”
“Why?”
“To control the Moretti succession.”
“I don’t care about succession.”
“He does.”
Alessia opened another file.
My father’s trust.
If I died without a living biological child, controlling shares in several Moretti companies passed to Salvatore.
If I had an heir, they remained in my line.
Mateo’s existence blocked Salvatore.
Leo’s existence blocked him permanently.
“So Salvatore wanted Mateo dead.”
“Eventually.”
“But my mother stopped him.”
“Yes.”
“Then she died.”
“And the protection disappeared.”
That explained why Mateo had been moved repeatedly over the last eighteen months.
Salvatore had started hunting him.
I looked toward the stairs.
“And Bellini?”
“Bellini wants both boys alive.”
“Why?”
“To trade them for immunity.”
I laughed bitterly.
“My sons are bargaining chips.”
“To them.”
Alessia held my gaze.
“Not to me.”
“Then give them back.”
“I will.”
“Now.”
She stepped aside.
We went upstairs.
Elena sat on a couch.
Leo slept against her chest.
The second she saw me, she began crying.
I crossed the room.
She stood.
I took Leo carefully.
My son stirred.
Opened his eyes.
Then smiled.
“Hey,” I whispered.
My voice broke.
“Hey, little man.”
I pressed my face into his curls.
For several seconds, I forgot the warehouse.
The guns.
The lies.
Then I looked around.
“Where is Mateo?”
Alessia stood in the doorway.
“He isn’t here.”
Rage exploded again.
“You said—”
“I said he was alive.”
“WHERE?”
Before she could answer, gunfire erupted downstairs.
Alessia swore.
The lights went out.
Dominic’s voice came through my earpiece.
“Luca! Multiple vehicles approaching!”
Elena grabbed Leo.
I drew my gun.
Alessia checked a hidden monitor.
Black SUVs filled the pier.
Salvatore’s men.
And leading them—
Dr. Marcus Bellini.
Alessia stared at the screen.
“That son of a bitch found us.”
I looked at her.
“Where is Mateo?”
She loaded a pistol.
“Bellini has him.”
My blood stopped.
“What?”
“He took him from the transfer convoy last night.”
Every sound in the room faded.
Bellini had my son.
Bellini had killed my wife.
And now he had come for the other child too.
Alessia looked at me.
“If they get upstairs, they take Leo.”
I handed the baby back to Elena.
Then I walked toward the stairs.
Dominic’s voice shouted through the earpiece.
“Luca, do not engage alone.”
Too late.
Three years earlier, Bellini had stolen my family while I was hundreds of miles away.
Tonight, I was standing between him and my son.
May you like
I raised my weapon.
“For once,” I said, “he came to the right house.”
