My name is Vincent Moretti, and the day my life changed began with a child standing alone in the lobby of Moretti Tower.
Rain hammered the streets of Manhattan that morning.
Outside, yellow taxis sliced through flooded avenues while hurried pedestrians disappeared beneath umbrellas. Inside my headquarters, everything was polished perfection—marble floors, crystal chandeliers, brass accents, and the quiet confidence that comes with unimaginable wealth.
People moved through the building with purpose.
Executives.
Lawyers.
Investors.
No one paid attention to the little girl who stepped through the revolving door.
At first.
She couldn’t have been older than six.
An oversized gray coat swallowed her tiny frame. Rain dripped from strands of dark hair onto the marble floor. One shoe squeaked softly with every step.
Yet she walked forward with remarkable determination.
Straight to the security desk.
One of the guards leaned over.
“Sweetheart, are you lost?”
She shook her head.
“I need to see Mr. Vincent Moretti.”
The second guard almost smiled.
“That’s not really how this works.”
The little girl simply repeated herself.
“I need to see Mr. Vincent Moretti.”
Something about her voice made people look up.
Including Margaret Dawson.
Margaret had managed my family’s private affairs for over three decades. She was the kind of woman who noticed details everyone else missed.
And the moment she saw the little girl’s eyes, she froze.
Those eyes.
Blue-gray.
Familiar.
Painfully familiar.
Before she could say anything, the private elevator opened.
I stepped into the lobby, finishing a phone call.
At thirty-seven, I had spent years transforming my late father’s criminal empire into a legitimate business empire. Most people knew me as a billionaire businessman.
Others still remembered where the money originally came from.
Either way, people rarely stood in my path.
Until that morning.
I noticed the crowd gathered near security.
“What’s going on?”
Nobody answered immediately.
Then the little girl turned toward me.
Rain still glistened on her cheeks.
“You’re Vincent Moretti.”
It wasn’t a question.
I lowered my phone.
“Yes.”
She reached into her coat pocket.
Her fingers trembled slightly from the cold.
When she opened her hand, a gold ring rested in her palm.
Simple.
Worn.
Familiar.
“I came to give my mom’s ring back.”
The entire lobby went silent.
My pulse skipped.
“Your mother’s ring?”
“She said it belongs to you.”
Something tightened inside my chest.
I slowly knelt in front of her.
Then I took the ring.
The gold felt warm from her hand.
At first, I could barely breathe.
Then I turned it over.
And saw the engraving.
V.M. Forever.
The world seemed to tilt.
I hadn’t seen that ring in nearly a decade.
A name escaped my lips before I could stop it.
“Emily…”
Memories crashed into me.
A young woman.
A promise.
A future that vanished overnight.
A disappearance nobody had ever fully explained.
Behind me, heels clicked sharply against marble.
“Vincent, your mother is waiting upstairs, and the attorneys from Harrison & Cole—”
The voice stopped abruptly.
I turned.
Sophia Bennett stood frozen.
Elegant.
Perfect.
Poised.
The woman my family had spent years encouraging me to marry.
Her eyes immediately locked onto the ring.
Every trace of color disappeared from her face.
Then, just as quickly, she recovered.
A polite smile appeared.
But there was fear behind it.
“What is that?”
I looked at her.
Then at the little girl.
Then back at the ring.
Something wasn’t right.
Margaret clearly knew it too.
Because she was staring at the child as if she’d seen a ghost.
The little girl suddenly tugged on my sleeve.
I looked down.
Her blue-gray eyes met mine.
The same eyes I remembered from years ago.
Then she quietly said something that made my blood run cold.
Because if what she was telling me was true, my family hadn’t simply hidden the truth from me.
They had built an entire life on a lie.
And the person responsible might be standing only a few feet away.
The little girl tugged my sleeve again.
Her fingers were small, cold, and trembling, but her eyes never left mine.
“Mom said,” she whispered, “if I ever found you, I should tell you that I’m not supposed to exist.”
The lobby went silent.
Not quiet.
Silent.
The kind of silence that makes every breath sound like evidence.
Sophia Bennett stood a few feet away, her perfect smile frozen in place. Margaret Dawson had one hand pressed against the edge of the security desk as if she needed it to stay upright.
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I looked down at the child.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
She swallowed.
“Lily.”
“Lily what?”
She hesitated, then said, “Lily Hart.”
Hart.
Emily’s last name.
The ring burned in my palm.
Emily Hart had been the only woman I had ever loved without calculation. She was not from my world. She did not care about money, power, or the Moretti name. She worked in an art restoration studio in Brooklyn, wore paint on her sleeves, and laughed at me the first time I sent a driver for her because, according to her, “Love shouldn’t arrive with tinted windows.”
I had planned to marry her.
Then she vanished.
Nine years ago, on a rainy night almost exactly like this one, Emily disappeared without warning. No goodbye. No explanation. Only a letter delivered to my apartment three days later.
Vincent,
I can’t do this anymore. Your world is too dangerous. I don’t love you enough to survive it.
Don’t look for me.
Emily.
I had looked anyway.
For months.
Privately first.
Then ruthlessly.
But every trail died. Every address was false. Every witness changed their story. Eventually, my mother convinced me of what everyone else already believed.
Emily had left.
Emily had chosen freedom over me.
Emily had not loved me enough.
Now a six-year-old girl stood in my lobby holding Emily’s ring and telling me she was not supposed to exist.
I rose slowly.
“Margaret,” I said.
Her voice was thin. “Yes, Vincent?”
“Clear the lobby.”
Sophia moved first.
“Vincent, surely this can be handled upstairs. The Harrison attorneys are already waiting, and your mother—”
“My mother can wait.”
Sophia’s eyes flickered.
It lasted less than a second.
But I saw it.
Fear.
She was afraid of a wet child in an oversized coat.
That told me more than any confession could have.
I looked toward security.
“Nobody leaves until I say so.”
The guards straightened instantly.
Sophia’s smile disappeared.
“Vincent, that sounds unnecessary.”
I turned to her.
“Then you should have no reason to be nervous.”
Color rose beneath her makeup.
“I’m not nervous.”
Lily shifted closer to me.
That tiny movement did something dangerous inside my chest.
She trusted me.
Or wanted to.
Or had been desperate enough to walk into a skyscraper full of strangers because her mother had no other choice.
I removed my coat and wrapped it around her shoulders.
She disappeared inside it.
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
She nodded once.
“Cold?”
Another nod.
“Did you come alone?”
She looked down.
“Yes.”
My jaw tightened.
From somewhere behind me, Margaret whispered, “Dear God.”
I looked at her.
“What do you know?”
Her lips parted, but no sound came.
That was when the private elevator opened again.
My mother stepped out.
Victoria Moretti.
Seventy years old, dressed in black silk, diamonds at her ears, silver hair arranged perfectly at the nape of her neck. She had ruled our family long before my father died and long after I buried the violent parts of his empire under corporations, hotels, and banks.
People called me dangerous.
They called her untouchable.
Her eyes swept over the lobby, then found the girl wrapped in my coat.
For the first time in my life, I saw my mother lose control of her expression.
Only for a heartbeat.
But enough.
“Vincent,” she said calmly, “bring the child upstairs.”
Not what child?
Not who is she?
Bring the child upstairs.
I stepped closer to Lily.
“How do you know her?”
My mother’s face hardened.
“This is not a conversation for the lobby.”
“It is now.”
Sophia touched my arm.
“Vincent, please. People are staring.”
I looked down at her hand.
She removed it.
My mother’s voice lowered.
“You are making a mistake.”
I laughed once.
It held no humor.
“I think someone already did.”
Lily reached into the pocket of my coat and pulled out a folded paper, softened by rain.
“My mom said to give you this too.”
I took it carefully.
The paper trembled slightly in my hand.
It was a photograph.
Emily.
Older.
Thinner.
Beautiful in a way that hurt.
She stood beside Lily on a small porch somewhere rural, her arms around the child, her smile tired but real.
On the back, written in Emily’s handwriting, were five words.
She is yours. Trust no one.
The lobby seemed to tilt beneath me.
I looked at Lily.
Her eyes.
Emily’s mouth.
My father’s stubborn chin.
My blood went cold.
“Lily,” I asked quietly, “where is your mother?”
Her eyes filled instantly.
“She told me to run.”
Everything inside me stopped.
“What do you mean?”
“She woke me up before the sun. She said bad people had found us.” Lily clutched my coat tighter. “She put me on a bus and gave the driver money. She said to come here and find Vincent Moretti.”
My mother took a step forward.
“Enough.”
I did not look at her.
“Who found you, Lily?”
The child shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“Did your mother come with you?”
“No.”
“Where was home?”
She hesitated.
“Vermont.”
Sophia inhaled sharply.
I heard it.
So did Margaret.
I turned slowly toward Sophia.
“Why does Vermont surprise you?”
“It doesn’t.”
“You reacted.”
“This entire scene is shocking.”
I stepped toward her.
“What do you know about Emily Hart being in Vermont?”
Sophia’s face smoothed itself into innocence.
“Nothing.”
Lily suddenly spoke.
“I saw her before.”
The adults all froze.
Sophia looked down at the child.
“What?”
Lily pointed at Sophia.
“She came to our house.”
Sophia went pale.
“That’s absurd.”
Lily’s voice grew smaller, but she did not look away.
“You wore red gloves. You yelled at my mom. You said she should have stayed buried.”
The words moved through the lobby like smoke.
Stayed buried.
Margaret made a broken sound.
My mother closed her eyes.
And Sophia Bennett, the woman my family had tried to place beside me for years, finally looked frightened enough to be honest.
Only she chose not to be.
“That child is lying,” Sophia said.
I stared at her.
“She is six.”
“Children repeat what they are told.”
“And women repeat lies when they have practiced them long enough.”
Her mouth tightened.
“Be careful, Vincent.”
That was her mistake.
I was past careful.
I turned to Margaret.
“Take Lily to my private floor. Food, dry clothes, a doctor. No one touches her without my approval.”
Margaret nodded quickly, but my mother snapped, “Margaret stays.”
I looked at my mother.
“No. Margaret goes with Lily.”
For the first time, my mother’s authority collided with mine in public.
The old guard watched.
The new employees pretended not to.
Security stood motionless, waiting to see which Moretti commanded the room.
I said, “Now.”
Margaret moved.
Lily hesitated, looking up at me.
“I’ll come too,” I said gently. “I just need one minute.”
She reached for my hand.
I took it.
Her fingers were so small that grief nearly split me open.
“You won’t send me away?” she asked.
“No.”
“Promise?”
The word cut deeper than she could know.
“I promise.”
Only after Margaret led her toward the private elevator did I turn back to my mother and Sophia.
The lobby had emptied except for security and a handful of senior staff.
My mother folded her hands.
“You have no idea what you are doing.”
“I’m starting to.”
Sophia lifted her chin.
“Vincent, listen to yourself. A strange child walks in with a ring and a story, and suddenly you are accusing people who have stood by you for years.”
I held up Emily’s ring.
“This is not a story.”
“Rings can be stolen.”
“So can lives.”
Her eyes flashed.
“You’re emotional.”
“Very.”
“That makes you vulnerable.”
“No,” I said. “It makes me awake.”
My mother’s voice turned cold.
“Enough. Upstairs. Now.”
I smiled faintly.
“You don’t give me orders anymore.”
Her face changed.
That wounded her pride more than anger could have.
For thirty-seven years, Victoria Moretti had shaped the air around me. She had chosen tutors, guards, friends, enemies, even grief. She had never needed to demand obedience because obedience had always been built into the walls of our family.
But Lily had walked through the revolving door and cracked the foundation.
I turned to the head of security.
“Seal all external exits. Pull lobby footage. Pull elevator logs. Get me every camera feed from the last three hours. Nobody deletes anything.”
“Yes, sir.”
Sophia’s eyes widened.
My mother’s expression became stone.
“Vincent.”
I looked at her.
“If you interfere, I will treat you like a suspect.”
A gasp came from someone behind the desk.
My mother did not move.
But something ancient and furious entered her eyes.
“You would not dare.”
“Try me.”
For a moment, I thought she might slap me.
Instead, she smiled.
That frightened me more.
“You are your father’s son after all.”
“No,” I said. “That’s what you should be afraid of. I’m not.”
I rode the private elevator upstairs with Emily’s ring closed tightly in my fist.
My office occupied the top floor of Moretti Tower, eighty stories above Manhattan. Usually, the view calmed me. The city looked manageable from above. Ordered. Conquerable.
That day, the glass walls only reflected the truth.
A wet child.
A lost ring.
A family full of liars.
Lily sat on the leather sofa with a blanket around her shoulders, eating tomato soup as if she had not eaten properly in days. Margaret stood nearby, pale and silent.
A doctor checked Lily’s temperature, pulse, and pupils, then quietly told me she was exhausted, mildly dehydrated, and terrified, but physically unharmed.
Physically.
I dismissed everyone except Margaret.
Lily watched me closely.
“Is my mom coming?” she asked.
I knelt in front of her again.
“I’m going to find her.”
“She said you would be angry.”
“At her?”
Lily nodded.
I swallowed hard.
“No. Not at her.”
“She cried when she talked about you.”
The words nearly broke the wall I was building around myself.
I looked at the ring.
“She did?”
Lily nodded again.
“She said you loved music but pretended you didn’t.”
I froze.
Emily used to tease me because I kept a piano in my apartment but never played for guests. Only for her. Only late at night, when the city dimmed and she sat barefoot on my couch with paint under her fingernails.
No investigator could have known that.
No thief could have guessed it.
I turned to Margaret.
“Start talking.”
Margaret’s face crumpled.
“I wanted to tell you.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
“But you didn’t.”
She looked toward Lily.
“Not in front of the child.”
Lily lowered her spoon.
“I know grown-ups lie when they say that.”
The room went still.
Margaret covered her mouth.
I sat beside Lily.
“You’re right.”
Her eyes searched mine.
“My mom didn’t lie.”
“No,” I said. “I don’t think she did.”
Lily went back to her soup, but her small shoulders remained tense.
Margaret stepped toward the window.
“Nine years ago, your mother came to me before Emily disappeared.”
My hand tightened around the ring.
“What did she say?”
“That Emily was a threat.”
“To what?”
“To your future. To the family. To the legitimacy of everything your father left.”
I stared at her.
“Because I loved her?”
Margaret looked down.
“Because she was pregnant.”
The room stopped.
Even before Lily appeared, some part of me had known.
Still, hearing it aloud split time in half.
I looked at the little girl on my sofa.
My daughter.
Six years old.
Alive.
Raised in hiding because everyone around me had decided I did not deserve the truth.
I stood slowly.
“Who knew?”
Margaret did not answer.
“Who knew?”
She flinched.
“Your mother. Sophia. Your father’s old attorney, Aldo Caine. Two security men who no longer work here. And me.”
The names entered me like bullets.
“Sophia?”
Margaret nodded.
“She was the first to discover it.”
“How?”
“She followed Emily.”
I closed my eyes.
Sophia had always been there at the edges after Emily vanished. Kind. Patient. Understanding. She never pushed too hard, never touched the wound directly. She let my mother praise her loyalty. She let me believe she was simply waiting for me to heal.
She had not been waiting.
She had been guarding the grave.
“What happened the night Emily disappeared?”
Margaret’s hands trembled.
“She came to your apartment. You were in Chicago closing the Rossi deal. Emily told your mother she was pregnant and that she intended to tell you as soon as you returned.”
I remembered that trip.
I had flown back early.
Emily was already gone.
“What did my mother do?”
Margaret shut her eyes.
“She offered money first. Emily refused. Then she threatened her.”
“With what?”
“With you.”
My chest tightened.
“She told Emily that loving you made her a target. That your enemies would use the child. That if Emily stayed, the baby would grow up behind armored glass, surrounded by men with guns.”
“She used the truth as a weapon.”
“Yes.”
“But Emily still refused.”
Margaret nodded.
“She said you had the right to know.”
Pride and grief collided inside me.
Of course she did.
My Emily.
Gentle, stubborn, impossible to buy.
“So they made her disappear.”
Margaret’s voice broke.
“They staged the letter. They moved her through a safe house. They gave her documents, cash, and a warning that if she came back, you would be told she betrayed you with another man and tried to extort the family.”
I stared at her.
“And you helped.”
Tears slipped down Margaret’s face.
“Yes.”
Lily set the spoon down.
“Are you a bad person?”
Margaret looked as though the question had physically struck her.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I was.”
Lily considered this.
“Did you hurt my mom?”
Margaret could not answer.
I could.
“Yes,” I said softly. “She did.”
Lily looked at me, then at Margaret.
“My mom says people can be sorry and still have to fix things.”
Margaret began to cry openly.
I turned away because pity was dangerous. It softened edges I needed sharp.
My phone rang.
Security.
“Yes?”
“Sir, Sophia Bennett attempted to leave through the executive garage.”
My eyes hardened.
“Attempted?”
“We stopped her.”
“Bring her up.”
A few minutes later, Sophia entered my office flanked by two guards.
She looked composed again, though her eyes betrayed exhaustion. My mother followed behind her, uninvited, regal and furious.
“Vincent,” my mother said, “you are humiliating this family.”
I laughed quietly.
“No. I’m discovering how much humiliation this family deserves.”
Sophia’s gaze flicked to Margaret, then Lily.
“She is manipulating you.”
“Which one?” I asked. “The six-year-old? The woman you helped silence? Or the truth?”
Sophia’s mouth tightened.
“I did what had to be done.”
There it was.
Not denial.
Just justification.
I stepped closer.
“You went to Vermont.”
She held my gaze.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
My heart kicked.
“Why?”
“Because Emily contacted someone she should not have.”
“Who?”
Sophia smiled faintly.
“You really don’t know anything, do you?”
My mother snapped, “Sophia.”
But Sophia was tired of playing second to Victoria Moretti.
I could see it now.
The resentment.
The ambition.
The fear that everything she had waited nine years to inherit might walk through the lobby wearing squeaky shoes.
“She contacted Aldo Caine,” Sophia said.
My father’s old attorney.
“He’s dead,” I said.
“No,” she replied. “He’s hiding.”
My mother went still.
That was new information to her.
Good.
The lies were beginning to turn on each other.
Sophia continued, “Emily wanted proof. Birth records. DNA records. Something about a trust clause your father buried before he died.”
I turned to my mother.
“What trust clause?”
She looked at Sophia with pure hatred.
“Sophia does not know what she is talking about.”
Sophia laughed.
“Don’t I? You promised me Vincent would marry me once Emily was gone. You promised me my family would merge with Moretti Holdings. You promised me that child would never come back.”
Lily shrank into the blanket.
I moved between her and Sophia.
My mother’s face was pale now.
“I promised you nothing.”
“You promised me everything,” Sophia hissed. “And for nine years I played the grieving almost-fiancée while he mourned a woman you were too afraid to kill and too cruel to release.”
The word kill filled the room.
Margaret whispered, “Sophia…”
Sophia looked at her.
“What? Are we pretending now? Emily was allowed to live because Victoria thought exile would be cleaner. But exile only works when people stay gone.”
I stepped toward Sophia.
“Where is Emily?”
Her expression flickered.
“I don’t know.”
I looked at security.
“Take her phone.”
She stepped back.
“You have no right.”
“I own the building you used to trap my daughter in.”
“Trap?” she snapped. “That child walked in and ruined everything.”
The second she said it, she knew.
So did everyone else.
Lily’s eyes filled with tears.
My voice dropped.
“Get her out of my sight.”
The guards took Sophia by the arms.
She fought suddenly, all polish gone.
“You think Emily came back for love?” she shouted. “She came back because she was desperate. Because people are dead. Because Aldo had proof your father wasn’t just hiding money—he was hiding blood.”
The doors closed behind her screams.
Only my mother, Margaret, Lily, and I remained.
Hiding blood.
I turned to Victoria.
“What did she mean?”
My mother looked older than she had that morning.
“She is hysterical.”
“I have heard that word used too often by guilty people.”
Her eyes flashed.
“You think because a child shares your eyes, you understand fatherhood?”
Something ugly moved beneath the sentence.
“What does that mean?”
“It means blood ruins men. Your father learned that too late.”
Before I could answer, my office phone rang.
The private line.
Only twelve people had that number.
My assistant’s voice came through, strained.
“Mr. Moretti, there is a call for you.”
“From whom?”
A pause.
“He says his name is Aldo Caine.”
My mother grabbed the edge of my desk.
Margaret gasped.
I picked up the receiver myself.
“Put him through.”
Static crackled.
Then an old man’s voice entered the room.
“Vincent.”
“Aldo.”
“I don’t have long. If the girl reached you, then Emily is either running or captured.”
My pulse slowed.
“Where is she?”
“I sent a car to get her. It never arrived.”
My hand tightened.
“Who took her?”
“I don’t know. But listen carefully. Emily’s daughter is yours, but she is not the only child involved.”
I looked at Lily.
She watched me with frightened eyes.
“What are you saying?”
Aldo coughed violently.
“Your father changed his will before he died. Control of the Moretti estate does not pass to you permanently unless you produce a legitimate heir by blood.”
“I never heard of that.”
“Because Victoria buried it. She planned to control you through marriage to Sophia. A child with Emily ruined that.”
My mother’s face was ashen.
I stared at her.
Aldo continued, “But that is not the worst of it.”
“Say it.”
“There was another baby.”
The room vanished beneath me.
My voice came out low.
“What baby?”
“Emily had twins.”
Lily stopped breathing.
My mother closed her eyes.
Margaret whispered, “No.”
Aldo’s voice broke.
“One girl. One boy. Emily was told the boy died shortly after birth.”
My stomach turned cold.
“Did he?”
Aldo was silent too long.
“No.”
Lily began to cry.
I could not move.
For six years, Emily had raised one child in hiding while believing the other was dead.
My son.
My son.
“Where is he?” I asked.
Aldo whispered, “That is why Emily contacted me. She found a hospital transfer record. The boy was taken under a sealed family order.”
I looked at my mother.
She did not look away.
For the first time in my life, Victoria Moretti looked afraid of me.
“Who signed it?” I asked.
Aldo drew a ragged breath.
“Victoria.”
My mother whispered, “Vincent—”
“Where is my son?”
The line crackled.
Aldo’s voice became urgent.
“There is a file in your father’s chapel vault. The black ledger. It has the child’s placement name and the people paid to hide him.”
“Placement name?”
“He was not hidden far. That was the genius of it.”
My blood went cold.
“What does that mean?”
Aldo said, “Your son has been living inside your world.”
Then a noise burst through the phone.
A crash.
A shout.
Aldo gasped.
“Vincent, don’t trust—”
The line went dead.
For several seconds, no one spoke.
Rain battered the glass walls high above Manhattan.
Lily sobbed quietly into my coat.
My mother stood perfectly still.
I looked at her.
“Where is my son?”
She lifted her chin.
“I did what was necessary.”
The words were gasoline.
I stepped toward her.
“For whom?”
“For the family.”
“My family is crying on that sofa.”
Her eyes flicked to Lily, and for the first time, I saw something worse than hatred.
Regret.
“You think I wanted this?”
“Yes.”
“No,” she said sharply. “I wanted you alive. I wanted your children alive. I wanted to keep your father’s enemies from using them.”
“By stealing them?”
“By placing the boy where no one would look.”
“Where?”
She said nothing.
I turned to security.
“Lock down every Moretti property. Find Sophia. Find Aldo. Find Emily. And bring me the chapel vault access.”
My mother’s voice cut across the room.
“You open that vault, and you will destroy more than me.”
I looked at her.
“You should have thought of that before you destroyed Emily.”
The doors opened again.
This time it was my head of security, pale and breathing hard.
“Sir.”
“What?”
He handed me a tablet.
“We found footage from the executive garage. Sophia made a call before we stopped her. We traced it.”
“To whom?”
He looked at Lily, then back at me.
“To St. Gabriel’s Academy.”
My chest tightened.
St. Gabriel’s was an elite private school funded by Moretti Holdings.
Many of our executives sent their children there.
I stared at my mother.
“Why would Sophia call a school?”
Security swiped the screen.
A photograph appeared.
A school courtyard.
Children in navy uniforms.
One boy standing apart near a fountain.
Dark hair.
Blue-gray eyes.
My eyes.
Lily slid off the sofa and walked toward the tablet.
Her lips trembled.
“That’s the boy from my dreams.”
I looked at her sharply.
“What dreams?”
She touched the screen with one small finger.
“Mom used to cry on my birthday. She said I had a brother in heaven.”
My mother whispered, “Vincent, please.”
But I was no longer listening to her.
I was staring at the name beneath the photograph.
Matteo Bennett.
Age six.
Guardian on record: Sophia Bennett.
The room turned ice cold.
Sophia had not been waiting to become my wife.
She had been raising my stolen son.
Before I could speak, the tablet buzzed with an incoming alert.
Security read it and went pale.
“Sir… St. Gabriel’s reports Matteo was picked up twenty minutes ago.”
“By whom?”
He swallowed.
“By your mother’s driver.”
I turned.
Victoria Moretti was already reaching into her sleeve.
Not for a weapon.
For a phone.
She pressed one button.
Across the office speakers, her voice came through from a live call.
“Bring the boy to the old house. And make sure Emily never reaches Vincent.”
Lily screamed.
My mother looked at me with tears in her eyes.
“I am sorry,” she said.
Then the lights in Moretti Tower went out.
