Chapter 1 – THE MAN WHO NEVER LEFT

I stared at the photograph in my mother’s trembling hands.

My father.

The man who had supposedly walked out on us twenty years ago, leaving my mother to work three jobs just to keep the heat on.

He owns the Moretti family. Nguồn: ysbrandcosijn / Getty Images

Except in this picture, he wasn’t wearing the cheap flannel shirts I remembered. He was wearing a custom-tailored Italian suit, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with my husband, Vincent.

“He owns the Morettis?” I repeated, the words burning my throat. “Mom, what does that even mean? Vincent is the head of the Commission.”

My mother let out a bitter, exhausted laugh.

“Vincent is the face, Evelyn. Your father is the shadow.”

She walked over to the small window, pulling the curtains tightly shut against the dark Chicago night.

“Twenty years ago, your father didn’t abandon us,” she said, not looking at me. “He built a criminal empire so vast, so violent, that he knew it would eventually get us killed. So he staged a walkout. He left us with nothing, so his enemies would think we meant nothing to him.”

My chest tightened.

“But he never actually left,” she whispered. “He watched us every single day. And when you turned twenty-two and met Vincent… that wasn’t an accident, Evelyn.”

I felt physically sick.

“Are you telling me my marriage was arranged?”

“I’m telling you Vincent was ordered to marry you,” she said, turning to face me. “Your father wanted his favorite soldier to protect his oldest daughter.”

“Protect me?” I screamed, the betrayal tearing through me. “Vincent cheated on me for seven years! He secretly married my sister!”

“Because Claire figured it out!” my mother snapped back.

The room went dead silent.

Rose, the nurse who had helped fake my mother’s death, stood quietly by the door, her eyes fixed on the floor.

“Figured what out?” I asked, my voice trembling.

“Claire found out who your father really was,” my mother explained, her voice dropping to a terrified whisper. “She found his offshore accounts. She found his blood money. And instead of running away… she wanted it.”

I fell back onto the couch.

My little sister. The sweet girl I had helped raise.

“Claire didn’t seduce Vincent because she loved him, Evelyn,” my mother said, kneeling in front of me. “She seduced him to get close to the throne. And when Vincent tried to push her away, she started sleeping with Dominic, building her own faction from the inside.”

“And the documents?” I asked. “The ones Claire just demanded on the phone?”

My mother pulled a worn leather folder from under the sofa cushion.

“Three years ago, I broke into your father’s safe house,” she said. “I thought I was stealing the financial ledgers that would put him and Dominic in prison for life. I thought I could save you and Claire.”

She opened the folder.

“But they weren’t ledgers, Evelyn.”

She handed me a stack of yellowed, official-looking papers.

I looked down at the top page. It was a birth certificate.

But it wasn’t mine.

It was Claire’s.

“Mom…” I whispered, reading the names on the document. “Mom, what is this?”

“Read the father’s name,” she choked out.

I traced my finger across the faded ink.

The name listed under Father wasn’t my dad’s name.

It was Alberto Moretti. Vincent’s father.

I looked up in absolute horror.

“Claire isn’t your sister, Evelyn,” my mother cried. “She’s Vincent’s half-sister. Your father adopted her to keep the Moretti bloodline under his absolute control.”

The room spun.

Vincent had been sleeping with his own half-sister?

“He didn’t know,” my mother said quickly, seeing the disgust in my eyes. “Vincent has no idea. Claire knows. But she’s using the baby to blackmail him into giving up the syndicate.”

Suddenly, the television in the corner of the living room flickered to life.

Static filled the screen, followed by a sharp, electronic hum.

Rose gasped, stepping back from the door.

The screen cleared, revealing a live video feed of a dark, concrete room.

Sitting in the center of the room, tied to a metal chair, was my six-year-old son, Anthony.

“Anthony!” I screamed, rushing toward the TV.

He was crying, his little face streaked with dirt. He was clutching a piece of paper in his bound hands.

Child’s crayon drawing. Nguồn: loops7 / Getty Images

It was a crayon drawing he had made for my birthday yesterday. A drawing of our family.

Then, a man stepped into the frame.

He was wearing a custom-tailored Italian suit. He reached down and gently wiped a tear from my son’s cheek.

Then, he looked directly into the camera.

He looked exactly like the photograph my mother had just shown me.

My father.

He smiled, a cold, terrifying smile, and held up a cell phone to the camera.

On the screen of his phone was a single text message.

I know where they are hiding.

I spun around, looking at my mother.

But she wasn’t looking at the TV.

She was staring down the barrel of a gun held by Rose Bennett.

“I’m sorry, Evelyn,” Rose whispered, her finger tightening on the trigger. “But your father pays much better than your husband.”

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