Chapter 4 – THE COAT IN THE HALL

The words slammed into me like a physical blow.

Catherine wasn’t Matteo’s real mother. Hannah is.

The child’s drawing fluttered from my trembling fingers, drifting to the wooden floorboards.

I stared at Luca. His dark eyes were wide, filled with a panic I had never seen before. He slowly lowered his weapon.

“Luca,” I choked out, the air leaving my lungs. “What is he talking about? I was never pregnant. I’ve never had a child!”

The man on the floor laughed again, a wet, rattling sound. “That’s what they wanted you to think. Ask him about the car crash five years ago, Hannah. The one that put you in a coma for a month.”

My mind spun violently. Five years ago. I had been in a terrible accident. When I woke up, the doctors told me I had suffered severe trauma, but I was lucky to be alive. My mother had been at my bedside, crying.

“No,” I whispered, backing away from the kitchen table. “No, that’s impossible.”

I reached into my pocket and pulled out the photograph I had found in my closet. The picture of my mother and Dante Moretti.

I held it up for Luca to see.

“My mother knew your brother,” I said, tears streaming down my face. “Did Dante do this? Did he take my baby while I was in a coma?”

Luca stared at the photograph, his face turning ashen.

He took a slow step toward me. “Hannah… I swear on my life, I didn’t know you were his mother until tonight.”

“But you knew Catherine wasn’t?” I screamed.

Luca closed his eyes, the guilt of a thousand sins washing over his face.

“Catherine couldn’t have children,” Luca confessed, his voice thick with shame. “But she was desperate for a baby. Desperate to give me an heir so my father wouldn’t force me to divorce her.”

He opened his eyes, looking at me with devastating sorrow.

“Dante told us he had found a private adoption agency. He said a young woman who was severely injured had surrendered her newborn. He brought Matteo to us. We paid him two million dollars.”

My legs gave out. I collapsed onto a kitchen chair, covering my face with my hands.

My baby. They had stolen my baby while I was unconscious. And my mother… my mother had helped Dante do it. She had sold her own grandson to the mafia to secure her financial future. That’s why she had so much money saved up before her stroke.

“Catherine found out the truth three years ago,” Luca continued, kneeling beside my chair. “She found Dante’s ledgers. She realized the adoption was a black-market kidnapping. She couldn’t live with the guilt. That’s why she was running away. She was trying to bring Matteo back to you.”

A sob tore from my throat. Catherine Moretti had died trying to return my son.

“And Dante killed her for it,” Luca whispered.

Suddenly, the man on the floor gasped for breath. “Dante… docks… midnight.”

His eyes rolled back, and he went still.

Luca stood up, his face hardening into a mask of pure, lethal determination.

He pulled a heavy tactical coat from a hook in the hallway and threw it over my shoulders to stop my shivering.

“Hannah, look at me.”

I looked up through blurred tears.

“My brother stole your child. And he stole my son.” Luca reached out and gently gripped my shoulders. “I am going to the docks. I am going to put a bullet in his head, and I am bringing our boy home. Do you understand?”

I wiped my face, a sudden, blinding rage replacing my despair.

“We are bringing him home,” I said, standing up.

Luca didn’t argue. He knew he couldn’t stop me.

We ran back to the SUV. Teresa was waiting anxiously in the back seat.

“What happened?” she asked, seeing my tear-stained face.

“Dante has him,” Luca said, throwing the SUV into drive. “He’s at the docks. We’re ending this tonight.”

Luca drove with terrifying speed back toward Chicago. He was on the phone with his lieutenants, ordering a full mobilization. The Moretti syndicate was going to war against its own ghost.

By the time we reached the industrial harbor, rain had begun to pour, slicking the shipping containers and concrete piers.

Luca parked blocks away to avoid detection. He told Teresa to stay in the armored car, locking the doors from the outside.

He handed me a small, suppressed pistol from the glovebox.

“Keep the safety on until you need it,” he instructed.

We moved silently through the maze of towering metal shipping containers. The smell of salt water and diesel fuel hung heavy in the air.

Up ahead, a massive cargo ship was moored at Pier 4. Armed men patrolled the gangway.

And standing near a black SUV, holding a terrified little boy by the hand, was Dante Moretti.

He looked older than his pictures, a long scar cutting across his left eye.

“Matteo,” I gasped quietly, seeing my son for the first time in my life. He had my dark hair and Luca’s eyes.

Luca raised his weapon, aiming at his brother’s head.

But before he could pull the trigger, a voice rang out from the shadows behind us.

“Drop the gun, Luca.”

We spun around.

Standing in the rain, holding a shotgun aimed directly at my chest, was a woman I had left safely in the hospital earlier that morning.

My mother.

TITLE: The Rosary

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