Chapter 2 – THE CRASH AND THE STOLEN CHILD

The heavy thud of my own heartbeat drowned out everything else in the room.

The little girl had dark, curling hair and bright green eyes—eyes that were an exact, haunting replica of the portraits of Caroline Moretti hanging in the library. She was wearing a simple white nightgown, clutching a stuffed rabbit to her chest, trembling violently.

“Marco,” Luca said. His voice wasn’t a roar. It was a terrifying, lethal whisper.

The man who had stood beside Luca for ten years, who had taken a bullet for him in a turf war three years ago, kept the barrel of his gun pressed against the child’s temple.

“I’m sorry, Boss,” Marco said, his face pale and sweating. “I really am.”

Vanessa stepped forward, her confidence fully restored.

“Don’t apologize, Marco,” she snapped. “Just get her down to the garage. The transport is waiting.”

Luca didn’t look at his fiancée. He kept his eyes locked on his head of security.

“You sold me out for her?” Luca asked, the betrayal cutting deeper than the blade that had sliced my hand. “For Vanessa?”

Marco swallowed hard, his hands shaking slightly.

“Not for her, Mr. Moretti,” Marco said, his voice cracking. “For my own daughter. Vanessa’s father runs the clinic where my little girl gets her leukemia treatments. He said if I didn’t get your kid out of this house tonight, my kid stops getting her medicine.”

The reversal hit me like a physical blow.

Marco wasn’t a greedy traitor. He was a desperate father, blackmailed by the same medical syndicate that had stolen Luca’s child nine years ago.

“Marco, listen to me,” Luca pleaded, taking a slow, measured step forward. “Put the gun down. I will fly the best oncologists in the world to Chicago tonight. I will buy the hospital. Your daughter will live. But you have to let my daughter go.”

The little girl whimpered, burying her face into Marco’s heavy suit jacket.

“I want my mommy,” she cried softly.

She didn’t mean Caroline. She meant Vanessa.

Vanessa smiled, a sickening display of maternal affection.

“I’m right here, sweetie,” Vanessa cooed. “Mommy’s going to take you somewhere safe.”

“She’s not your mother!” Luca roared, finally losing his composure. “She stole you!”

The little girl flinched, terrified by Luca’s booming voice. She clung tighter to Marco.

“Boss, please step back,” Marco warned, his finger tightening on the trigger. “I don’t want to hurt her. I just need to walk her to the car.”

I watched the standoff, my mind racing. Marco was a highly trained enforcer. If Luca rushed him, the gun would go off. If we let him leave, Vanessa’s family would disappear the child forever.

My injured left hand throbbed beneath the bandages.

Then, I noticed the heavy wool coat resting on the bedside table, just inches from my right hand.

I looked at Marco. He was entirely focused on Luca.

“Marco,” I said, my voice shaking.

The security chief’s eyes flicked toward me for a fraction of a second.

“Shut up, Anna,” Marco snapped.

“I just wanted to tell you,” I said, grabbing the heavy wool coat with my good hand. “You left your spare magazine in the pocket.”

I didn’t throw the coat at him. I hurled it directly at the bedside lamp.

The heavy wool caught the tall, brass lamp, sending it crashing violently to the floor. The bulb shattered with a loud pop, plunging that corner of the room into darkness and startling Marco.

The distraction lasted less than a second.

But for Luca Moretti, a second was a lifetime.

Luca lunged.

He didn’t go for the gun. He drove his shoulder directly into Marco’s chest, tackling the massive man backward into the bathroom doorframe.

The gun fired wildly, the suppressed bullet tearing a hole through the ceiling plaster.

“Run!” Luca shouted to the little girl as he wrestled Marco to the ground.

The child screamed, dropping her stuffed rabbit, and bolted toward the open bedroom door.

But Vanessa was standing right in her path.

“Come here, you little brat!” Vanessa shrieked, reaching out with her manicured hands to grab the child’s hair.

I didn’t think. I just reacted.

I sprinted across the Persian rug and shoved Vanessa with all my weight.

My bloody left hand slammed into her shoulder. Pain exploded up my arm, but it was enough. Vanessa lost her balance, her high heels twisting on the rug, and she crashed hard into the mahogany dresser.

The little girl ran past her, slipping out into the hallway.

“Anna, get her!” Luca yelled, landing a brutal punch across Marco’s jaw that knocked the security chief out cold.

I ran out into the corridor.

The little girl was standing at the top of the grand staircase, looking down at the terrified wedding guests below. She was crying hysterically, unsure where to go.

“Sweetheart,” I called out gently, ignoring the agony in my hand. “It’s okay. Come here.”

She turned toward me, her green eyes wide with fear.

Before she could take a step, a man in a sharp gray suit reached the top of the stairs and grabbed her arm.

It wasn’t one of Vanessa’s guards.

It was Mrs. Whitmore’s son. The man Vanessa had been married to. The man who had raised this child for the first six years of her life.

“I’ve got you, Lily,” he whispered, picking the crying child up in his arms.

He looked directly at me.

And then he pulled a small, folded piece of paper from his pocket and pressed it into my hand.

“Take this to the police,” he said quickly. “It’s the clinic records.”

But as he turned to carry the child toward Luca, a red laser dot suddenly appeared in the center of his forehead.

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