Chapter 2 - The Mother of My Secret Daughter Told Me My Dead Brother Had Been Hunting Her for Six YearsI didn't sleep that night.
Neither did Elena.
We sat across from each other in the small Queens apartment while rain tapped against the windows.
The apartment was nothing like the world I lived in.
There were children's drawings taped to the refrigerator.
A secondhand couch.
A tiny table with two chairs.
A stack of library books beside the television.
And photographs.
Hundreds of them.
Lily at one.
Lily at two.
Lily holding a birthday cake.
Lily sleeping.
Lily wearing a Halloween costume.
Six years of moments I had missed.
I picked up a photograph.
Lily was three.
She had two missing front teeth.
I stared at her smile.
“She looks happy.”
“She is.”
“You made sure of that.”
Elena nodded.
“Even when things were bad.”
“What happened?”
She stared at the floor.
“After I left you, I found out I was pregnant.”
I closed my eyes.
“Why didn't you call me?”
“I did.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“I called you three times.”
“When?”
“The week after I left.”
“I never received them.”
“You changed your number.”
I remembered.
I had changed everything after Nico's death.
Phones.
Accounts.
Security.
Contacts.
I had cut people out.
Including Elena.
“I left messages.”
“I never heard them.”
She laughed bitterly.
“Someone made sure you didn't.”
“Who?”
She looked at me.
“Nico.”
I stood.
“Tell me.”
“He found me before Lily was born.”
“How?”
“He had people watching you.”
She explained that Nico had survived the attack that supposedly killed him.
He had been injured.
Badly.
Instead of returning, he disappeared.
He spent years building an underground organization.
His goal wasn't simply revenge.
He wanted my empire.
But there was one problem.
My father had secretly created a trust.
The Moretti Legacy Trust.
If I died without a legitimate heir, the assets would be divided.
But if I had a biological child, the trust belonged to that child.
Nico needed Lily gone.
“Elena.”
She looked up.
“Did he ever touch her?”
“No.”
“Did he threaten her?”
“Yes.”
My jaw tightened.
“How?”
“He sent photographs.”
My blood froze.
“Photographs of Lily?”
She nodded.
“Every few months.”
She showed me a box.
Inside were photographs.
Lily at daycare.
Lily in a park.
Lily outside the pharmacy.
Lily walking home.
Someone had followed her for years.
I picked up the newest photograph.
It had been taken two weeks earlier.
On the back were five words.
She looks just like you.
I crushed the photograph in my fist.
Elena whispered,
“He wanted you to know.”
“Why?”
“Because he wants you angry.”
I looked at her.
“He got what he wanted.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“He wants you reckless.”
That stopped me.
She was right.
Nico knew me.
He knew what happened when someone threatened my family.
He wanted me to charge into his trap.
But I wasn't the man I had been seven years ago.
I had a daughter now.
A daughter who had saved my life.
I wasn't going to lose her because I was too angry to think.
I called Marco.
“Bring the team.”
He arrived twenty minutes later.
Lily was asleep.
I stood outside her bedroom.
She was curled beneath a pink blanket.
Her stuffed rabbit was tucked under her chin.
I had never seen anything so peaceful.
Marco approached quietly.
“Boss?”
“From now on, she has twenty-four-hour protection.”
“Understood.”
“No armed men in her room.”
Marco nodded.
“No visible weapons around her.”
“Yes.”
“And nobody tells her what I do.”
Marco paused.
“You're going to keep her away from the family business?”
“She's six.”
He nodded.
“Of course.”
I looked at Lily.
“She gets to be a child.”
Marco smiled faintly.
“Sounds like you're already changing.”
I looked at him.
“Don't push your luck.”
He laughed.
Then his expression became serious.
“We found something.”
He handed me a tablet.
Security footage.
A black SUV had been parked across from the pharmacy Lily visited.
The vehicle had been there for twenty-three minutes.
The driver never got out.
The license plate was fake.
But the driver's face was visible.
I stared at the screen.
I knew him.
“Who is that?”
Marco asked.
I whispered,
“Adrian Cole.”
My former head of security.
The man who had supposedly retired five years ago.
The man who had disappeared after Nico's death.
The man who knew every weakness in my organization.
“Find him.”
Marco nodded.
Then Lily appeared in the doorway.
She was holding her stuffed rabbit.
“Daddy?”
I turned.
The word hit me differently this time.
“Yeah?”
She looked sleepy.
“Can I sleep in your house?”
I looked at Elena.
Elena looked at me.
I crouched.
“You can sleep wherever you feel safe.”
She thought about it.
“With you.”
My throat tightened.
“Okay.”
She climbed into my arms.
She was lighter than I expected.
She smelled like children's shampoo.
I carried her to the couch.
She fell asleep against my chest.
I sat there for hours.
The most feared man in New York.
Sitting completely still because a six-year-old girl had her head against his heart.
And for the first time, I understood what fear really was.
May you like
It wasn't dying.
It was losing someone you had just discovered you loved.
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