Chapter 1 - The Seven-Year-Old Girl Was Sewing Her Own Rent Money While Her Mother Fought to Stay AliveMy name is Nathan Moretti.
In Chicago, most people knew better than to say it twice.
I owned restaurants, clubs, apartment buildings, and several businesses that never appeared under my name.
But the men who worked for me knew what I really controlled.
And they knew I didn't forgive debts.
So when Apartment 4B fell three months behind on rent, I decided to handle it personally.
I knocked hard.
Tiny footsteps approached.
A little girl opened the door.
She couldn't have been older than seven.
Her clothes were worn, brown hair falling across her thin face.
Tiny drops of blood dotted her fingertips.
Behind her sat an old sewing machine.
"Where's your mother?"
The girl stiffened.
"She's sick."
I stepped inside.
The apartment was nearly empty.
Medicine bottles covered a small table.
The refrigerator held almost nothing.
"What’s your name?"
"Lily."
"And the rent?"
She disappeared for a moment and returned with a crumpled envelope.
Forty-three dollars.
"I'm making the rest."
I looked toward the sewing machine.
"You?"
She nodded.
"I sew for people downstairs."
Then she sat back down.
Her exhausted feet worked the pedal.
The needle moved faster.
Suddenly, it pierced her finger.
Lily winced, wiped the blood onto her shirt—
and kept sewing.
I had watched grown men beg at my feet without feeling anything.
But watching that child made something inside me turn cold.
Because thirty years earlier, I had been the kid sitting beside a sewing machine while my own mother counted coins we didn't have.
Before the suits.
Before the armed men.
Before people started lowering their voices when I entered a room.
I pulled several hundred-dollar bills from my wallet.
"Stop."
Lily shook her head.
"Mom needs medicine."
I looked toward the closed bedroom.
"I want to speak with her."
Lily immediately stood.
"You can't."
"Why?"
Her face went pale.
"Mom said if Mr. Moretti ever came here, I must never let him see her."
My hand stopped over my coat.
She knew my name.
Before I could ask another question, something shattered behind the bedroom door.
I moved toward it.
Lily grabbed my sleeve.
"Please!"
Then a weak voice came from inside.
"Nate?"
I froze.
Nobody called me Nate anymore.
Nobody alive, anyway.
I slowly opened the door.
A sick woman lay beneath a thin blanket.
Her face had changed.
But those eyes hadn't.
"Sarah?"
She closed her eyes.
A tear slipped down her cheek.
"You shouldn't be here."
I stared at her.
Thirty years disappeared.
The last time I'd seen Sarah Bell, I had been seventeen.
She had been nineteen.
She had stood outside a train station with one suitcase.
My mother had been behind her.
My father had been screaming at me.
And Sarah had whispered:
"Run, Nate."
Then she disappeared.
I had spent three decades believing she had abandoned me.
Believing she had chosen another life.
Believing my father had been right when he told me she had never really loved me.
I had built an empire over the years.
And somehow, this woman had ended up renting one of my apartments.
Three months behind.
Sick.
With a seven-year-old child sewing rent money.
I stared at her.
"What happened to you?"
Sarah looked toward Lily.
"She doesn't know."
Lily's eyes widened.
"Know what?"
Sarah pushed herself upright.
"Go to the kitchen, sweetheart."
"But—"
"Please."
Lily left.
Sarah looked at me.
"I thought you were dead."
"I could say the same."
"You became exactly what your father wanted."
Her words hurt more than they should have.
"Don't talk about my father."
"He destroyed everything."
I stared.
"What did he do?"
Sarah coughed.
Then she pulled a small envelope from beneath her pillow.
"Take this."
I didn't.
"What's inside?"
"Proof."
"Proof of what?"
"Why I disappeared."
My chest tightened.
"Sarah, I spent years looking for you."
"I know."
"You knew?"
She nodded.
"Your father made sure you would never find me."
"Why?"
"Because he was afraid of what you would learn."
She looked toward the kitchen.
"And because of Lily."
I froze.
"What does Lily have to do with my father?"
Sarah didn't answer.
Instead, she looked toward the sewing machine in the other room.
The little silver rose carved into its wooden base caught the light.
My mother's mark.
The exact sewing machine she had owned thirty years earlier.
The machine she had sold on the same night Sarah disappeared.
My mother had told me she sold it for money.
But Sarah had it.
Why?
"Where did you get that?"
Sarah's face changed.
"Your mother gave it to me."
My heart stopped.
"My mother died twenty-three years ago."
Sarah nodded.
"I know."
"Then how?"
"Before she died, she asked me to keep it."
I stared.
"Why?"
Sarah whispered:
"Because she knew your father planned to kill you."
The world seemed to tilt.
"My father?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because you weren't supposed to inherit anything."
I laughed once, bitterly.
"I inherited nothing from him."
Sarah looked at me.
"Exactly."
Before I could ask what she meant, the apartment door opened.
Three men entered.
My men.
Tony.
Marco.
And Daniel.
They expected to find me preparing an eviction.
Instead, they saw Sarah.
Tony stared.
"Boss."
He looked at her.
"Is that—"
I raised one hand.
Everyone stopped.
Sarah whispered:
"Nate, you need to leave."
"Not without you."
"You don't understand."
"I understand enough."
"No."
She looked terrified.
"He knows."
"Who?"
"My brother."
I froze.
I had never known Sarah had a brother.
"Who?"
She whispered a name.
A name I hadn't heard since I was seventeen.
A name from the night she disappeared.
"Gabriel."
Then the power went out.
Someone fired a gun from the hallway.
The bullet shattered the bedroom window.
Lily screamed.
I moved before anyone else.
I grabbed the child and pulled her behind the wall.
"Stay down."
Sarah tried to stand.
I caught her.
"Don't move."
Another shot.
Silence.
My men rushed outside.
The hallway was empty.
Only one thing remained.
A white envelope.
My name was written on it.
Not Nathan.
Not Mr. Moretti.
Nate.
I opened it.
Inside was a photograph of my mother.
On the back, six words were written:
SHE NEVER GAVE YOU TO YOUR FATHER.
I looked at Sarah.
May you like
She was crying.
And I knew my entire childhood had been built on a lie.
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