Chapter 3 - Maria Romano Was AliveBy midnight, I had an entire team searching for Maria.
Her name wasn't in the city's official records.
No birth certificate.
No medical history.
No school records.
It was as if she didn't exist.
But Lily existed.
And Lily had to come from somewhere.
At two in the morning, Marco entered my study.
“We found the mother.”
I stood.
“Where?”
“A public clinic.”
“Take me.”
We arrived twenty minutes later.
The clinic was almost empty.
A nurse led me down a narrow corridor.
Then I saw her.
A woman sat beside a hospital bed.
Dark hair.
Thin face.
Tired eyes.
She looked up.
And everything stopped.
I knew those eyes.
My mother's eyes.
My sister's eyes.
Maria.
She stood slowly.
“Dante?”
I couldn't answer.
She covered her mouth.
“No.”
I took one step forward.
“Maria.”
She started crying.
I had imagined this moment for thirty years.
In my imagination, I hugged her immediately.
Instead, we stood several feet apart.
Neither of us knew how to cross the distance created by three decades.
Then Maria whispered:
“You're alive.”
I almost laughed.
“So are you.”
She shook her head.
“I thought you died.”
“I thought you died.”
“I saw the house burn.”
“So did I.”
She covered her face.
“I thought you never came back.”
“I searched.”
“Not long enough.”
The accusation hurt because it was true.
I had searched for years.
But eventually I had accepted the lie.
Maria hadn't.
She had spent thirty years believing her brother might still be alive.
Then Lily entered the room.
“Mommy!”
Maria ran toward her.
She hugged her daughter.
I watched.
The child I had met in the alley suddenly became more than a mysterious girl.
She was my niece.
My family.
My blood.
Maria looked at me.
“I didn't know you were alive until three months ago.”
“What?”
She explained.
An old man had contacted her.
He claimed to have known our father.
He told her Dante Romano was alive.
She began searching.
Then the attacks started.
Someone wanted her silent.
She had been sick for months.
She had hidden Lily from everyone.
“Why didn't you contact me?”
“I was afraid.”
“Of me?”
“Of what you had become.”
That hurt more.
Maria looked at the tattoos on my hands.
“I heard stories.”
“They're true.”
“I know.”
“I did terrible things.”
“I know.”
She touched Lily's hair.
“But you were my brother before you were Dante Romano.”
I looked away.
For the first time in thirty years, someone had called me by my real name without fear.
Then the lights went out.
A gunshot exploded through the window.
Maria screamed.
I pushed both of them to the floor.
My men returned fire.
When the emergency lights came on, we found a message painted across the wall.
THE ROMANO BLOODLINE ENDS TONIGHT.
I stared at it.
Then I understood.
This wasn't about my empire.
It wasn't about territory.
May you like
It was about my family.
And whoever had hunted us for thirty years was still hunting us now.
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