Chapter 3 - EVERYONE THOUGHT THE MAFIA BOSS’S SISTER HAD BEEN DEAD FOR EIGHTEEN YEARS—UNTIL SHE RETURNED TO CLAIM HIS EMPIRE AND PUT A PRICE ON HIS UNBORN CHILD
Kieran did not sleep.
Neither did I.
By sunrise, the Moretti estate contained twice as many guards.
I hated every one of them.
Not personally.
Symbolically.
Every armed man reminded me that my baby had been conceived during the only reckless night I had allowed myself in years and had somehow become part of a criminal inheritance before developing fingers.
I sat in the kitchen drinking ginger tea.
Kieran entered.
“You should sleep.”
“So should you.”
“I can't.”
“Neither can I.”
He sat across from me.
No suit.
No tie.
He looked less like a mafia boss.
More like the man from the hotel.
“Ian,” I said.
He looked up.
“Why Ian?”
“Middle name.”
“Kieran Ian Moretti?”
“Don't laugh.”
“I absolutely will.”
He smiled faintly.
Then it disappeared.
“Isabella was fifteen when she died.”
“Apparently not.”
“Our father told me there was a car accident.”
“Did you see her body?”
“No.”
“Funeral?”
“Closed casket.”
I sighed.
“Your family really needs to stop believing closed caskets.”
He almost laughed.
Then his eyes became distant.
“My father said she died because someone tried to kidnap me.”
“What?”
“He blamed me.”
I stopped.
“For eighteen years?”
“Yes.”
“Kieran.”
“He said Isabella changed cars with me that morning. That the bomb was meant for me.”
“And now she's alive.”
“Yes.”
I understood something.
“Your father used guilt to control you.”
Kieran looked at me.
“Yes.”
“Maybe Isabella got a different version.”
He became still.
“What?”
“Maybe someone told her you were responsible for what happened to her.”
Kieran leaned back.
“Salvatore.”
“Or your father.”
“Both.”
We began investigating.
Not Kieran's way.
My way.
Paper.
Records.
Birth certificates.
Hospital admissions.
Insurance claims.
I had spent my life surviving bureaucracy.
It turned out bureaucracy was excellent at preserving secrets badly.
Marlow helped.
When I told her everything, she stared for a full minute.
“So let me summarize.”
“No.”
“You slept with a stranger.”
“Marlow.”
“Who turned out to be a mafia boss.”
“Yes.”
“Then he threatened your brother.”
“Yes.”
“Then you discovered you're pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“Then his dead sister came back.”
“Yes.”
She drank coffee.
“Your life has become terrible television.”
“Thank you.”
“I'm still watching.”
We found the first break in a hospital archive.
The girl brought in after Isabella's supposed accident had survived.
Severe burns.
Multiple fractures.
Transferred after forty-eight hours.
Destination sealed.
Authorized by Salvatore Moretti.
Kieran stared at the record.
“He knew.”
“Yes.”
“Why hide her?”
We found another document.
A guardianship petition.
Isabella had been placed under a false identity.
Salvatore claimed she suffered brain injury and required long-term care.
Then, at eighteen, she disappeared from the facility.
“Maybe she escaped,” I said.
Kieran nodded.
“And spent fifteen years planning revenge.”
We eventually found Isabella ourselves.
Or rather, she found me.
I was leaving a prenatal appointment when a woman sat beside me at the bus stop.
“You're larger than I expected.”
I turned.
Dark hair.
Kieran's eyes.
Isabella.
My security guard reached inside his coat.
“Don't,” she said.
I raised my hand.
He stopped.
Isabella smiled.
“Good. You train them better than my brother.”
“What do you want?”
“To meet the woman carrying my replacement.”
“My baby isn't replacing anyone.”
“In this family, babies always replace someone.”
She looked toward my stomach.
I felt protective anger rise.
“If you threaten my child—”
“I didn't come to hurt you.”
“You sent a cradle.”
“For Kieran.”
“That makes it charming?”
“No.”
Her smile faded.
“I wanted him frightened.”
“He was.”
“Good.”
I studied her.
“You hate him.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He left me.”
“He thought you were dead.”
“He didn't look hard enough.”
“He was sixteen.”
Something changed in her face.
“They told you that?”
“Yes.”
“My father said Kieran knew.”
“No.”
“He said Kieran agreed I should disappear because I was unstable.”
I stared.
“Kieran believed you died in the bombing.”
Isabella's expression shifted.
Tiny.
But real.
“You're lying.”
“No.”
“He inherited everything.”
“At sixteen?”
“Eventually.”
“He never came.”
“He mourned you.”
She stood.
“No.”
“Isabella.”
“Don't.”
She walked away.
I returned home furious.
Kieran met me in the foyer.
“You spoke to her?”
“How do you know?”
“Security.”
“You tracked me?”
His face changed.
“The guard reported—”
“Did you tell him to report every conversation?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Talia—”
“No.”
I walked away.
He followed.
Then stopped himself.
An hour later he knocked on my door.
“Come in.”
“I was wrong.”
I looked up.
“I need security to report threats. Not your private conversations.”
“Yes.”
“I changed the instruction.”
“Good.”
He remained there.
“What did she say?”
I told him.
Kieran sat.
“She thinks I knew.”
“Yes.”
“My father told her.”
“Probably.”
He closed his eyes.
“What kind of man does that to his children?”
I looked at him.
“The kind you shouldn't become.”
His eyes opened.
That landed.
“I'm trying.”
“I know.”
Our child moved for the first time at twenty weeks.
A flutter.
I froze.
Kieran was across the room reading.
“What?”
“Come here.”
He did.
I took his hand.
Then stopped.
“May I?”
he asked.
My eyes burned.
“Yes.”
I placed his palm over my stomach.
Nothing.
Kieran waited.
Then the baby kicked.
His face changed completely.
The feared Kieran Moretti became simply a father.
“Oh.”
I laughed.
“Very eloquent.”
The baby kicked again.
Kieran's eyes filled.
He knelt.
Not because I asked.
Because his legs seemed unable to keep him standing.
“Hi.”
I started crying.
Kieran looked embarrassed.
“I don't know what I'm supposed to say.”
“Anything.”
He looked at my stomach.
“I'm sorry your family is insane.”
I laughed through tears.
“Excellent beginning.”
Then the phone rang.
Isabella.
She wanted to meet Kieran.
Alone.
He went.
Not truly alone.
Federal agents monitored from a distance.
The meeting took place in an abandoned church.
Isabella waited near the altar.
Kieran stopped twenty feet away.
For eighteen years, each had believed the other had betrayed them.
Neither moved.
Finally Isabella said:
“You got old.”
Kieran laughed.
“You too.”
She cried.
Then slapped him.
He accepted it.
“You didn't look for me.”
“I buried you.”
“You believed him.”
“I was sixteen.”
“I was fifteen!”
“I know.”
They shouted.
Cried.
Accused.
Then something broke.
Isabella whispered:
“He told me you wanted me gone.”
Kieran shook his head.
“Never.”
“He said you blamed me for Mom's death.”
“I blamed myself for everything.”
Isabella covered her face.
Kieran moved forward.
Stopped.
“Can I?”
She looked at him.
Then nodded.
They embraced.
Eighteen years collapsed.
But Salvatore had followed her.
He entered with armed men.
The reconciliation had been bait.
Not Isabella's.
His.
Salvatore had manipulated both siblings because their grandfather's trust contained another clause.
If Kieran and Isabella reconciled and jointly challenged his trusteeship, Salvatore lost everything.
So he needed one sibling dead.
Preferably both.
Gunfire erupted.
Federal agents moved.
Kieran pulled Isabella down.
Salvatore escaped through the crypt.
Isabella was wounded.
Not badly.
But when Kieran returned home that night, blood covered his shirt.
I saw him.
My knees weakened.
“Not mine,” he said immediately.
I crossed the room.
Then stopped.
He opened his arms.
I entered them.
That was the first time I kissed Kieran since the hotel.
Not because I owed him.
Not because of the baby.
Because I wanted to.
When we separated, he whispered:
“Talia.”
“Don't ruin it.”
“I was going to say thank you.”
“That also ruins it.”
He smiled.
For one night, we allowed ourselves to imagine a future.
The next morning Salvatore destroyed it.
He kidnapped Ryder and Lily.
The video arrived at 7:12 a.m.
Lily sat crying beside Ryder.
Salvatore stood behind them.
His message was simple.
Bring Isabella.
Bring the trust.
And bring Talia.
Kieran watched the video once.
Then again.
I expected the old man from Pier Seventeen to emerge.
The man who used lives as bargaining chips.
Instead, Kieran turned to me.
“What do you want to do?”
I stared.
“My sister is there.”
“I know.”
“My brother too.”
“I know.”
“And you're asking me?”
“Yes.”
My eyes filled.
Because he had learned.
I wiped them.
“Then we're getting them back.”
“How?”
I looked at Isabella.
She looked at me.
Two women Salvatore considered pieces in his inheritance war.
May you like
I smiled.
“We give him exactly what he thinks he wants.”
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