Chapter 1 - Miss Rose rested inside my coat.
Miss Rose rested inside my coat.
The doll’s wet cloth pressed against my shirt.
I kept one hand over it as though protecting something alive.
“Boss,” Marco said quietly.
I looked at him.
“We have Bellini.”
“Where?”
“Not Red Hook.”
I waited.
Marco’s expression had changed.
“He walked into the house on his own.”
For a moment, I thought I had misunderstood.
“My house?”
“Ten minutes ago. Came through the front gate. Asked for you.”
“And?”
“He said he knows where Elena and Sofia are.”
My hand tightened around the doll.
“Turn around.”
Marco studied me.
“The Colombo vehicles—”
“Are bait.”
He nodded once, then told the driver to take us back.
I watched the harbor disappear behind us.
Vincent Colombo wanted me in Red Hook.
He wanted my men moving through his territory.
He wanted witnesses.
Maybe police.
Maybe reporters.
Maybe other families watching carefully to see who made the first aggressive move.
For the first time since the phone call, I understood something important.
Vincent had not designed his plan around Sofia.
He had designed it around me.
Around the man he believed I was.
A man who would respond to fear with fury.
A man predictable enough to manipulate.
I looked down at the small lump beneath my coat.
Three months earlier, he might have been right.
Niko Bellini was sitting in my library when I entered the house.
He had not been restrained.
I had ordered that before we arrived.
Still, two men stood outside the door.
Niko rose when he saw me.
He was thirty-two, dark-haired, usually sharp enough to notice details other people missed. His father had served mine. His older brother had died in a car accident when Niko was eighteen.
I had paid for his mother’s mortgage afterward.
That was the kind of history people mistook for loyalty.
I closed the library door.
Marco remained beside me.
Niko looked exhausted.
“You think I betrayed you,” he said.
“I think the Colombos knew the nursery, the taxi route, and the exact hour Elena finished work.”
Niko swallowed.
“They learned it from me.”
Marco cursed under his breath.
I felt anger arrive.
Hot.
Immediate.
Familiar.
Then I remembered a three-year-old girl standing beside a piano.
Maybe the piano gets lonely.
I pulled out a chair.
“Sit.”
Niko blinked.
“Boss—”
“Sit.”
He did.
I sat across from him.
“Start at the beginning.”
For almost a minute, he said nothing.
Then his shoulders lowered.
“My sister has a gambling problem.”
Marco’s expression hardened.
Niko continued quickly.
“Not casinos. Online. Sports. Private rooms. She kept borrowing. I kept paying. Six months ago she owed almost two hundred thousand.”
“To whom?”
“A Colombo book.”
I understood.
“They approached you.”
“Yes.”
“And you gave them information.”
“At first, nothing important.”
Every traitor says that, I thought.
Maybe every frightened person says it too.
“What did you give them?”
“Schedules. Which restaurants you used. Which drivers were off duty. Things they could have found anyway.”
“But then they asked about Elena.”
Niko closed his eyes.
“I told them she worked in your house.”
Marco stepped forward.
I raised one hand.
He stopped.
“Did you tell them about Sofia?”
“No.”
“Think carefully.”
“I didn’t.”
“Did you tell them where Elena went during the day?”
Niko hesitated.
That hesitation answered me.
He whispered, “I said she took classes.”
“What classes?”
“English classes. Tuesdays and Thursdays.”
Elena had told me about those.
She wanted better English because she planned to become a licensed practical nurse someday.
She had apologized for asking whether the household schedule could change.
I had told her she never needed permission to improve her life.
Apparently, someone else had been listening.
“Where?”
“Community center in Sunset Park.”
Marco’s face went pale with anger.
“That was enough to follow her.”
“Yes.”
I leaned back.
Outside, rain tapped softly against the windows.
“So Vincent threatens your sister.”
Niko nodded.
“And instead of coming to me, you sell him pieces of my household.”
“I was ashamed.”
“That is not an explanation.”
“No.”
“Why didn’t you ask for help?”
His laugh was hollow.
“Because people don’t ask Dominic Moretti for help.”
The words landed more heavily than I expected.
Niko looked at me directly.
“They ask you for permission. They ask you for money. They ask you what you want done. But help?”
He shook his head.
“You taught us that weakness gets noticed.”
Marco glanced at me.
I said nothing.
Niko continued.
“When my sister got into trouble, I thought if you knew, you’d decide I was unreliable.”
“Instead, you became unreliable.”
“Yes.”
The honesty irritated me because I had nowhere to put it.
“What changed tonight?”
“When I heard they took the child.”
His voice broke on the last word.
He looked away.
“I never knew they were planning that. I swear on my mother.”
I believed he believed himself.
That was not the same as innocence.
But innocence was no longer the question.
“Where are they?”
Niko looked toward the door.
“Not Red Hook.”
“I know.”
He looked surprised.
“They moved Elena and Sofia to a townhouse in Bay Ridge.”
Marco stared at him.
“Colombo territory?”
“No. Neutral property.”
“Whose?”
Niko hesitated again.
This time, fear entered his face.
“Adrian Moretti.”
Silence filled the room.
My cousin.
My father’s sister’s son.
The man who had stood beside me at funerals, weddings, christenings and negotiations for twenty-seven years.
Adrian had been there the first morning Elena brought Sofia to the house.
He had watched the little girl sit at the kitchen table eating strawberries.
He had joked that I finally had someone in the house who ignored my rules.
I rose slowly.
Marco whispered, “Dominic…”
“Call Adrian.”
Niko looked at me.
“He won’t answer.”
“Call him.”
Marco dialed.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
I walked toward the window.
The city beyond the glass was blurred by rain.
“Why Adrian?”
Niko rubbed his hands together.
May you like
“I don’t know everything. Vincent kept information divided. But I heard Adrian’s name twice.”
“From whom?”
