Chapter 12
Sofia’s father, Senator Adrian Bellini, had spent twenty years presenting himself as one of New York’s most respectable public servants.
He had attended my father’s funeral.
He had welcomed me into his home.
He had placed his daughter’s hand in mine.
And eight years earlier, he had stood in an alley and tried to murder me.
“Why?”
“Because Elena had told you about the records.”
“She never contacted me.”
“She tried. The message was intercepted.”
“By whom?”
“Your father.”
Everything connected at once.
The ambush.
Elena’s disappearance.
My father’s false death.
Sofia’s arrival in my life.
The pregnancy.
They had not merely wanted me dead eight years ago.
When I survived, they chose another strategy.
They built a cage around me and taught me to call it love.
I turned toward the window.
The sky had darkened above the park.
Midnight was less than six hours away.
Sofia expected Isabella and Lily at the mansion.
She believed the threat would force them into her hands.
Instead, I would go.
“You can’t,” Isabella said.
“I’m not asking permission.”
“That is exactly what they want.”
“They want the key.”
“They want Lily.”
I looked back at her.
“Why?”
“Because Elena did not hide the evidence in the vault.”
“Then what is in compartment 317?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said—”
“She hid the evidence inside something no one would destroy.”
A terrible understanding entered Isabella’s eyes.
I looked toward the hallway where Lily waited.
“No.”
“Elena left a letter,” Isabella said. “She wrote that Lily carried the truth.”
My mind raced toward the darkest possibilities.
A memory chip hidden in a toy.
A coded document sewn into a blanket.
A message placed beneath the child’s identity.
“What does that mean?”
“I’ve spent eight years trying to understand.”
The lights went out.
Glass shattered somewhere below.
My guards shouted.
I pulled Isabella behind the table as gunfire erupted in the stairwell.
Lily screamed from the hallway.
I reached the door in two strides.
One guard lay wounded near the stairs. The other dragged Lily behind a marble column while armed men in restaurant uniforms moved upward from the first floor.
They had prepared this.
They knew where we were.
I fired twice.
One attacker fell.
The others retreated behind the staircase.
“Take Lily through the kitchen exit!” I shouted.
My guard lifted her and ran.
Isabella followed.
I covered them until a black vehicle appeared outside the rear entrance.
The driver stepped out and opened the door.
He was one of my oldest men.
Marco DeLuca.
He had served my father before me.
Relief lasted less than a second.
Marco raised his weapon toward Isabella.
I fired first.
The bullet struck his arm.
He stumbled, but another vehicle crashed through the alley gate.
Masked men poured out.
Isabella shoved Lily behind a dumpster and reached for the scarred pistol she had placed in her apron.
A shot rang out.
Isabella fell.
“Mom!”
Lily broke from cover.
I reached her before the gunmen did, lifting her against my chest as bullets struck the brick wall behind us.
My remaining guard dragged Isabella toward the kitchen.
We fought our way through the rear corridor and escaped in a delivery van just as the second vehicle blocked the alley.
Lily cried against my coat.
“Mom’s hurt.”
“She’s alive,” I told her.
I did not know whether it was true.
Blood spread across Isabella’s uniform as my guard pressed both hands against her shoulder.
Her eyes fluttered open.
“Alessandro,” she whispered.
“I’m here.”
“Don’t go to the mansion.”
“I have to end this.”
“They know about the key.”
“So do I.”
“No.” She coughed, fighting to remain conscious. “The key isn’t for the vault beneath your childhood home.”
I looked down at the blackened metal in my hand.
“Then where does it go?”
Isabella’s eyes moved toward Lily.
“Inside the nursery.”
A chill moved through me.
“The nursery I built?”
She nodded weakly.
May you like
“Elena designed that room eight years ago.”
“That’s impossible. Sofia chose the architect.”
