Chapter 1 - The Blood On The BlanketThe word hung in the heavy, warm air of the private dining room, suffocating the soft jazz playing over the speakers.
“They’re looking for him.”
My eyes dropped from the girl’s tear-streaked face to the small, bundled shape clutched against her ribs. The worn fleece blanket was frayed at the edges, damp from the blizzard howling through the streets of River North. But as the infant squirmed, letting out a tiny, breathless whimper, the corner of the fabric shifted.
Exposed beneath the dim chandelier light was a tiny, delicate wrist.
Fastened around the baby’s arm was a hospital identification band made of clear plastic. Written across the thermal paper in bold, black clinical ink was a name that made my heart stop in my chest:
INFANT MALE — VALENTINE / MORETTI, JULIAN.
My jaw clenched so hard I felt a sharp, dull ache shoot up my temple.
My brother, Julian Moretti, had died six months ago in an explosion at a shipping terminal near Lake Michigan—an "accident" the police had closed within forty-eight hours. Julian’s wife, Clara, had vanished three weeks later, heavy with child, pursued by rumors that she had fled the city with millions in stolen syndicate bearer bonds.
I had spent six months searching every hospital, haven, and morgue from Chicago to Miami for Clara.
And now, an eleven-year-old girl in a soaked gray sweater was sitting at my private dining table, holding Julian’s newborn son.
“What is your name?” I asked, my baritone dropping into an absolute, razor-sharp whisper that made my guards straighten their backs like iron rods.
“Lily...” the girl choked out, her small knees trembling violently beneath the table. “Clara... Clara told me to find the man with the lion ring if anything happened to her. She said... she said you were his brother.”
She pointed a small, bruised finger at the gold signet ring on my right hand—the crest of the Moretti family, a roaring lion wrapped in oak leaves.
“Where is Clara, Lily?” I asked softly, taking a single step toward her.
Lily’s lips trembled, tears spilling hot over her pale cheeks, leaving clean tracks through the smudge of soot near her jaw. “She... she didn't make it out of the basement in Englewood. The men... the men in the black coats came three days ago. She pushed me out the storm door with Julian and told me to run.”
Before I could answer, the heavy double oak doors of the dining room rattled.
Downstairs, the muffled sound of raised voices echoed up the grand marble staircase, followed by the sharp, unmistakable CLACK of a heavy handgun slide being racked.
My head of security, Marco, pulled his suppressed SIG Sauer from beneath his tailored coat, stepping in front of the table, shielding Lily and the baby with his broad frame.
“Boss,” Marco said, his voice cold and steady. “It’s Victor Vance’s crew. Four men in the lobby. They claim they have an extradition warrant signed by a Cook County judge for an abducted infant.”
Victor Vance.
The corrupt real estate mogul who had been trying to seize my family’s riverfront shipping terminals for five years. The man who had bought three city aldermen and half the vice precinct. The man my late brother had accused of treason three days before his car exploded on the docks.
A dark, lethal rage—cold as the Chicago river in January—bloomed behind my ribs.
I reached out, setting my hand gently over Lily’s shoulder. “Lily. Eat your soup.”
She blinked through her tears, looking up at me in absolute shock. “Mr. Moretti... they’re downstairs—”
“They are downstairs,” I interrupted smoothly, pulling my napkin from my collar and setting it beside my wineglass. “And this is my restaurant. Eat.”
I turned toward Marco and my six armed guards standing near the perimeter.
“Marco,” I commanded, my baritone echoing off the mahogany walls. “Lock the front doors. Tell Vance’s men that Dominic Moretti doesn't respond to warrants written on cheap paper.”
May you like
I pulled my custom Kimber .45 from my shoulder holster, checking the magazine with a quiet, mechanical click.
“And if they refuse to leave my lobby,” I added, looking at the tiny baby boy falling asleep against Lily’s chest, “bury them under the snow in the alley.”
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