Chapter 1 - The Silver Medallion in the SnowThe bitterly cold Manhattan air cut through my wet sweater like a thousand tiny needles, but when Nicholas Maro stepped closer to the stone bench, the freezing wind seemed to stop entirely. The forty-year-old crime lord knelt in the snow before me, his sharp, dark eyes fixed entirely on my three-day-old daughter, Lily.
With incredible gentleness for a man whose name terrified the entire city, he reached out with two fingers and carefully moved aside the edge of her thin blanket. His breathing hitched sharply.
Hanging around my neck—and now dangling down over Lily's chest—was a delicate, worn silver medallion carved with an intricate crest: an anchor wrapped in olive branches, flanked by two soaring falcons.
"Where did you get this medallion?" Nicholas asked, his voice low, gravelly, and laced with an intense emotion that startled his bodyguards.
"It belonged to my late mother, Helen Sullivan," I whispered, my voice trembling as snow settled on my lashes. "She gave it to me before she passed away ten years ago."
Nicholas went dead quiet. His hand reached for the identical silver chain concealed beneath his shirt, pulling out a matching pendant. When he brought the two pieces together, they locked with a soft, magnetic click, forming a complete, unbroken seal.
The two armed bodyguards exchanged wide-eyed, shocked glances.
"Helen..." Nicholas murmured, his storm-gray eyes shining with tears he fiercely fought back. "Your mother was my elder sister, Ava. She disappeared twenty-eight years ago after our family's shipping syndicate was attacked by rival factions. I spent half my life looking for her."
My stomach flipped as the mathematical reality sank in. The feared mafia boss standing in the snow was my uncle.
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Nicholas immediately wrapped his heavy wool overcoat around my shoulders, lifting me into his broad arms as if I weighed nothing, while his lead security officer carefully carried my suitcase and Lily's infant carrier.
"Get the car heated," Nicholas roared, his voice regaining its terrifying, sovereign authority as he carried us toward his black armored sedan. "Call the private medical team to the Manhattan penthouse immediately. Tell them my niece and grand-niece are coming home."
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