Chapter 8 - THE BLACK ENVELOPE THAT STOPPED MY HEART
“What is it?” Teresa asked, stepping away from her brother.
Luca didn’t answer.
He just stared at the photograph in his hand. The muscle in his jaw throbbed.
He handed the picture to me.
I looked down.
My breath completely vanished.
It was a picture of my son, Leo.
He was sleeping on the leather sofa in the safe house.
The photo had been taken through a small window.
Tonight.
Written on the back in silver ink were five words.
A Romano belongs with Romanos.
I dropped the photo. My hands shook violently.
“They know where he is,” I panicked, grabbing Luca’s arm. “Luca, they know where my son is!”
“Call the safe house,” Luca barked at his head of security.
The guard dialed his radio. Static hissed.
“No answer, boss.”
Luca didn’t hesitate.
He grabbed a set of keys from the desk and sprinted toward the door.
“Get in the car!” he yelled at me.
We tore through the city streets at ninety miles an hour.
My mind was spinning.
A Romano belongs with Romanos.
David, my late husband, was an accountant. A quiet, gentle man.
But he had been an orphan. He never knew his real parents.
Could he have been…?
“Luca,” I choked out over the roar of the engine. “David didn’t know. I swear he didn’t know.”
“Lorenzo Romano has been looking for his estranged brother’s child for a decade,” Luca said grimly, swerving around a truck. “He needs an heir. If he found out David was his nephew, that makes Leo his bloodline.”
We skidded to a halt outside the safe house.
The steel garage door was blown off its hinges.
Smoke billowed into the night air.
Luca drew his weapon and pushed me behind him.
“Stay close.”
We stepped into the wreckage.
Two of Luca’s men were unconscious on the floor.
I ran to the room where I had left Leo.
The leather sofa was empty.
His blanket was on the floor.
“Leo!” I screamed, tearing through the rooms. “Leo!”
Gone.
They had taken my baby.
I collapsed against the wall, sobbing uncontrollably.
Luca knelt beside me.
His dark eyes were blazing with a fury I had never seen before.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the yellow pawn ticket Vanessa had stolen.
“They left this on the sofa,” Luca said softly.
He turned the ticket over.
Written on the back was a time and a place.
Pier 4. Midnight. The boy for the deeds.
It was 11:15 PM.
Lorenzo didn’t just want his heir. He wanted the Moretti empire, and he was using my son to force the trade.
“I’ll give him the deeds,” Luca said, pulling me to my feet. “I’ll give him the whole damn city if I have to.”
“He’ll kill us both once he has the paperwork,” I cried.
“He can try,” Luca whispered.
He pulled open the trunk of his SUV.
It was lined with heavy weaponry.
“Rebecca,” Luca said, handing me a tactical vest. “Put this on. We’re getting our boy back.”
Our boy.
He had called Leo our boy.
I strapped the vest over my housekeeper uniform.
As we drove toward the docks, Luca’s phone rang.
It was an unknown number.
He answered it on speaker.
“Luca Moretti,” Lorenzo Romano’s raspy voice echoed through the car. “I trust you found my invitation.”
“If you hurt a single hair on that boy’s head, I will burn your legacy to ash,” Luca said.
Lorenzo laughed.
May you like
“Bring the deeds, Moretti. And bring the mother. I have a special gift waiting for her.”
TITLE: THE HEIR, THE ORPHAN, AND THE MAFIA KING
