Chapter 2 - FIVE WORDS THAT SET HIS EMPIRE ON FIRE
For eleven seconds after I pressed send, nothing happened.
Then my phone exploded.
VINCENT: Ava. Call me. Now.
TERESA MORETTI: The baby is here???
DOMINIC: WHERE IS NICO?
MARCELLO: Congratulations. Is she healthy?
Then three dots appeared beneath Nico's name.
They vanished.
Appeared again.
Vanished.
I stared at them until my vision blurred.
Lila made a tiny sound in the bassinet.
That was enough.
I put the phone down.
Whatever Nico had to say could wait.
My daughter couldn't.
The nurse finished checking my blood pressure and tucked another blanket around my legs.
“Family coming soon?”
I almost laughed.
“Apparently.”
She glanced at my phone, which hadn't stopped vibrating.
“That sounds like family.”
“You haven't met mine.”
Technically, they weren't mine.
Not legally.
Nico and I had been together for seven years and engaged for two, but there had always been a reason the wedding needed to wait.
A federal investigation.
A war with the Falcone family.
His mother's heart surgery.
A problem in Queens.
A shipment that disappeared.
A man Nico trusted who turned out not to deserve it.
There was always another crisis.
Another reason tomorrow mattered more than today.
I had stopped asking six months into my pregnancy.
I told myself the ring was enough.
The apartment was enough.
His promises were enough.
Then I gave birth without him.
My phone rang.
Nico.
I stared at his name.
It rang until the screen went dark.
Five seconds later, it started again.
I declined it.
The third call came from Vincent Moretti.
Vincent wasn't Nico's father. He was his father's younger brother, sixty years old, silver-haired, terrifyingly calm, and the only man in the Moretti organization who could tell Nico he was behaving like an idiot and survive the experience.
I answered.
“Ava.”
His relief was immediate.
“Are you all right?”
“Define all right.”
“The baby?”
“Healthy.”
I looked at Lila.
“Six pounds, eleven ounces. Loud when offended.”
Vincent made a sound that was almost a laugh.
“Definitely a Moretti.”
My throat tightened.
“Where is Nico?”
Silence.
I already knew.
But I needed to hear somebody say it.
“At Bellario's.”
“With her.”
Another silence.
“Her name is Bianca Falcone.”
Of course it was.
Even if I'd never met Bianca, I knew the name.
Everyone around Nico did.
Daughter of Salvatore Falcone.
Old-money crime family.
Beautiful, educated, dangerous.
And, according to gossip Nico dismissed as ancient history, the woman his father had once expected him to marry.
I looked toward the rain.
“Did he know I was in labor?”
“No.”
I closed my eyes.
Vincent continued quickly.
“That is not an excuse. I am not offering it as one. He should have been reachable.”
“I called him seven times.”
“I know.”
“He knew I was thirty-nine weeks.”
“I know.”
“He promised me he wasn't going anywhere tonight.”
Vincent said nothing.
That hurt more than a defense would have.
“What was so important?”
“I can't tell you on this line.”
I laughed.
Immediately, my stitches hurt.
I winced.
“Of course you can't.”
“Ava—”
“Everything in Nico's life is something nobody can tell me on a phone.”
“This is different.”
“It always is.”
Lila shifted.
I reached over and touched one finger to her hand.
She closed her tiny fist around me.
The anger inside me became quieter.
Harder.
“What does Nico want?”
“To come to the hospital.”
“He knows where?”
“He's already on his way.”
My entire body tensed.
“No.”
Vincent paused.
“No?”
“I don't want him here.”
“Ava.”
“You heard me.”
“He just found out he has a daughter.”
“And I just found out the man who promised to hold my hand while she came into the world was forty miles away with Bianca Falcone touching his face.”
“The photograph is not—”
“I don't care what the photograph is.”
That shut him up.
My voice shook now.
“I needed him before the photograph, Vincent.”
That was the truth.
The picture wasn't the beginning.
It was the verdict.
“He can explain tomorrow. Or next week. Or never. Right now I want one night where my daughter is not introduced to the same cycle I've spent seven years living inside.”
“What cycle?”
“Waiting for Nico Moretti to decide we're important enough.”
Vincent inhaled slowly.
Then he said, “All right.”
I hadn't expected agreement.
“I'll stop him downstairs.”
“Thank you.”
“But there is something else.”
His tone changed.
The warmth disappeared.
That frightened me more than shouting would have.
“What?”
“Did anybody besides the medical staff know you were admitted tonight?”
“My doctor. You. Nico's mother.”
“Security?”
“Matteo drove me here.”
Silence.
“Vincent?”
“Where is Matteo now?”
“I don't know. He left after admissions.”
“Lock your door.”
I stared at the door.
“What?”
“Lock it.”
The calm in his voice was gone.
I reached for the call button.
“Why?”
“Because that family chat was compromised three weeks ago.”
Cold moved through me.
“What does that mean?”
“It means someone outside the family may have just seen your message.”
My eyes moved to Lila.
The room suddenly felt too exposed.
Fourth floor.
One door.
One window.
A newborn who couldn't even hold up her own head.
“Why would anyone care that Lila was born?”
Vincent didn't answer immediately.
That was when I knew the answer was bad.
“Vincent.”
“Nico's father created a succession trust.”
I stared at the wall.
“What trust?”
“You weren't supposed to learn about it this way.”
“I'm getting very tired of hearing sentences like that.”
“The legitimate Moretti companies—shipping, real estate, construction, restaurants—are controlled through a family trust.”
“What does that have to do with my daughter?”
“The moment Nico's first legally acknowledged child is born, twenty-six percent of the voting interest transfers into a protected account for that child.”
I stopped breathing.
“Twenty-six percent?”
“Yes.”
“How much money?”
“That isn't the important part.”
“Then tell me the unimportant part.”
“A little over three hundred million dollars based on the last valuation.”
I looked at my twelve-minute-old daughter.
Actually, she was nearly forty minutes old now.
Forty minutes old.
Three hundred million dollars.
And apparently enough inherited power to make a sixty-year-old mafia consigliere tell me to lock a hospital door.
“I never agreed to any of this.”
“I know.”
“Does Nico?”
“Yes.”
My anger returned instantly.
“He knew.”
“He knew about the trust.”
“And never told me.”
“No.”
I laughed once.
“Excellent.”
“Ava, focus on me. The trust was being challenged.”
“By who?”
“We don't know.”
“Bianca?”
“Possibly.”
The red dress.
The hand on Nico's face.
Bellario's.
Suddenly it looked less like ordinary infidelity and more like something else.
That didn't make it hurt less.
It made it more dangerous.
Vincent continued.
“Nico went to Bellario's because Bianca claimed she had proof someone inside our organization was planning to intercept the trust activation.”
“So he chose a business meeting.”
“Yes.”
“Over staying with me.”
“Yes.”
At least Vincent didn't lie.
There was a knock at my door.
Three slow taps.
I froze.
The nurse had just left.
“Who is it?” I called.
No answer.
Vincent heard it.
“Ava?”
Another knock.
Then a man's voice.
“Mrs. Vale? Hospital security.”
Nobody called me Mrs. Vale.
I wasn't married.
And the security officer outside admissions had called me Miss Bennett when he checked my identification.
I picked up Lila.
Pain tore through my abdomen as I stood.
My knees nearly folded.
“Ava?” Vincent said.
“Someone's outside.”
“Don't open it.”
The handle moved.
Once.
Twice.
Then harder.
I pressed Lila against my chest.
She began to cry.
“Vincent.”
“I'm six minutes away.”
The door shuddered.
I looked around desperately.
Bathroom.
Closet.
Window.
Nothing useful.
Then the little boy in Spider-Man pajamas appeared in the hallway again.
I saw him through the narrow glass panel beside the door.
He stopped in front of the man pretending to be security.
“Mister,” he said loudly, “why do you have a gun?”
Everything happened at once.
The man turned.
A nurse screamed.
I heard running.
The door burst inward.
Not from outside.
From the adjoining nurse station.
Two hospital officers entered through the secondary access door.
The fake guard ran.
I sank back onto the bed with Lila in my arms.
The little boy vanished beneath the chaos.
Five minutes later, Vincent Moretti walked into my room with three armed men behind him.
His face told me enough.
“This hospital is no longer safe.”
I looked down at my daughter.
“I can't exactly check out.”
“We're moving you to a private medical facility.”
“I gave birth less than an hour ago.”
“A physician is coming with us.”
“No.”
Vincent crouched beside me.
“Ava.”
“I said no.”
His eyes moved to Lila.
Then back to me.
“The man outside your door worked for us until six months ago.”
My stomach dropped.
“Who?”
“Carlo Vezzi.”
I knew the name.
Security.
He had guarded our apartment twice.
“Why would he come after us?”
“I don't think he came for you.”
I looked at my daughter.
Vincent's expression became grim.
“I think he came for Lila.”
Forty miles away, Nico Moretti read the same message for the thirty-seventh time.
Her name is Lila Moretti.
Bianca Falcone sat across from him.
“You leave now, the deal is dead.”
Nico rose from the booth.
His face had gone colorless.
“My daughter was born.”
Bianca crossed her legs.
“And?”
Nico stared at her.
Maybe it was the word.
Maybe it was the tone.
Maybe something finally connected.
He reached across the table, grabbed Bianca's phone, and turned the screen toward himself.
There it was.
The photograph.
Already sent.
Already spreading.
Nico's eyes lifted slowly.
“You planned this.”
Bianca smiled.
“No, Nico.”
She leaned back.
“We planned everything.”
His phone rang.
Vincent.
Nico answered.
“Where are they?”
Vincent's reply was cold.
“Not where you left them.”
Then the line went dead.
By the time Nico reached Room 417, the bed was empty.
The bassinet was gone.
Only a small hospital bracelet remained on the blanket.
BABY GIRL VALE
May you like
Nico picked it up with shaking fingers.
And for the first time in his adult life, the man everyone else feared understood what it felt like to be powerless.
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