YOU DON'T OWN THE NAME JUST BECAUSE YOUR BABY NEVER GOT TO USE IT.

The breath was completely knocked out of my lungs.

A son.

My daughter, stolen from me at birth, tortured in a dark cellar, had a child. I had a grandson. And the monster who had terrorized our family had stolen him, too.

"Where is he?" I demanded, my voice shaking with a fresh, terrifying panic. I gripped Charlotte's hand tightly. "Charlotte, where did Vanessa put him?"

Charlotte cried, shaking her head against the pillows. "I don't know! She took him from my arms at the bus station ten years ago. He was only a few months old. She used to come down to the cellar once a year and show me a picture of him on her phone to prove he was alive. But she never told me where he was."

My mind raced at a million miles an hour.

Vanessa was thirty-one. Ten years ago, she would have been twenty-one. A young woman couldn't easily hide a stolen infant without raising massive suspicion, even in the criminal underworld. She would have had to place him somewhere untraceable. Somewhere she could control.

I stood up, pulling my phone from my pocket.

"Silas!" I yelled, running out into the hallway.

The retired detective jogged up the stairs, his face lined with exhaustion. "What is it, Maggie? The police are almost finished downstairs."

"Vanessa didn't just kidnap Charlotte," I said frantically, my hands trembling as I dialed a number I hadn't used in years. "Charlotte had a baby ten years ago. Vanessa took him to keep her quiet."

Silas swore loudly, his hand instinctively resting on his holstered gun. "If she killed a child, I'll tear her apart myself."

"She didn't kill him," I said, pacing the hardwood floor. "Vanessa is a sociopath, but she's practical. A living heir to the Moretti bloodline is the ultimate leverage. She would have kept him alive in case she ever needed to trade him. She would have put him in the system under a fake name."

"The system is massive, Maggie," Silas warned. "Finding a ten-year-old boy with no name could take years."

"Not if you know who controls the system in this city," I said grimly.

I hit 'Call' on my phone.

It rang three times before a sharp, professional voice answered.

"Judge Higgins' chambers."

"This is Margaret Moretti," I said coldly. "Put the Judge on the line. Now."

Judge Arthur Higgins was a corrupt family court judge who had been on Dominic's payroll for two decades. He handled all the 'quiet' legal issues for the mafia—sealed records, fake identities, expedited adoptions.

A moment later, the Judge's panicked voice came through. "Margaret? I heard about the federal raids. I swear to you, I have no idea what Dominic—"

"Shut up, Arthur," I snapped. "I don't care about the feds. I care about a favor Vanessa Bellini asked you for ten years ago. A closed adoption for an infant boy."

There was dead silence on the line.

"If you lie to me," I warned, my voice dropping to a lethal pitch, "I will hand your personal ledger over to the FBI myself. You will die in federal prison."

"She... she told me it was the child of a maid who died of an overdose!" Higgins stammered, his voice cracking. "I swear, Margaret, I didn't know the boy was connected to you! She paid me fifty thousand dollars to seal the file and place him in a private orphanage upstate. St. Michael's Home for Boys."

"What name did you give him?" I demanded.

"Leo," the Judge whispered. "She named him Leo Bellini."

I hung up the phone.

St. Michael's. It was a notoriously strict, isolated facility three hours north of Chicago, funded primarily by dark money.

I turned to Silas. "He's at St. Michael's. His name is Leo."

Silas didn't hesitate. "I'll drive."

I walked back into the bedroom. Charlotte was sitting up, her eyes wide with desperate hope.

"I know where he is," I told her, grabbing my coat. "I'm going to get him. I promise you, I am bringing your son home."

Charlotte broke down in tears, nodding frantically.

Silas and I drove through the night, pushing his battered sedan to its absolute limits on the empty highway. The sun was just beginning to break over the horizon when we pulled up to the imposing wrought-iron gates of St. Michael's.

It looked more like a prison than a home. High brick walls, barred windows, and a heavy silence that made my stomach churn.

Silas didn't bother pressing the intercom. He drove the sedan straight through the rusted gates, the metal snapping with a loud screech.

We marched up the concrete steps and pounded on the heavy wooden doors.

A terrifyingly stern woman in a grey dress opened it. "What is the meaning of this? I am calling the police!"

"Call them," Silas growled, flashing his old, expired detective badge. "State investigation. We are here for a ten-year-old boy named Leo Bellini."

The woman paled. "Leo? He's... he's not here."

I grabbed the collar of her grey dress. "Where is he?"

"A woman came for him!" the caretaker cried, pointing toward the back courtyard. "Thirty minutes ago! A blonde woman in a black suit. She said she was his aunt. She took him toward the old chapel!"

Vanessa.

Dominic's guards hadn't taken her to the warehouse. She must have paid them off, or killed them. And in her final, desperate bid for leverage, she had come for the boy.

I let go of the woman and sprinted toward the back courtyard, Silas right behind me.

We burst through the heavy wooden doors of the abandoned stone chapel.

Standing at the altar, holding a terrified ten-year-old boy by the arm, was Vanessa.