Chapter 2 - The Ghost of Clara Vance
The private elevator rose forty-six floors in soundless luxury. Lily stood in the corner, clutching her one-eared rabbit against her chest, her boots squeaking softly against the polished teak floorboards. She stared at the ceiling, where recessed lights mirrored the constellation of Orion.
“My rabbit’s name is Barnaby,” she announced to the empty air.
Marco, standing by the floor panel with his hands clasped over his tailored overcoat, blinked down at her. In his thirty years working for the Moretti family, he had broken arms, laundered millions, and negotiated truces in dark waterfront warehouses. He had never been introduced to a stuffed animal.
“Barnaby looks like a fighter,” Marco said solemnly.
Lily nodded with absolute gravity. “He survived a washing machine at the laundromat. Twice.”
Dominic stood beside her, his hands tucked deep into his pockets. He was fighting a sensation he hadn't experienced since his father’s casket went into the ground: complete disorientation.
Seven years.
Seven years ago, she hadn't been Clara Carter. She had been Clara Vance, an art restoration intern working out of a dusty loft in Soho. She had smelled of turpentine, warm tea, and sweet almond oil. Dominic had met her by accident when an assassination attempt on a rival capo spilled across Mercer Street and shattered her gallery window. He had dragged her behind a concrete pillar, covering her body with his own as glass rained around them like diamonds.
He had meant to keep her safe for a night. Instead, he had hidden her in his life for fourteen months.
She was the only place in the world where he wasn't Dominic Moretti, the heir apparent to an empire built on fear and extortion. With her, he was just Nico—a quiet man who liked dark roast coffee and bought her antique charcoal pencils from street vendors.
Then came the bloody winter of 2017. His uncle Salvatore had attempted a coup. Dominic had returned to their safehouse in the Catskills to find the front door off its hinges, a bloodied kitchen floor, and Clara gone. Salvatore’s men had sworn under torture that Clara had been paid off, that she had taken a million dollars in untraceable bearer bonds and boarded a freighter to Europe. Dominic had found her passport burned in the fireplace.
He had believed she abandoned him. He had spent the next three years tearing his uncle’s network apart, piece by bloody piece, until the betrayal was paid for in graveyards.
And now, a six-year-old girl with her eyes was standing in his penthouse elevator.
The doors chimed and slid open into Dominic’s sprawling private office. Panoramic glass framed the Manhattan skyline, a glittering carpet of diamond dust against the black winter sky.
“Sit,” Dominic said, guiding Lily to a massive deep-leather armchair near the fireplace.
She climbed up, her boots dangling three feet above the hand-woven rug. Her eyes widened at the crackling flames. “Is that real fire?”
“It is,” Dominic said. He signaled to his steward, who emerged from the private dining room carrying a silver tray with hot cocoa, fresh whipped cream, and warm croissants dusted with powdered sugar.
Lily didn’t grab for the food, though her stomach let out an audible, hollow growl that echoed across the vast room. She looked up at Dominic suspiciously. “Mom says you shouldn't take food from strangers. Especially fancy strangers.”
“Your mother is a very smart woman,” Dominic said, sitting on the marble ledge near her chair so he was eye-level with her. “But I am not a stranger to your mother, Lily. I knew her a very long time ago.”
Lily tilted her head. Her amber eyes narrowed. “Did you know her before she had the grey hairs?”
A faint, bittersweet pang tightened Dominic’s chest. “Before the grey hairs. Yes.”
“She didn't tell me about you.” Lily reached out, carefully lifting the porcelain mug with both hands. She took a sip of the cocoa, her small face melting into pure, unadulterated bliss as the melted chocolate warmed her lips. “She said my dad was lost at sea.”
Marco shifted his weight behind Dominic. The sudden stillness in the room was suffocating.
Dominic’s jaw remained tight. “Lost at sea?”
“Like a pirate,” Lily said proudly, wiping a mustache of chocolate off her upper lip with the sleeve of her coat. “She said he had to go away on a very big ship to fight monsters so they wouldn't follow us. But she said he loved me before he went.”
Dominic felt as if a cold blade had slipped between his ribs, turning slowly.
He looked down at the termination letter resting on the mahogany desk. It was signed by a man named Gregory Hayes—a regional operations director at the Queens terminal.
“Marco,” Dominic said without looking back.
“Sir.”
“Get Hayes on the phone. Right now.”
“I tried five minutes ago, boss. His line is busy. His personal phone goes straight to voicemail.”
“Then don't call him,” Dominic said, his tone chilling the room faster than the blizzard outside. “Send Silvio and four men to his house. Bring him to the Queens cold-storage basement. If he runs, break both of his legs and bring him anyway.”
Lily paused with her croissant halfway to her mouth. “Is Mr. Hayes in trouble?”
Dominic turned back to her, his expression softening instantly, a terrifying mask of gentleness sliding back over his violent world. “Mr. Hayes made a clerical error, sweetheart. We’re just going to help him correct it.”
“Mom said his signature looked like a squished worm,” Lily noted, chewing happily. “She told the lady at the desk that she worked fifty hours last week and never missed a shift, but Mr. Hayes said he didn't care. He said people like her are a dime a dozen.”
Dominic stood up slowly. His height cast a long shadow across the warm hearth. “Did he?”
“Yes. And then the landlord came this morning and banged on the door with a metal key. He said if we don't have twelve hundred dollars by tomorrow morning, he’s throwing our clothes into the alley.” Lily looked down at Barnaby, her voice dropping into a scared whisper. “I have nineteen dollars in my piggy bank. I was going to give it to him, but Mom said it wasn't enough. That's why I took the train. I thought... I thought if I told the big boss that Mom is the hardest worker in the world, you might let her sweep the floors again.”
Dominic closed his eyes for a single second.
When he opened them, the man who controlled half of the Eastern seaboard was gone. In his place was a force of nature that no union, no rival family, and no federal prosecutor had ever survived.
“Lily,” Dominic said softly, kneeling before the little girl. “Your mother is never going to sweep another floor as long as she lives.”
She frowned, confused. “Then how will we eat?”
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“Because I am going to buy the building you live in,” Dominic said quietly. “And then I am going to buy the whole street. Now finish your cocoa. We are going to Brooklyn.”
***
