Chapter 3 - The Grandson in the Shadows
I stared at him, my mind spinning. "Leo? There is no Leo here."
"Eight years old. Scars on his left forearm from a stove fire when he was three. Keeps his head down. Doesn't ask questions unless he already knows half the answer," Victor said precisely. "You call him Matteo."
My breath hitched. Matteo.
Matteo had been dropped on my doorstep eighteen months ago by a terrified social worker who said his mother had vanished during a federal raid in Rhode Island. He had spent his first three weeks in my house sitting in a corner, holding a tiny metal toy car, refusing to speak. It took me two months of warm soups, quiet bedtime stories, and endless patience before he finally told me his name was Matteo.
"His mother was my daughter, Julianna," Victor continued, his expression hardening. "She took him and ran four years ago when my organization went to war with the Irish mob in Southie. She thought she was keeping him safe by hiding him in the foster system under a fake name. I’ve been burning down the city for eighteen months trying to find him."
He stepped closer to the crack in the door.
"The state found him first through a blood match in the system yesterday," Victor said. "They know who he is. And they are coming right now to take my grandson into state custody to use him as leverage against me."
Outside, down at the end of Fenwick Street, the faint, sickening sound of distant sirens began to echo through the night.
My stomach twisted into a knot. I looked at the dark street, then back at Victor Vance—a man rumored to have buried a dozen enemies along the Boston docks.
"If I let you take him," I said, my voice trembling with raw maternal panic, "what happens to the other eight? They don't have Mafia grandfathers, Mr. Vance. They have nobody. If the state takes them tonight, they will be split up. They will be destroyed!"
Victor didn't blink. He turned his head, glancing at the approaching headlights turning onto the far end of the avenue. Red and blue flashes began to reflect off the snowbanks.
"Undo the chain, Miss Vega," Victor ordered.
"Why?"
"Because you have five seconds to make a choice," Victor said, his dark eyes locking onto mine with an absolute authority that made my heart stop. "You can let the state throw you into the street and tear those kids apart... or you can let me handle it."
"How?"
May you like
Victor reached out, his heavy gloved hand pushing the door open just enough for him to look me squarely in the eye.
"They're mine now," Victor said flatly. "All nine of them."
