Chapter 5 - The Midnight Visitor
The guest suite assigned to me was larger than my entire apartment in Queens. A king-sized bed draped in heavy velvet linens dominated the center of the room, flanked by ornate antique dressers and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the dark expanse of the Hudson River.
Yet I couldn’t bring myself to sleep.
I sat cross-legged on the plush Persian rug near the fireplace, staring into the dying embers. My mind raced through a kaleidoscope of impossible questions. If Danny was dead—if I had cried over his casket, if I had watched the dirt fall onto his wooden box—then who was the boy in the photograph? Who had carved the plaster out of my bedroom wall? And why was Dante Moretti, a man feared by cops and criminals alike, treating me not as a prisoner, but as a crucial piece in a high-stakes chess match?
A soft click at the door made my breath catch in my throat.
I scrambled to my feet, my heart hammering against my ribs. The heavy oak door swung open silently, revealing a small figure standing in the shadows of the hallway.
Luca.
He wore a pair of oversized silk pajamas that dragged slightly on the carpet. His dark hair was sleep-rumpled, and his large, expressive eyes blinked against the dim light of the fireplace. He didn’t speak. He simply stood on the threshold, swaying slightly on his feet.
“Luca?” I whispered, taking a cautious step forward. “What are you doing out of bed?”
The boy didn’t answer. He walked slowly into the room, his bare feet making no sound against the rug, and stopped two feet away from me. He looked down at the floor, then raised his right hand.
Once. Twice. Three times. Four.
He tapped against the wood of a nearby nightstand.
A lump formed in my throat. I dropped slowly to my knees so we were at eye level. Without breaking eye contact, I raised my hand and tapped back.
Once. Twice. Three times. Four.
Luca let out a soft sigh, a tiny fraction of tension leaving his small shoulders. He stepped forward and, for the first time since we met, reached out—not to grab my sleeve, but to press his tiny, warm palm directly against my cheek.
“Safe,” he whispered. The word was so quiet I barely caught it.
“Yeah,” I choked out, a tear finally escaping my eye and tracking down my skin. “We’re safe, Luca.”
Suddenly, the heavy shadows near the doorway shifted.
I looked up to see Dante standing in the hallway, half-hidden by the doorframe. He was watching us with an expression so vulnerable, so completely stripped of his usual mafia-boss armor, that it felt like an intrusion just to look at him. He hadn’t made a sound as he followed his son down the long corridor.
“He never goes to anyone,” Dante said quietly, his voice echoing softly in the vast room. “Even when he has nightmares, he pushes me away. He screams for hours until his voice gives out.”
“He’s just overwhelmed, Mr. Moretti,” I said softly, keeping my hand still against Luca’s cheek. “He feels everything around him too intensely. The world is too loud for kids like him.”
Dante walked slowly into the room, his footsteps heavy yet deliberate. He knelt down beside his son, ignoring the expensive fabric of his trousers against the dusty floor, and gently brushed a lock of dark hair from Luca’s forehead.
“My name is Dante,” he said, looking past his son directly into my eyes. “If you’re going to be staying under my roof, Miss Vance, you can drop the 'Mr. Moretti'.”
“I’m not staying, Dante,” I replied, though the conviction in my voice felt weaker than it had an hour ago. “I have a life. I have a job to get back to.”
“Your job fired you via text message ten minutes ago,” Dante said flatly, pulling out his phone to show me the screen. A message from my supervisor at the Pierre Hotel: *Don’t bother coming back. We don’t need mafia liabilities on our payroll.*
I stared at the screen, a hollow numbness settling into my chest. My apartment was ransacked, my job was gone, and somewhere out there, people were using my dead brother’s face to manipulate the most dangerous man in New York.
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“You see?” Dante murmured, his dark gaze holding mine with an anchor-like strength. “You don’t have a home to go back to, Sophie. Not anymore. But here... here, no one will ever touch you. And together, we’re going to find out who dragged your brother’s memory into our lives.”
***
