Chapter 3 - Shadows of the Past
The interior of the Moretti mansion was vast, echoing, and entirely devoid of warmth. High vaulted ceilings stretched into the darkness above a sweeping marble staircase, and the walls were lined with heavy, gilded oil paintings of stern-faced men and women who looked like they hadn't smiled since the nineteenth century.
Dante led her down a wide hallway carpeted in midnight-blue velvet until they reached a set of double doors guarded by two more armed men in identical dark suits.
"Put her in the west wing suite," Dante instructed Marcus, handing the sleeping baby over to a middle-aged woman in a crisp gray dress who had appeared silently from a side corridor like a wraith.
"Wait," Elina protested, digging her heels into the carpet. "You said I was coming to talk, to explain... what is this? Where are you putting me?"
"You're going to a room where you can sleep, shower, and change out of those clothes that smell like fried calamari," Dante said, his tone leaving no room for argument. He stepped closer to her, his height and sheer physical presence boxing her in against the wood-paneled wall. "My men will guard the door. Do not try to open the windows; they're reinforced. In the morning, we're going to have a DNA test done."
Elina’s eyes widened. "A DNA test? Are you insane? Just because some woman in a faded photograph looks vaguely like me—"
"She didn't look vaguely like you, Elina," Dante interrupted, his voice dropping to a rough, ragged register that sent a shiver straight down her spine. "She was you. Down to the way you bite the inside of your lip when you're cornered. Down to the frantic rhythm of your pulse."
"I'm an orphan," she hissed, her voice cracking. "My mother raised me alone in a walk-up apartment. She died two years ago. She never talked about my father, and she certainly never mentioned a billionaire mobster or a secret family!"
"Then your mother lied to you," Dante said coldly, stepping back and signaling to Marcus. "Get her upstairs. Feed her. Give her whatever she needs—short of a phone or a door key."
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"You can't do this!" Elina shouted as Marcus gently, but with immovable strength, guided her toward the grand staircase. "This is kidnapping! You're a monster!"
Dante didn't answer. He turned and walked down the hall toward the nursery, carrying his sleeping son, his broad shoulders squared against the weight of a ghost he thought he had buried.
