Chapter 2 - The Five-Minute Window
"Enzo is circling," I said. My voice was stranger to my own ears—tight, vibrating with the raw frequency of a man who had stepped onto a landmine and had to calculate the weight of his next breath.
The restaurant lobby was empty except for a host checking reservation tablets thirty feet away. Outside, the Boston sleet struck the bay windows like handfuls of coarse salt.
"You need to leave," Elena whispered, stepping in front of the four boys, her arms spreading instinctively to form a human barrier between me and the children. Her hands were trembling, but her stance was pure steel. "You have somewhere to be, Dominic. The newspapers have been running society columns about your engagement gala for three weeks."
"Mom, who is he?" Mateo asked, tugging on the hem of her trench coat. "Why does he have your eyes?"
"Not now, Mateo," she murmured, her voice cracking.
I looked down at the floor, bent my knees, and gathered the four fallen winter jackets from the runner. My hands, usually as steady as a surgeon's, shook so violently that the brass zipper of the smallest jacket rattled. I stood, holding the coats out to her.
"Six years, Elena." I took half a step forward.
She flinched back half an inch, her knuckles whitening as she gripped Leo’s shoulder. "Dominic, please. If Vincenzo’s men see you with us—"
I froze.
The air in the vestibule dropped ten degrees.
"Vincenzo?" I repeated, the name tasting like acid on my tongue. "What does my grandfather have to do with this?"
Elena let out a short, hollow laugh that carried the jagged edges of a woman who had spent six years running on adrenaline. "You really don't know, do you? You spent all these years believing I took his money and walked away."
"Did you?"
She looked at me then—really looked at me—her hazel eyes burning through the polite, aristocratic shell I had worn for a decade. The sheer, unadulterated fury in her gaze hit me harder than any physical blow.
"I didn't take a single dime," she said, her voice dropping to a fierce, venomous whisper. "Six years ago, I woke up in a private clinic in New Hampshire with my phone confiscated, my apartment lease terminated, and three armed men standing outside my door. Your grandfather’s personal attorney handed me an ultrasound printout showing four separate heartbeats. He told me that if I ever contacted you, if I ever returned to Massachusetts, or if I failed to deliver the children quietly in another state, he would ensure that you were disinherited and that my father’s medical pension was terminated."
My chest seized. My vision narrowed into a red-tinted tunnel.
Ultrasound.
Four heartbeats.
"He told me you agreed to it," she continued, her voice trembling with six years of unshed tears. "He brought me a signed document on your personal corporate letterhead stating that a settlement had been reached and that you were pursuing an alliance with the Barrett family."
"I never signed that," I said, every syllable carved out of dry ice.
"It doesn't matter now," Elena said, reaching down and taking the coats from my arms. "You’re thirty minutes late for your own proposal. Sloane Barrett is waiting. Don Vincenzo is waiting. If his security detail realizes you stopped here, they’ll run the brasserie's surveillance cameras. They’ll see the boys."
She turned toward the glass exit doors, her hand motioning to the children. "Julian, Nico, hoods up. Let's go."
"Elena, wait!" I reached out, my fingers brushing the damp wool of her coat sleeve.
She stopped, but she didn't turn around. Her shoulders were rigid beneath the fabric.
"Where are you staying?" I demanded.
"Somewhere safe."
"Nowhere is safe in this city if Vincenzo wants to find you," I said, stepping around to face her. "You know that. You grew up in the shadow of this family just like I did."
A horn tapped twice in the alley outside. Enzo’s black Mercedes S-Class idled beside the curb, exhaust swirling in the winter wind.
My phone vibrated violently against my hip.
I pulled it out.
VINCENZO MORETTI - INCOMING CALL.
The boys looked up at the glowing screen, then at me. Nico reached out with a small, gloved hand and touched the fabric of my trousers.
"Your phone is loud, mister," the little boy murmured.
I stared down at Nico. The boy’s chin had a tiny, unmistakable cleft in the bone—the exact cleft my father had carried to his grave.
I silenced the call and slid the phone back into my pocket.
"Elena," I said, my voice dropping into the low, command tone that had made boardrooms fall silent from New York to London. "Give me your address."
"No, Dominic."
"Give me the address, or I walk out that door, tell Enzo to dismiss my grandfather's tail, and I put the five of you in that car right now."
Elena’s eyes widened in sheer panic. "Are you insane? You'd blow up your family's empire in a restaurant parking lot?"
"Watch me."
She stared at me for three long seconds, searching my face for the boy who used to hide in the back of libraries with her, and realizing that what stood before her was an armed man with nothing left to lose.
"The brick brownstone on Montgomery Street," she whispered through shivering lips. "Number 42. Third floor. Apartment 3B."
"Don't leave that building," I said. "Keep the chain on the door. Do not answer for anyone who doesn't use the name Valerio."
"Dominic—"
"I have a business meeting to cancel," I said, leaning down to meet Leo's gaze. The boy stood his ground, watching me without fear. "Take care of your brothers, Leo. I'll see you in two hours."
May you like
The boy gave me a slow, serious nod, raised his left hand, and rubbed the back of his neck.
I turned on my heel, pushed through the heavy brass doors into the biting Boston sleet, and climbed into the back of the waiting Mercedes.
