Chapter 3 - The Shadow of the Past
By 4:00 AM, the storm outside had settled into a steady, dreary drizzle. The electric power to the mansion was running on the secondary diesel generators, casting a low, amber glow through the long hallways.
I sat in my private study on the third floor, surrounded by towering bookshelves and heavy mahogany furniture. On the desk in front of me lay a black leather journal that hadn't been opened since Rosalind's death. It was her personal diary, the one she kept hidden behind a false panel in her dressing room.
My fingers traced the elegant, sweeping handwriting on the yellowed pages.
October 14th, an entry from four years ago read. I met her today. She was shivering behind the docks, bleeding from a knife wound on her arm. She has Julian’s eyes—fierce, stubborn, but terrified. If the Syndicate finds out Julian left his secret offshore ledger to his daughter, they will skin her alive. I cannot tell Elias. If Elias gets involved, he will tear the city apart, and I cannot bear to see him dragged back into a full-scale war. I will hide her myself. I will give her a new name.
I slammed my hand down on the mahogany desk, shaking the glass of scotch sitting beside the book.
Rosalind had kept it from me. To protect me from a war, she had hidden Julian Vance’s daughter on her own, taking on the burden of a dangerous secret that ultimately cost her her life.
The door to the study opened softly, and Bernadette stepped inside, carrying a tray with a fresh pot of coffee. She set it down on the edge of the desk, looking at the black journal with a solemn expression.
"How is she?" I asked, setting my cigar in the glass ashtray.
"Sleeping soundly," Bernadette replied. "The fever has broken. The baby is healthy—a little underweight, but she took to the bottle without an issue. She’s a fighter, Elias. Just like her mother."
"And her injuries?"
Bernadette’s face hardened, her warm brown eyes turning cold. "She has old defensive wounds on her forearms, Elias. Ligature marks around her ankles that are a few months old, and severe bruising along her ribs. Someone had her chained up before she managed to escape and find her way here."
My jaw tightened so hard my teeth ached. "She was hiding in plain sight as a maid in my household for two months, and no one noticed she was pregnant?"
"She wore oversized smocks, kept her apron tied loose, and barely spoke a word to anyone," Bernadette said softly. "She stayed in the shadow of the pantry, working eighteen hours a day without complaint. In a house this big, a quiet girl who works hard is practically invisible."
"She wasn't invisible to me," I muttered, remembering the quiet, thin girl who always kept her head bowed whenever I passed her in the hallways. I had assumed she was just skittish around men like me.
"She knew this was the safest place in the state," Bernadette added. "Because no one in their right mind would dare attack the Falcone estate. She used Rosalind's memory as a shield."
I stood up from behind the desk, walking over to the floor-to-ceiling window that overlooked the rain-slicked courtyard. Below, my armed guards were pacing the perimeter, their assault rifles slung over their shoulders.
"She said the men who attacked her were the same ones who killed Rosalind," I said, staring out into the dark. "Who are they, Bernadette?"
"I think you already know," she whispered.
I turned back to look at her. "The Moretti family."
"Victor Moretti has been trying to take over the waterfront shipping lanes ever since Julian Vance died," Bernadette said quietly. "If Julian left a ledger containing the secret ownership rights to those docks to his daughter, Victor needs Adeline dead—or married to his son, Dante—to claim those assets legitimately."
Before I could answer, a sharp knock rattled the study door. Dominic stepped into the room, his face dark with tension.
"Boss, we’ve got a problem at the front gate."
I stepped around the desk. "What kind of problem?"
"A convoy of three black SUVs just pulled up to the outer perimeter fence," Dominic said, pulling his weapon from his holster and checking the chamber. "The bridge is still washed out, but they brought heavy-duty off-road vehicles through the old logging trail behind the ridge."
"Who is it?" I asked, my voice dropping into an icy calm.
"It’s Dante Moretti," Dominic said. "He’s standing at the gate with eight armed men. He says he’s looking for a stolen piece of property that belongs to his father."
A cruel, slow smile spread across my face for the first time in three years. The numbness that had filled my chest since Rosalind’s death evaporated, replaced by a searing, white-hot fury.
"Stolen property," I repeated softly.
"He says if we hand over the maid, he’ll leave without causing a scene," Dominic added.
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I walked over to the glass display case behind my desk, unlocked it, and pulled out my custom black-finished .45 caliber handgun. I racked the slide, chambering a round, and tucked it into the leather holster at my belt.
"Tell the boys at the gate to hold their fire until I get down there," I instructed Dominic. "I want to look Dante Moretti in the eye before I tear his throat out."
