Chapter 2 - The Monster Who Warmed Bottles
The mansion transformed in less than ten seconds.
One moment, Matteo was sleeping against my chest.
The next, armed guards were racing through the corridors.
A second gunshot cracked somewhere downstairs.
Then another.
Adrian's expression changed instantly.
The father disappeared.
The man the city feared took his place.
He wheeled toward the doorway.
“Marco.”
A guard appeared.
“East perimeter breached.”
“How many?”
“At least twelve.”
“Security feed?”
“Cut.”
Adrian swore.
He looked at me.
“Take Matteo.”
“I already have him.”
“Go with Marco.”
“Where?”
“Safe room.”
“What about you?”
His stare hardened.
“That isn't your concern.”
It should have made me angry.
Instead, it terrified me.
I knew men like Adrian.
Or at least, I had once.
I knew what happened when armed men entered a mafia house.
There were no negotiations.
No police.
No second chances.
“Melissa.”
Adrian's voice sharpened.
“Go.”
Marco reached toward me.
I stepped away.
“No.”
Adrian stared.
“Excuse me?”
“The safe room is on the east side.”
Marco's expression changed.
Adrian went still.
I had made a mistake.
“How do you know that?” he asked.
I looked toward the windows.
Another burst of gunfire.
Closer.
“Lucky guess.”
Adrian's eyes narrowed.
“No.”
Marco touched his earpiece.
“They're inside.”
There was no time.
I looked at Adrian.
“The library.”
“What?”
“Take us to the library.”
“Why?”
“Because unless you've renovated it, there's another way out.”
Adrian's face became unreadable.
“How do you know about that?”
I didn't answer.
I ran.
Adrian followed.
Marco and two guards covered us as we moved through the corridor.
Matteo woke and began whimpering.
“It's okay,” I whispered. “Mama's here.”
The word slipped out naturally.
Mama.
I had spent months telling myself I wasn't supposed to be his mother.
Biology had disagreed.
So had my heart.
We reached the library.
I went directly to the shelves.
Adrian stopped behind me.
“Melissa.”
My fingers found the carved rose.
Press.
Turn.
Pull.
A section of shelves clicked.
Marco raised his weapon in surprise.
The bookcase opened.
Darkness waited behind it.
Adrian stared at me.
Nobody spoke.
I could have lied.
Not anymore.
I shifted Matteo into one arm.
Then I reached beneath my robe and pulled out the chain.
The ring fell into the chandelier light.
Silver.
Worn.
A crowned wolf engraved into its face.
Marco whispered something in Italian.
Adrian's face lost color.
He knew.
Of course he knew.
“My name isn't Melissa Hart.”
The words seemed louder than the gunfire.
“My name is Melissa Romano.”
Adrian stared at the ring.
I had imagined revealing the truth many times.
Never like this.
“My father was Don Gabriel Romano.”
Marco lowered his weapon slightly.
Adrian did not move.
“That's impossible.”
“No.”
“The Romano family is dead.”
“Most of it.”
His eyes lifted to mine.
I swallowed.
“My father died twenty-four years ago. His lieutenant took everything after the massacre. My mother escaped with me.”
“Who?”
“Victor Salvi.”
Marco cursed.
Adrian remained frighteningly silent.
“Salvi told everyone my mother and I were killed. It was safer to let them believe him.”
“How old were you?”
“Five.”
Adrian looked again at the ring.
“What happened that night?”
I had spent years avoiding the memory.
Now it came easily.
“Men attacked our house. My father was trying to get us out when he found a wounded boy near the courtyard.”
Adrian's breathing changed.
“He went back for him,” I continued. “My mother begged him not to. He said he couldn't leave a child there.”
Adrian's fingers tightened around the wheelchair armrest.
“My father carried the boy through the service tunnel. Then he went back for his men.”
My voice broke.
“He never came out.”
Adrian looked as if the room had disappeared around him.
“The boy,” he said. “Did your mother know who he was?”
“No.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
Outside, something exploded.
Dust shook from the ceiling.
Marco shouted, “We need to move.”
Adrian didn't seem to hear him.
“The boy your father saved,” he said slowly. “Did you ever learn his name?”
I shook my head.
“No.”
Adrian looked at me.
For the first time since I met him, I saw fear in his eyes.
Not fear of death.
Fear of truth.
“Melissa.”
His voice was barely audible.
“That boy was me.”
The world stopped.
I stared at him.
“No.”
“I was fourteen.”
“You said you were shot at twenty-one.”
“That was a different attack.”
I couldn't breathe.
Adrian continued.
“My father brought me to Gabriel Romano's house because they were negotiating an alliance. Salvi betrayed them both.”
“No.”
“I remember your father.”
My grip tightened around Matteo.
“He found me bleeding behind a wall. I couldn't walk. He carried me.”
“You're lying.”
“I remember what he said.”
I froze.
Adrian looked directly into my eyes.
“He told me, ‘If I don't make it out, remember that a Romano doesn't leave a child behind.’”
My knees nearly gave way.
That sentence.
My father used to say it.
A Romano doesn't leave family behind.
A Romano doesn't leave a child behind.
I had forgotten the sound of his voice, but not those words.
Adrian knew them.
He couldn't have known.
Unless—
A gunshot struck the library door.
Marco shoved the hidden passage fully open.
“Now!”
Adrian pointed at me.
“Take her.”
“No.”
“Melissa!”
I moved behind his wheelchair and grabbed the handles.
“If we go, you go.”
“This isn't a debate.”
“It is now.”
Marco almost smiled despite the chaos.
We entered the tunnel.
The shelves closed behind us.
Darkness swallowed the gunfire.
Emergency lights flickered on.
I knew the passage.
My father had shown it to me when I was a child.
Not this mansion exactly.
The old Romano estate had been rebuilt and later purchased by the Morettis.
Adrian apparently hadn't known that part.
But I remembered.
Some things a frightened five-year-old never forgot.
We moved deeper underground.
Matteo cried softly.
Adrian kept looking back at me.
“You knew who I was when you signed the contract?”
“No.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I knew you were a Moretti. I didn't know you were the boy.”
“Why agree to carry my child?”
“My mother needed money.”
“That simple?”
“That desperate.”
His face tightened.
“What else haven't you told me?”
I looked toward Marco.
“Now isn't the time.”
“Make it the time.”
“Adrian—”
“Someone just attacked my home the same week the daughter of Gabriel Romano is supposed to leave it. I don't believe in coincidences.”
Neither did I.
That was what scared me.
We reached an underground chamber.
Marco locked the steel door.
Only then did Adrian turn fully toward me.
“Who knows you're alive?”
“My mother.”
“Anyone else?”
I hesitated.
Adrian saw it.
“Melissa.”
“Victor Salvi.”
Silence.
“How?”
“Because he found us six years ago.”
Adrian's face hardened.
“What happened?”
“He sent a man to our apartment.”
“And?”
“I killed him.”
Marco stared.
Adrian didn't.
He only asked, “How?”
I looked at the gun on Marco's hip.
“Not the way you think.”
I lowered Matteo into a small emergency bassinet.
Then I walked toward Marco.
“May I?”
He glanced at Adrian.
Adrian nodded.
Marco unloaded his pistol before handing it to me.
I checked it automatically.
Magazine.
Chamber.
Balance.
Adrian watched my hands.
“You've done that before.”
“Yes.”
“How often?”
“Enough.”
“Who trained you?”
“My mother.”
That surprised him.
I almost laughed.
“You thought Don Gabriel Romano married someone helpless?”
Before Adrian could answer, the lights died.
Complete darkness.
Then a red emergency lamp flickered on.
A metallic sound came from the tunnel.
Someone was opening the outer passage.
Marco raised his weapon.
Adrian reached beneath his wheelchair and produced a pistol.
I stared at him.
He glanced at me.
“You're not the only one with secrets.”
The door handle began to move.
Matteo whimpered behind us.
Something ancient woke inside me.
For twenty-four years, I had been Melissa Hart.
Quiet.
Invisible.
Ordinary.
But the men coming through that door had made one mistake.
May you like
They had entered a room containing my child.
And Melissa Romano had never been taught how to surrender.
