Chapter 3 - The Last Daughter of Gabriel Romano
The first attacker never made it through the doorway.
Marco fired.
The man fell backward.
Then the corridor erupted.
I dropped beside Matteo's bassinet.
Adrian fired from his wheelchair with terrifying precision.
Whatever damage existed in his legs had done nothing to his hands.
“Back exit!” Marco shouted.
“There isn't one,” Adrian replied.
“There is,” I said.
Both men looked at me.
I pointed toward the stone wall.
Adrian stared.
“You're becoming irritatingly useful.”
“Compliment me later.”
I found the old mechanism.
Nothing happened.
Again.
Still nothing.
The mansion had changed since childhood.
The bones had not.
“Melissa.”
“I'm trying.”
Gunfire struck the steel door.
Matteo screamed.
That sound changed everything.
I stopped thinking like frightened Melissa Hart.
I remembered my mother's lessons.
Observe.
Decide.
Move.
I looked at the wall.
Old drainage channel.
Stone seam.
Iron bracket.
I pulled the bracket down.
The wall shifted.
“Found it.”
Marco moved first.
Adrian refused.
“Melissa and the baby.”
I grabbed Matteo.
“Don't start.”
“You go first.”
“And leave you?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
His expression darkened.
“Melissa—”
“A Romano doesn't leave family behind.”
The words came out before I could stop them.
Adrian froze.
So did I.
Family.
I had called him family.
Neither of us had time to examine what that meant.
Marco pushed Adrian through.
I followed.
We escaped minutes before attackers breached the chamber.
The tunnel ended in an old greenhouse beyond the estate wall.
Moretti vehicles arrived shortly afterward.
By dawn, the mansion was secure.
Seven attackers were dead.
Three had escaped.
One was alive.
Adrian questioned him personally.
I wasn't present.
I didn't need to be.
An hour later, Adrian entered the room where Matteo and I were waiting.
“Victor Salvi,” he said.
My stomach dropped.
“He ordered it?”
“The prisoner won't say.”
“But you think so.”
“I know so.”
“Why now?”
Adrian looked at my ring.
“Because someone discovered you're alive.”
I sat down.
For years, my mother and I had survived by being nobody.
No family name.
No inheritance.
No revenge.
Now I had brought a child into the world.
A Moretti child.
A Romano child.
The combination was explosive.
“Your mother,” Adrian said.
I stood immediately.
“What about her?”
“She is safe.”
“Where?”
“I moved her before sunrise.”
“You moved her?”
“Yes.”
“Without asking me?”
“Yes.”
I stepped toward him.
“You can't keep deciding—”
“I can when armed men are trying to murder you.”
His voice filled the room.
Matteo stirred.
We both stopped.
Adrian lowered his voice.
“Your mother is protected.”
“Take me to her.”
“No.”
“Adrian.”
“Salvi's men may be watching.”
“I don't care.”
“I do.”
The words landed differently than either of us expected.
Adrian looked away first.
Two hours later, we left through a private garage.
The clinic where my mother had been moved wasn't a clinic at all.
It was a Moretti property outside the city.
When I entered the bedroom, Mom was awake.
Her face changed when she saw Adrian.
Then she saw my ring.
“You told him.”
“I had to.”
She closed her eyes.
Adrian stopped near the doorway.
“Elena Romano.”
My mother looked at him sharply.
Nobody had called her that in decades.
“You know who I am.”
“I do now.”
She studied him.
Then something strange happened.
Her hand began trembling.
“You.”
Adrian frowned.
Mom whispered, “You're Gabriel's boy.”
I stared at her.
“You knew?”
“Not his name.”
She looked at Adrian.
“But I remember his face.”
Adrian said nothing.
Mom began crying.
“My husband died believing he had saved you.”
“He did.”
Adrian's voice cracked.
That sound startled me more than shouting would have.
“He saved my life.”
Mom covered her mouth.
Adrian moved closer.
“I've spent twenty-four years trying to discover who ordered the massacre.”
“Victor,” Mom said.
“I know.”
“No.”
Her eyes sharpened.
“You know part of it.”
Adrian went still.
“What does that mean?”
My mother looked at me.
There was fear on her face.
“Victor Salvi didn't plan the massacre alone.”
I felt cold.
“Who helped him?”
She looked at Adrian.
“Someone inside the Moretti family.”
The silence became unbearable.
Adrian's face hardened.
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
“You must remember something.”
“I remember Gabriel arguing with someone that afternoon. He said the alliance had been compromised.”
“Who?”
“He never told me.”
Adrian turned toward the window.
His father had died years earlier.
His older uncle Carlo was still alive.
So were cousins, advisers, captains.
Someone among them had helped murder my father.
Perhaps someone still close to Adrian.
I looked at Matteo sleeping in my arms.
Suddenly, the attack made more sense.
This wasn't only about killing me.
It was about preventing something.
A Romano heir and a Moretti heir were the same baby.
Our son could unite two histories someone had spent decades keeping apart.
“Adrian.”
He turned.
“The contract.”
“What about it?”
“Who arranged it?”
His expression changed.
“My uncle Carlo recommended the agency.”
My mother inhaled sharply.
I felt the room tilt.
“Did he choose me?”
“No. The agency provided candidates.”
“Are you sure?”
Adrian didn't answer.
That was answer enough.
The five million dollars.
My mother's treatment.
The medical screening.
Everything had appeared when I was most desperate.
What if that had never been luck?
“What if someone knew who I was before you did?”
Adrian's face became stone.
He took out his phone.
“Marco.”
He gave three orders.
Freeze the agency's accounts.
Bring its director in.
Find Carlo Moretti.
Then he looked at me.
“You're staying here.”
I laughed once.
“No.”
“Melissa.”
“You're not investigating this without me.”
“I am if it keeps you alive.”
“My father died because someone betrayed him. My mother spent twenty-four years running. They just attacked my son.”
“Our son.”
I stopped.
Adrian moved closer.
“Our son,” he repeated.
His voice was quiet.
Something inside me softened.
Then hardened again.
“Exactly. So don't ask me to sit here.”
“You gave birth three weeks ago.”
“I noticed.”
“You nearly died.”
“I noticed that too.”
“And now you want to walk into a mafia war?”
“I was born into one.”
His eyes held mine.
“That's exactly what I'm afraid of.”
Before I could answer, my mother spoke.
“Melissa.”
I turned.
She reached beneath her pillow.
When her hand emerged, she held a small brass key.
I recognized it immediately.
My father's key.
“You kept it?”
“For the day you stopped running.”
“What's it for?”
“A deposit box.”
“Where?”
Mom gave me an address.
Adrian knew it.
His face changed.
“That bank closed fifteen years ago.”
“The public bank did,” Mom said.
“The private vaults didn't.”
Adrian stared.
“What did Gabriel put there?”
Mom looked at me.
“Insurance.”
Against betrayal.
Against death.
Against the possibility that one day his daughter would need to prove what really happened.
Adrian and I exchanged a glance.
For the first time, we weren't contractor and surrogate.
We weren't mafia boss and hidden heiress.
May you like
We were parents standing on opposite sides of the same secret.
And someone had already killed once to keep us from uncovering it.
