Chapter 1 - The Man at My Door
A newborn screamed in Matteo DeLuca’s arms as he stumbled through my clinic door and whispered:
“Please save him.”
The most feared man in Boston dropped a bloodstained silver pendant onto my examination table.
A tiny letter M had been scratched into the back.
Then I realized the baby wasn’t his.
For several seconds, I did nothing.
Not because I didn’t know what to do.
Because I knew exactly who stood six feet away from me.
Matteo DeLuca.
Forty-three years old. Black hair swept back from a face Boston newspapers had photographed outside courthouses, charity galas, funerals, and crime scenes. Owner of restaurants, construction companies, warehouses, and half a dozen businesses that looked perfectly legitimate until people started whispering.
People in my neighborhood never whispered his name casually.
They lowered their voices.
Matteo pressed one hand against the dark stain spreading beneath his black shirt.
The other arm remained wrapped around the screaming infant.
“Ms. Rossi.”
His voice was strained.
“You’re a nurse.”
“I was.”
“Then be one tonight.”
I stared at him.
Three years earlier, I had left the emergency department at St. Catherine’s after my mother got sick. I began helping people who couldn’t afford regular care from the basement level of the old building I inherited from her.
Immigrants.
Dishwashers.
Construction workers.
Women afraid to give their names.
I never advertised.
I certainly never expected Matteo DeLuca.
“Put the baby down,” I said.
His eyes hardened.
“No.”
“If you want me to examine him, put him on the table.”
Something changed in Matteo’s face.
Not anger.
Fear.
He looked down at the tiny bundle.
The baby’s face was red from crying. Dark damp hair clung to his scalp. His fists trembled beside his cheeks.
Matteo stepped closer.
“You hold him.”
That surprised me.
I extended my arms.
He hesitated before transferring the child.
His hands were careful.
Too careful.
Like the baby was made of glass.
The instant the newborn touched me, I felt the heat of his body.
“He’s hungry,” I said.
“I tried the bottle.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“I found him an hour ago.”
I looked up.
“Found him where?”
Matteo’s jaw tightened.
“Help him first.”
The baby rooted against my scrub top, crying harder.
I moved to the cabinet and pulled out formula.
Matteo caught my wrist.
“No.”
I looked at his hand.
Then at him.
“Remove your hand.”
Most people probably didn’t speak to Matteo DeLuca that way.
For one dangerous second, neither of us moved.
Then he released me.
“His mother said formula made him sick.”
“His mother told you that?”
“Yes.”
“So you know his mother.”
His silence answered for him.
I mixed a small bottle anyway.
The baby took two swallows.
Then coughed.
His little face twisted.
Matteo moved instantly.
“What happened?”
“He swallowed too fast.”
“Fix it.”
“I am fixing it.”
“Then why is he crying?”
“Because babies cry.”
“He’s been crying for an hour.”
“And you’ve been carrying him while bleeding.”
Matteo glanced at his shirt as if he had forgotten.
That frightened me more than the blood.
I examined the baby carefully.
His breathing was rapid but clear.
No obvious fever.
No visible injury.
His diaper was clean.
His blanket smelled faintly of lavender.
“You need a hospital,” I said.
“No hospitals.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion.”
“No hospitals.”
“You’re bleeding, and this baby may need neonatal evaluation.”
“If anyone registers that child tonight, he will be dead before morning.”
My fingers stopped.
Matteo watched me.
I lowered my voice.
“Who wants to kill a newborn?”
His gaze moved to the pendant.
“People who are afraid of what he proves.”
The baby began screaming again.
I lifted him against my shoulder.
“Where is his mother?”
Matteo didn’t answer.
“Matteo.”
His expression cracked for half a second.
“She was my sister.”
Was.
I heard the word.
“What happened?”
“Her name was Lucia.”
He stared at the baby.
“I hadn’t spoken to her in eleven months.”
“Why?”
“She ran.”
“From you?”
“From everyone.”
He turned away.
“Tonight she called me.”
I waited.
“She said she had made a mistake. She said men were following her. She told me where to meet her.”
His voice roughened.
“I was ten minutes late.”
The baby quieted slightly against me.
I didn’t ask what he had found.
I already knew.
Matteo looked toward the floor.
“She was alive long enough to hand him to me.”
“What did she say?”
“Three things.”
His breathing slowed.
“She said his name is Gabriel.”
I looked at the child.
“She said never take him to the police.”
Matteo lifted his eyes to mine.
“And she said find Elena Rossi.”
A chill passed through me.
“What?”
“She knew your name.”
“I never met your sister.”
“She knew exactly where this clinic was.”
“That’s impossible.”
“She told me to bring Gabriel to the nurse below Harrison Street.”
My mouth went dry.
Only a few dozen people knew about this place.
“Did she say why?”
“No.”
The baby stirred.
His mouth searched instinctively.
Matteo noticed.
“What does he need?”
“Food.”
“You said the formula—”
“He may tolerate another kind.”
“No.”
“Then what exactly are you expecting me to do?”
He looked embarrassed for the first time.
That expression seemed almost unnatural on him.
“Lucia said something else.”
“You said three things.”
“I lied.”
I stared.
He rubbed one hand over his face.
“She said if Gabriel wouldn’t take the bottle…”
He stopped.
“What?”
His voice dropped.
“She said to ask you if you could nurse him.”
I thought I had misheard.
“You came here expecting me to breastfeed your sister’s baby?”
“I came here because she was dying and told me you were the only person I could trust.”
“I’m not currently nursing.”
His expression fell.
Then he noticed my hesitation.
I looked away.
Six months earlier, I had lost my daughter at thirty-four weeks.
The grief still lived in places I never spoke about.
My body had taken longer than my heart to understand she was gone.
I had donated milk for months afterward.
Very few people knew.
My mother had known.
My physician.
One close friend.
No one connected to Matteo DeLuca should have known.
“How did Lucia know?” I whispered.
Matteo’s face changed.
He understood.
“You can?”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“How did my sister know something private about you?”
I looked at the pendant again.
The small silver oval was stained along one edge.
I picked it up.
The scratched M looked crude.
Fresh.
“Where did she get this?”
“It was around her neck.”
I turned it over.
There was a seam.
A locket.
I pressed my nail under the edge.
It opened.
Inside was a tiny folded photograph.
My stomach tightened.
I unfolded it.
A young woman smiled at the camera.
Lucia.
Beside her stood another woman.
Older.
Silver streaks in her dark hair.
My mother.
I nearly dropped the photograph.
“That’s impossible.”
Matteo stepped closer.
“You know her?”
“That’s my mother.”
The room seemed suddenly too small.
My mother had been dead for two years.
I flipped the photograph.
Something had been written on the back in faded blue ink.
Protect the child if the DeLucas ever come.
My mother’s handwriting.
I knew every loop.
Every slant.
Every letter.
“No,” I whispered.
Matteo read over my shoulder.
His face drained of color.
“What did your mother know?”
“I don’t know.”
“That picture says otherwise.”
“She never mentioned your family.”
“Maybe she had a reason.”
The baby cried again.
This time, the sound felt different.
Not like an interruption.
Like an alarm.
I held him tighter.
Matteo suddenly turned toward the ceiling.
“What?”
He raised one finger.
Silence.
Then I heard it.
A car door shutting outside.
Another.
Then another.
My clinic sat behind a locked street-level entrance.
No one came at two thirty in the morning without calling.
Matteo moved to the light switch.
“Turn everything off.”
“Who is it?”
“I don’t know.”
He reached inside his jacket.
I saw the outline of a handgun.
“Do not pull that out near the baby.”
His eyes flashed.
“Then take Gabriel into the storage room.”
A shadow moved across the frosted basement window.
Someone descended the exterior steps.
The baby whimpered.
Matteo positioned himself beside the door.
A soft knock came.
Three times.
Then a voice called through the wood.
“Elena?”
I froze.
I knew that voice.
Matteo looked at me.
“Elena,” the man outside said again. “Open the door.”
My hand tightened around Gabriel’s blanket.
Because the person standing outside was the last man I expected to see at my clinic.
May you like
My older brother.
And he had been dead for twelve years.
