Chapter 1 - The Phone on the Kitchen Table
"Do you know a phone number, Oliver?" I asked, kneeling on the linoleum in front of him so our eyes were level.
Oliver looked down at his small hands, his thumbs picking at the seam of his trousers. "My dad's number is in the black box. But the screen went to sleep."
Emma had already pulled a wooden chair from the breakfast nook, climbing onto it to reach the ceramic mug where I kept spare charging cables. She hopped down and handed me an old lightning cord. "Plug it in, Mama. We have to call his grown-up before the soup gets cold."
I plugged the dead phone into the wall outlet beside the refrigerator. Within thirty seconds, the white apple logo flickered to life on the black screen.
While the device rebooted, I wrapped Oliver in a fleece blanket, sat him at the small laminate table, and ladled a steaming bowl of tomato soup in front of him alongside two slices of buttered sourdough toast. Emma sat across from him, sliding her dish of gold oyster crackers toward his bowl.
"Put them in the soup," Emma instructed with solemn six-year-old authority. "They float like boats until you crunch them."
Oliver took a spoonful, his shoulders dropping as the hot food warmed his chest. He ate with neat, quiet manners, but the speed with which he cleared the bowl told me he hadn't eaten since noon.
The phone on the counter chimed.
The lock screen illuminated with a wallpaper photograph that made my heart freeze inside my chest.
A tall, broad-shouldered man stood on the deck of a private yacht, dressed in a tailored charcoal suit, looking down with a rare, breathtaking smile at the toddler in his arms. He had thick dark hair silvering at the temples, a sharp, aristocratic jawline, and eyes like slate-gray winter ice.
Christian Moretti.
The undisputed sovereign of the Moretti Syndicate, the man who controlled every shipping lane from Red Hook to Boston, and the man I had fled from six years ago when his family’s violent world threatened to swallow my unborn child alive.
Beneath the photograph, twenty-two missed calls and seven unread messages flashed across the glass.
Before I could breathe, the phone vibrated against the counter, ringing with an incoming call labeled Papa.
My hand shook as I reached for the device. I pressed the green icon and brought the speaker to my ear.
"Oliver?"
The voice was low, rough, and vibrating with an agonizing, barely contained terror that stripped away every ounce of the cold authority Christian Moretti was famous for.
"Oliver, answer me right now. Where are you?"
I swallowed the lump in my throat, forcing my voice into the calm, professional tone I used in the emergency trauma ward.
"Mr. Moretti," I said quietly.
A concussive, breathless silence fell over the other end of the line.
"Who is this?" Christian demanded, his voice dropping into a register of lethal, sub-zero steel. "If you have laid a hand on my son—"
"Your son is safe, Christian," I interrupted, my voice trembling despite my best efforts. "He is in my kitchen in Astoria, eating tomato soup with my daughter. He has no injuries."
A sharp intake of breath hissed through the receiver.
May you like
"Sophia...?" Christian whispered, the name tearing from his throat like torn silk. "Sophia, is that you?"
"Come get your boy, Christian," I said, giving him the cross streets before ending the call. "And come alone."
