Chapter 4 - Dawn at the Estate
The iron gates of the Moretti estate swung open at 5:00 AM, the heavy hinges groaning against the damp morning air. Inside the massive stone courtyard, the fountains were already playing, their mist catching the first pale rays of pale gray light filtering through the Manhattan skyline across the river.
Lucas woke up not to the sound of a sputtering radiator or the smell of burning toast from the bakery downstairs, but to the deep, resonant chiming of the grandfather clock in the main foyer.
He sat up rubbing his eyes, the heavy silk duvet sliding off his shoulders. He was no longer on the narrow iron cot in Astoria. He was in the master guest suite — a room so large it could have housed his entire former apartment twice over, with vaulted ceilings, mahogany wainscoting, and a massive velvet-curramed bed that smelled of cedar and expensive cologne.
The door clicked open, and Alessandro walked in carrying a silver tray. He wasn't wearing his suit jacket; his white shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing the faint, jagged white scar across his left forearm — a souvenir from the dock wars of his youth.
"Morning, Lucas," Alessandro said, his voice unusually gentle.
The boy stared at him for a long moment, processing the unfamiliar surroundings, before his face broke into a sleepy, toothy grin. "Mister! Where's Mommy?"
Alessandro’s chest tightened, a familiar, sharp pain stabbing behind his ribs. He set the tray down on the bedside table — a bowl of warm oatmeal with fresh berries, a glass of orange juice, and a small silver spoon.
"Mommy went on a long trip, remember?" Alessandro said, sitting down on the edge of the mattress. It dipped under his weight, bringing him down to the boy’s eye level. "She left you with me. For a while."
"Are we staying here?" Lucas asked, looking around the palatial room with wide, unbothered eyes. "There's no toys."
"We'll fix that today," Alessandro promised. "After breakfast, Marco is taking us to the largest toy store in the city. You can pick out whatever you want."
Lucas’s eyes lit up like winter stars. "A big wooden horse? With a real tail?"
"A dozen wooden horses, if you want them," Alessandro smiled — a rare, fleeting smile that made him look, for the first time in ten years, like the man he might have been before the blood and the boroughs claimed him.
By eight o'clock, the news had already begun to ripple through the underworld. In the dimly lit back room of an Italian restaurant in Little Italy, Vincent Verretti slammed his fist onto the mahogany table so hard the espresso cups rattled.
"What do you mean he took the kid?" Verretti roared, glaring at Sal, whose wrist was wrapped in a thick white bandage. "Moretti doesn't have kids! He's a machine! He doesn't even have a girlfriend!"
"He took him, boss," Sal whimpered. "And he said... he said anyone who looks at the kid answers to him personally."
Verretti leaned back, his eyes narrowing into cold slits. "He's getting soft. A man in our position doesn't adopt liabilities. If that boy really is his — and word is the mother kept letters proving it — then Moretti has an heir. And an heir is a target."
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"What do we do?"
"We wait," Verretti muttered, lighting a thick Cuban cigar. "A three-year-old in a fortress like that can't be touched directly. But people who love children make mistakes. And Alessandro Moretti hasn't made a mistake in twenty years. It's time he started."
