Chapter 2 - The Pulse in the Silver
The fire behind the iron grate flared and settled, casting jagged shadows across the polished walnut floor.
I stood there in the center of my study, holding an infant who weighed no more than a bundle of dry leaves, while the weight of seven years came crashing down on my chest. My thumb pressed into the cold metal of the pendant. The initials I and A—Isabella and Alessio.
I had ordered that necklace in Naples a decade ago, before the blood, before the ascension, before the iron rule I now held over the eastern seaboard. I had given it to Isabella on her twentieth birthday under a pergola of late-summer jasmine. She had worn it every day until the night she vanished into the cold black water off Montauk.
The world had told me she was dead. The wreckage of her car had been recovered from the harbor with her purse inside, her phone, her lipstick, and a tear in the leather of the driver's seat where her body should have been.
They never found her body. They said the tide took her out. They said no one could survive November waters.
I had believed them because believing was easier than looking at the empty sea every night.
“Sir?”
Antonio’s voice cut through the hum of my thoughts. He stood in the doorway, holding a heated woolen blanket and a feeding bottle filled with warm formula, his face tight with concern. Behind him, Dr. Ricci hurried down the corridor, his medical bag swinging against his knee.
“Take her,” I said. My voice didn't shake. Men like me cannot afford for their voices to shake, even when the floor beneath them is splitting open. “Gently, Antonio. She’s starving.”
Antonio stepped forward, his massive frame dwarfing the infant as he received her with hands that had broken bones and cleared rooms, now gentler than a mother’s.
“Dr. Ricci,” I said, turning my gaze to the physician. “Check the baby. Thoroughly. Every inch of her. Look for birthmarks, scars, blood type—anything. Then go to the servants' quarters. Room seven. There is a woman there who won't wake up.”
“Understood, Mr. Moretti,” the doctor said, snapping his bag open and motioning for Antonio to follow him toward the family wing.
I remained in the study.
Emma, the seven-year-old girl, hadn't moved. She stood by the desk, her bare feet leaving wet prints that were beginning to dry into faint chalky outlines on the dark wood. Her dark eyes followed Antonio and the baby until the door clicked shut. Then she looked up at me.
“Is Lily going to die?” she asked. Her voice wasn't a child's voice anymore. It was the voice of someone who had already seen too much of the dark.
“No,” I said, walking slowly toward my desk and pulling out a dry towel from the drawer. I knelt in front of her, ignoring the mud that smeared against the knees of my tailored trousers, and began to gently dry her feet. “Not on my watch. What is your mother's name, Emma?”
“Clara,” she whispered. “She works in the laundry. Or she used to. She hasn't been able to work much since the cough started.”
My mind raced. Clara.
I didn't employ a Clara in the laundry. The estate staff was vetted, small, and tightly knit. My housekeeper, Mrs. Gable, managed the domestic roster with the precision of a general.
Unless Clara had been brought in recently.
Unless someone had smuggled them into the old quarters behind the estate without my knowledge.
In my world, unauthorized people on Moretti land meant one thing: a breach. A security failure. Or worse—a setup.
“Emma,” I said, looking straight into her terrified eyes. “How long have you lived in room seven?”
“Two weeks,” she said, shivering as the warmth of the room finally began to thaw her skin. “A nice man brought us there. He said we could stay safe if we didn't come out. He brought us bread and milk when the sun went down. But tonight... tonight mama heard something outside. She went to the window, and then she fell. She wouldn't open her eyes when I shook her.”
“What did the man look like?”
Emma squeezed her eyes shut, trying to remember. “He had a scar here.” She pointed to her own jawline. “And he smelled like peppermint and tobacco. He told mama that if anyone found us, the bad men would come back.”
My blood turned to ice.
Peppermint and tobacco.
There was only one man in my inner circle who chewed peppermint leaves to mask the smell of his expensive cigars.
Marco.
My consigliere. My right hand. The man who had stood by my grave when Isabella died and swore he would help me hunt down the men responsible.
If Marco had brought Isabella's daughter—and if that baby was indeed Isabella's—and hidden her in the servants' quarters... why? Why hide her from me? Why keep her in the cold when he knew what I would have given to find a piece of Isabella left behind?
The door burst open.
Dr. Ricci stood on the threshold, his face pale, sweat beading on his forehead despite the chill in the air.
“Alessio,” he said, using my first name—a breach of protocol he only dared when things were catastrophic. “The woman in room seven... she didn't fall. She was poisoned. And the baby... Boss, you need to see the baby's left earlobe.”
I stood up slowly, every muscle in my body locking into place.
May you like
“What about her earlobe?”
“She has a partial cleft, surgically corrected, and a rare blood disorder—AB negative. Exactly like the medical files you had me pull seven years ago when you searched for Lady Isabella's family history.” Dr. Ricci swallowed hard. “Boss... that baby isn't just someone related to Isabella. She shares your blood type, too. She's your daughter.”
