Chapter 1 - The Little Girl with the Red Heart
“Can I borrow you for five minutes?”
Dominic Moretti had been called many things in his thirty-eight years—boss, butcher, benefactor, criminal, savior, monster—but never borrowable.
He looked down at the little girl standing beside him in the middle of the Grand Bellamy ballroom. She could not have been more than six. A red cardigan hung over a cream dress, one ribbon in her brown curls had come loose, and she held a crooked paper heart in both hands as if it were a legal document.
Around them, Chicago’s richest people drank champagne beneath chandeliers and pretended not to stare at Dominic. They always stared anyway.
Dominic lowered his glass. “Borrow me for what?”
The girl glanced toward the service corridor.
“My mommy needs someone scary.”
That got his attention.
One of Dominic’s men, Carlo, took a step forward. Dominic stopped him with two fingers. Then he crouched until he was eye level with the child.
“What’s your name?”
“Lily Carter.”
“And where is your mother, Lily Carter?”
She pointed.
Dominic followed her finger and saw a young woman in a white shirt and black apron standing near the ballroom doors.
She was beautiful in the tired way that had nothing to do with makeup—dark hair pinned up too quickly, pale face, expressive eyes, shoulders held straight because letting them sag might mean not getting them back up again.
A banquet supervisor in a burgundy jacket stood much too close to her.
The supervisor was smiling.
The woman was not.
Dominic recognized him.
Victor Shaw.
Operations director for the Bellamy Foundation, a man who had spent the evening shaking Dominic’s hand and thanking him for a seven-figure donation to the children’s hospital wing.
Victor leaned toward the woman and said something Dominic could not hear.
She went white.
Lily tugged Dominic’s sleeve.
“See?”
“What did he say to her?”
“I’m not supposed to listen when grown-ups whisper.”
Dominic almost smiled. “But you did.”
Lily considered this.
“He said Mommy has until midnight.”
The smile left Dominic’s face.
“Until midnight for what?”
“I don’t know. But Mommy cried in the freezer room. She never cries where I can see.”
Lily held up the paper heart.
On it, in purple crayon, were the words:
FOR SOMEBODY BRAVE.
“I made this for her,” Lily said. “But I think she needs a bigger brave.”
Dominic looked back at the service corridor.
Victor’s hand closed around the woman’s wrist.
Dominic stood.
“Five minutes,” he said.
Lily’s whole face changed.
“Really?”
“Stay beside me.”
She slipped her tiny hand into his as if she had known him for years.
The nearest tables went quiet as Dominic Moretti crossed the ballroom holding a six-year-old girl’s hand.
Victor saw him coming and released the waitress instantly.
“Mr. Moretti,” he said with a polished smile. “I was just handling a staff matter.”
“No,” Lily announced. “You were making my mommy scared.”
The woman’s eyes widened.
“Lily.”
Dominic stopped in front of them.
“You’re her mother?”
She nodded cautiously.
“Anna Carter.”
“Your daughter borrowed me.”
For one second, confusion broke through Anna’s fear.
“She what?”
“I only need him for five minutes,” Lily explained. “Maybe ten.”
A few guests nearby laughed softly.
Dominic didn’t.
Neither did Anna.
Victor’s jaw tightened.
“This really doesn’t concern you, Dominic.”
The use of his first name was a mistake.
Dominic looked at Victor’s hand, then at Anna’s wrist where four red fingerprints were appearing against her skin.
“It concerns me now.”
Victor lowered his voice.
“We have a private employment dispute.”
“Then discuss it without touching her.”
“I said it’s private.”
Dominic stepped closer.
He did not raise his voice.
He never needed to.
“So was my donation,” he said. “Until this second.”
Victor froze.
Anna pulled Lily toward her.
“Mr. Moretti, please. I don’t want trouble.”
Dominic looked at her.
That sentence bothered him more than Victor’s arrogance.
People who said they did not want trouble usually meant trouble already knew their address.
Victor straightened his jacket.
“Anna has been accused of taking something that doesn’t belong to her.”
Anna stared at him.
“That’s a lie.”
“What?” Dominic asked.
Victor smiled again.
“An internal item. Nothing of interest to you.”
“I decide what interests me.”
Anna’s voice sharpened.
“I didn’t take anything.”
Victor turned to her.
“Then you won’t mind security searching your locker.”
Lily squeezed her mother’s hand.
Dominic saw it—the small flinch Anna tried to hide.
Not guilt.
Fear.
“What’s in the locker?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Anna said too quickly.
Victor gave a quiet, satisfied laugh.
Then Anna said, “My shift is over. Lily and I are leaving.”
Victor blocked the service door.
“No. You’re not.”
Dominic moved once.
That was all it took.
Carlo and two other Moretti men appeared behind him, silent in dark suits.
Victor stepped aside.
Anna stared at Dominic with a mixture of gratitude and alarm.
“I don’t know who you think I am, but I don’t need an escort.”
“Your daughter disagrees.”
“Lily is six.”
“She has good instincts.”
Lily nodded solemnly.
“I do.”
Anna closed her eyes for half a second.
Dominic almost smiled again.
Then Victor spoke behind them.
“You should ask her who her husband was.”
Anna stopped breathing.
Dominic turned.
Victor’s expression had changed.
The polished fundraiser was gone.
Something colder stood in his place.
“You’re making a mistake,” Victor said. “A very personal one.”
Dominic looked at Anna.
She would not meet his eyes.
“What was your husband’s name?”
Anna swallowed.
“Noah Carter.”
The ballroom seemed to disappear around Dominic.
He knew that name.
Three years earlier, Noah Carter had been one of Dominic’s drivers.
Dependable.
Quiet.
Married, though Dominic had never met the wife.
One rainy night, Noah had driven a black sedan away from one of Dominic’s warehouses and never returned.
Police found the car burned beneath an overpass.
They found enough blood to declare Noah dead.
No body.
Dominic had spent six months looking for whoever had taken him.
Then the trail went cold.
He looked at Lily again.
Six years old.
Noah’s daughter.
Anna saw recognition in his face and pulled Lily behind her.
“No,” she whispered.
Dominic’s voice dropped.
“You know who I am.”
“I know exactly who you are.”
“And you came to work a gala where my family is the largest donor?”
“I came because this job paid two hundred dollars and my rent is late.”
Victor laughed under his breath.
Anna’s face hardened.
“Don’t.”
Dominic turned toward Victor.
“What does Noah have to do with your midnight deadline?”
“Ask her.”
Anna grabbed Lily’s coat from a nearby chair.
“We’re leaving.”
Dominic did not stop her.
But as she bent to help Lily into the coat, the paper heart slipped from the child’s hand and landed face down near Dominic’s shoe.
He picked it up.
There was writing on the back.
Not crayon.
Black ink.
A string of numbers.
And beneath them, four words written in an adult hand:
IF MORETTI STILL LIVES.
Dominic’s pulse changed.
“Anna.”
She turned and saw what he was holding.
All the color drained from her face.
Lily looked between them.
“That was Daddy’s paper.”
Nobody moved.
Dominic stared at Anna.
“You told her her father was dead.”
“He is.”
“Then who wrote this?”
Anna’s eyes filled, but her voice stayed steady.
“My husband did.”
“When?”
“Two days before he disappeared.”
Victor took one step backward.
Dominic noticed.
So did Anna.
She looked at Dominic at last.
“Noah said if anything happened to him, I was supposed to find you,” she whispered. “I spent three years trying not to.”
Dominic closed his hand around the paper heart.
“Why?”
Anna looked toward Victor.
“Because Noah believed the man who betrayed him was standing beside you.”
Victor’s smile vanished.
May you like
And across the glittering ballroom, every instinct Dominic had learned in a lifetime of dangerous rooms told him the little girl had not borrowed him for five minutes.
She had just dragged him back into a murder that had never been solved.
