Chapter 1 - Whose Baby Is This?
Alessandro Duca had been home for less than three minutes when a baby grabbed his trousers.
He stopped in the middle of the marble foyer.
So did Lucia Bennett.
Sunlight poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Manhattan penthouse, turning the polished white marble almost gold. Beyond the glass, the Empire State Building rose against a bright afternoon sky. Everything inside Alessandro’s home looked deliberate—black walnut walls, cream furniture, brass fixtures, fresh white flowers placed at exact angles.
Everything except the child sitting on the floor beside his right shoe.
She could not have been much older than ten months.
Maybe eleven.
Soft dark-brown curls framed a round face. A tiny pink bow was clipped above one ear. She wore a pale rose romper, white socks, and the expression of someone who had just discovered the most interesting object in the world.
That object was Alessandro’s trouser leg.
Her small fist had wrapped around the expensive black fabric.
She looked up at him.
Alessandro looked down at her.
Neither moved.
Lucia stood six feet away with a white laundry basket balanced against her hip.
Her face had gone completely pale.
That was what Alessandro noticed second.
Not the child.
Not the tiny fingers now pulling experimentally at his pants.
Lucia.
She looked terrified.
Alessandro had seen that expression on men twice her size.
Usually immediately before they lied to him.
He slowly lifted his eyes.
“Whose baby is this?”
Lucia swallowed.
The basket trembled slightly in her hands.
“Mr. Duca—”
“That was not a difficult question.”
The baby made a small happy sound and tugged his pants again.
Alessandro looked down.
She smiled.
Something uncomfortable shifted inside his chest.
He had no experience with babies.
Children generally disappeared from rooms when Alessandro Duca entered them.
Adults often wished they could do the same.
At thirty-nine, Alessandro controlled one of the largest privately held shipping and logistics companies on the East Coast. Newspapers called him an investor, an industrialist, a nightclub owner, a property developer.
Federal investigators used less flattering descriptions.
His grandfather had been a made man.
His father had turned organized crime into corporations with accountants.
Alessandro had inherited both the legitimate empire and the enemies produced by everything that came before it.
People called him the Mafia Boss when they wanted to make him sound simple.
He was not simple.
Neither, apparently, was his afternoon.
The baby released his trousers.
For exactly two seconds.
Then she reached both arms upward toward him.
Alessandro stared.
Lucia took one nervous step forward.
“Sweetheart, come here.”
The child ignored her.
Her arms remained pointed toward Alessandro.
He frowned.
“She wants you,” Lucia said.
“I gathered that.”
For one absurd moment, neither adult knew what to do.
Then Alessandro crouched.
Slowly.
He stopped at the child’s eye level.
The baby immediately grabbed his black silk tie.
Lucia inhaled sharply.
Alessandro looked at the tiny hand crushing a tie that had cost more than most people’s rent.
Then he looked at Lucia.
“She does this often?”
Lucia almost laughed.
The sound died before escaping.
“No.”
The baby pulled harder.
Alessandro carefully freed his tie.
Her lower lip trembled.
He froze.
“No.”
Lucia blinked.
“What?”
“Why is she doing that?”
“She thinks you took something away.”
“I took my tie back.”
“She doesn’t understand property law.”
Alessandro stared at Lucia.
For the first time since he entered, something almost resembling amusement touched his eyes.
Then the child leaned forward and placed one tiny hand against his cheek.
Everything changed.
Alessandro stopped breathing.
Her eyes were hazel.
Not brown.
Hazel with a thin ring of dark green around the iris.
His eyes.
He straightened slowly.
Lucia saw exactly what he had seen.
The fear returned to her face.
Alessandro’s voice became quieter.
“What is her name?”
Lucia lowered the laundry basket to the floor.
“Emma.”
“Emma what?”
Silence.
“Lucia.”
The use of her first name was worse than anger.
She looked toward the hallway.
Nobody else was there.
Alessandro’s security team remained downstairs. His house manager had gone shopping. The penthouse was unexpectedly quiet because Alessandro had returned four hours earlier than planned.
Lucia clasped her hands.
“Emma Bennett.”
“Your daughter?”
Lucia hesitated.
“Yes.”
The answer came half a second too late.
Alessandro noticed.
He noticed everything.
“How old?”
“Eleven months.”
He looked at the baby.
Then at Lucia.
“You have worked here six months.”
“Yes.”
“You told Human Resources you had no dependents.”
“I needed the job.”
“That does not explain why you brought a baby into my home without permission.”
“My sitter called. Her son was taken to the emergency room. I had no one else.”
“You could have left.”
“And lose a day’s wages?”
Alessandro’s jaw tightened.
“That would not have happened.”
“I didn’t know that.”
Fair.
He disliked fair answers.
Emma crawled toward him.
Again.
She reached his shoe and tried to pull herself upright.
Alessandro instinctively extended a hand.
The baby wrapped both hands around one of his fingers.
Too familiar.
Too trusting.
His stomach tightened.
“Where is her father?”
Lucia went completely still.
Alessandro looked at her.
There.
That was the real fear.
“Lucia.”
“He’s dead.”
Something about the answer felt wrong.
“When?”
“Before she was born.”
“How?”
Lucia’s eyes filled.
“Car accident.”
Alessandro stood.
He did not believe her.
He did not know why.
Maybe because she looked toward the windows instead of at him.
Maybe because his entire life had been built around hearing the space between words.
Maybe because Emma was still holding his finger.
Then Alessandro noticed something around the child’s neck.
A thin gold chain.
Mostly hidden beneath the pink fabric.
A small object hung from it.
He crouched again.
Lucia moved immediately.
“Please don’t.”
Alessandro stopped.
“What is it?”
“Nothing.”
“That is rarely true when someone says it that quickly.”
Emma pulled the chain herself.
The pendant slipped free.
It was not a pendant.
It was half of a gold medallion.
A broken circle.
An engraved wing on one side.
Alessandro’s face emptied.
He knew that medallion.
Every Duca boy received one at eighteen.
Two wings formed a complete crest.
Brothers sometimes broke the medallion in half before war, imprisonment, or dangerous business.
One half stayed with family.
The other traveled with the man.
Alessandro had seen that exact broken wing once before.
Around the neck of his younger brother, Matteo.
Matteo Duca had died fourteen months earlier.
At least that was what Alessandro had been told.
A warehouse explosion in New Jersey.
Body badly burned.
Identification made through dental records and a Duca signet ring.
Alessandro reached toward the medallion.
His hand stopped before touching it.
“Where did she get this?”
Lucia’s eyes filled with tears.
“Alessandro…”
Not Mr. Duca.
Alessandro.
He stood very slowly.
“Where did your daughter get my brother’s medallion?”
Emma sat between them, unaware that the room had just become dangerous.
Lucia whispered:
“Because Matteo gave it to me.”
Alessandro said nothing.
The city hummed beyond the windows.
Lucia continued.
“Three weeks before he died.”
Alessandro’s chest tightened.
“Why?”
Tears finally spilled down Lucia’s cheeks.
She looked at Emma.
Then back at him.
“Because he knew I was pregnant.”
The words landed heavily.
Alessandro looked down at the baby.
Hazel eyes.
Dark curls.
Duca medallion.
His brother had been thirty-three when he died.
Eleven months.
Pregnancy timeline.
Everything began aligning too quickly.
Alessandro’s voice dropped.
“Emma is Matteo’s daughter?”
Lucia nodded.
Once.
Alessandro turned away.
Not because he doubted her.
Because suddenly he could not look at the child.
Fourteen months earlier, he had stood beside a closed coffin while his mother screamed into Alessandro’s chest.
Matteo was the easy brother.
The laughing brother.
The one who played piano badly at two in the morning.
The one who mocked Alessandro for wearing suits on Sundays.
The one who kept trying to convince him that family could become something other than business.
Dead.
And while Alessandro buried him, Lucia had been carrying his child.
He turned back.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Lucia wiped her face.
“Matteo told me not to.”
Alessandro’s eyes sharpened.
“Why?”
“He said someone inside your family wanted him dead.”
Silence.
Emma babbled.
Lucia looked toward the locked penthouse doors.
“Matteo didn’t die because of an accident, Alessandro.”
His jaw hardened.
“What did he tell you?”
“He said if anything happened to him, I was supposed to take Emma and disappear.”
“From whom?”
Lucia whispered:
“From you.”
That hurt more than Alessandro expected.
He stared at her.
“My brother thought I would hurt his child?”
“No.”
“Then explain.”
“He thought whoever killed him would use you to find her.”
Alessandro’s mind accelerated.
“Who knew you were pregnant?”
“Matteo.”
“Anyone else?”
“I don’t know.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only one I have.”
Emma pulled herself upright using Alessandro’s leg.
Again.
This time he looked down differently.
His niece.
Matteo’s daughter.
Living in his home for six months under a name Alessandro had never bothered to investigate because Lucia Bennett had appeared ordinary.
Maybe that had been the point.
He bent and carefully lifted Emma.
Lucia’s eyes widened.
Alessandro held the baby awkwardly at first.
Emma immediately placed one hand against his tattooed wrist.
Then she smiled.
Matteo’s smile.
Alessandro nearly lost his balance.
He looked at Lucia.
“No one leaves this penthouse.”
Fear flashed across her face.
He corrected himself immediately.
“Not as prisoners.”
He reached for his phone.
“Until I know who killed my brother, you and Emma do not go anywhere without protection.”
Lucia shook her head.
“That’s exactly what Matteo was afraid of.”
“What?”
“Being pulled into your world.”
Alessandro looked at the baby in his arms.
Then at the half-medallion against her pink clothes.
“My world already found her.”
He pressed one button.
His security chief answered.
“Marco.”
“Yes, boss?”
“Lock down the private elevators.”
A pause.
“Threat?”
Alessandro looked into Emma’s hazel eyes.
“Yes.”
“What kind?”
May you like
Alessandro’s expression turned cold.
“The kind that has been living inside my family for fourteen months.”
