Chapter 9 - MY SISTER TOOK MY SON
I called Victoria seventeen times.
No answer.
Dante went terrifyingly quiet.
“Do not touch her.”
He looked at me.
“I know.”
That mattered.
Then a message arrived.
From Victoria.
I HAVE LEO. HE IS SAFE. DO NOT FOLLOW.
I almost broke the phone.
Dante’s security could track her.
I said no.
Police.
Road cameras.
Legal.
Again, choice over instinct.
Two hours later, Victoria called.
Leo appeared on video beside her eating crackers.
Calm.
“Mommy!”
I nearly cried.
“Baby, are you okay?”
“Aunt Vicky said we’re playing hide.”
I looked at her.
“Why?”
Victoria’s face was pale.
“Because someone inside Dante’s security team was about to take him.”
She had received a warning from Holloway? No. Different story.
From Dante’s driver, Carlo Raines.
He found a cloned pickup authorization for Leo.
Signed by me.
Fake.
Vehicle prepared.
Destination:
private airfield.
Who authorized it?
Dante’s security chief, Marco Bell.
Dante froze.
Marco had been with him fifteen years.
Of course.
Every empire eventually contained someone trusted too much.
Why would Marco betray him?
Money?
Not exactly.
Salvatore had recruited Marco years earlier.
His job was to preserve “family continuity.”
After Salvatore died, Marco shifted loyalty to Gianna.
When Gianna fell, he decided to take Leo himself.
Why?
He believed the Moretti structure needed a male heir under traditional supervision.
He planned to raise Leo inside the organization if Dante “went soft.”
My son was three.
I could barely breathe.
Victoria discovered the plan thirty minutes before pickup.
She grabbed Leo first.
Why not call me?
“Because I didn’t know who around you was compromised.”
Fair.
Infuriating.
Then police arrested Marco.
No gunfight.
No execution.
He had documents.
Training plans.
Guardianship drafts.
School projections.
He had been planning Leo’s future without ever meeting him properly.
Dante read them.
Then tore nothing.
Burned nothing.
Turned everything over as evidence.
That was new.
Marco’s files also contained something else.
A sealed medical report on Dante.
Genetic condition.
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy risk.
Dante had been diagnosed with early-stage cardiac changes a year earlier.
He never told me.
Of course not.
“Why?”
“I didn’t want you to think that was why I stayed away.”
I stared.
“You still make decisions for me.”
He closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
No defense.
The condition was manageable.
Monitoring.
Medication.
No immediate crisis.
But genetically relevant to Leo.
That meant I needed to know.
I was furious.
Then Leo came home.
He ran into me.
I held him until he complained I was squeezing.
Dante stayed several feet away.
Leo looked at him.
Then whispered to me:
“Is that my other daddy?”
My heart stopped.
“Who told you that?”
“Aunt Vicky.”
Victoria looked horrified.
“I said father. He translated.”
Leo studied Dante.
Then:
“You look like me.”
Exactly what he said at the airport.
Dante knelt.
“Yes.”
“Are you nice?”
Silence.
The most feared man in Chicago looked terrified.
“I’m trying to be.”
Leo considered.
Then handed him one cracker.
May you like
A beginning.
Nothing more.
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