Chapter 1 - THE FOUR BOYS WITH MY FACE
I followed the boys out of the bathroom.
And saw Elena Carter for the first time in six years.
She stopped halfway through reaching for one of their coats.
Her face changed.
Not dramatically.
Elena had always been too controlled for that.
But I knew her.
I saw the instant the blood drained from her cheeks.
“Dominic.”
One word.
Six years disappeared.
She still had the same chestnut hair, though shorter now. Same green-gray eyes. Same tiny scar beneath her chin from a bicycle accident when she was nine.
But everything else had changed.
She looked tired.
Stronger.
And beside her stood four boys who looked enough like me to make coincidence insulting.
The tallest tugged her sleeve.
“Mom, that's the man from the bathroom.”
Another whispered loudly:
“He stares weird.”
Elena closed her eyes.
“Boys, put on your coats.”
I couldn't move.
“You have four sons.”
Her expression hardened.
“Yes.”
“They're six.”
“Yes.”
“When are their birthdays?”
She looked at me.
“Don't.”
“When?”
One boy answered cheerfully.
“April seventh!”
My heart stopped.
Six years ago, Elena had left Boston in August.
Eight months before April seventh.
I did the math once.
Then again.
Impossible to misunderstand.
“Elena.”
“Not here.”
I stared at the boys.
One was studying my cuff links.
Another had crossed his arms exactly the way I did when irritated.
The smallest—though apparently only by minutes—had a faint dimple beside his mouth.
My mother's dimple.
“How many minutes apart?”
Elena's expression sharpened.
“You don't get to interrogate them.”
Them.
Not deny.
Not laugh.
Not tell me I was insane.
A cold certainty spread through me.
“They're mine.”
“Dominic.”
“Tell me I'm wrong.”
She couldn't.
The restaurant noise faded.
Six years ago, Elena had disappeared after one brutal week in which my father nearly died, my family entered a war, and I told her something I would spend the rest of my life regretting.
I told her I couldn't choose her over the Morettis.
Two days later, she vanished.
I had searched.
Not hard enough, apparently.
One of the boys stepped between us.
“Are you making Mom sad?”
The question nearly destroyed me.
I crouched.
“No.”
He narrowed his eyes.
“You look like Luca.”
“Who is Luca?”
He pointed at his brother.
“I am,” another boy said.
Of course.
“I'm Luca. That's Matteo. That's Enzo. And that's Nico.”
Moretti names.
Every one of them.
I looked at Elena.
She knew exactly what she'd done.
Before I could say anything else, my phone rang.
Sloane.
7:18 p.m.
Twelve minutes until I was supposed to propose.
I looked at the diamond ring in my pocket.
Then at four six-year-old boys.
I rejected the call.
Elena saw.
“You should go.”
“No.”
“Dominic.”
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
Her eyes filled with something that wasn't guilt.
Anger.
“I tried.”
My entire body went still.
“What?”
“I tried to tell you.”
“When?”
“Six years ago.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Her voice broke for the first time.
“I came to your house the night before I left Boston.”
I remembered that night.
My father was in intensive care.
Three Moretti warehouses had been attacked.
My uncle Victor had told security nobody entered without clearance.
“Elena—”
“I stood outside your gates for forty minutes.”
I felt sick.
“Who turned you away?”
She looked directly at me.
May you like
“Your mother.”
And suddenly the story of why Elena disappeared had a new character.
