Chapter 1 - THE MAN WHO KNEW MY FATHER'S KILLER
“The same man who murdered your father.”
Vincent Russo said those words as calmly as if he were discussing the weather.
I stared at him across the leather seats of the SUV.
For seventeen years, I'd believed my father died in a car accident outside Boston.
Now the most feared man in New York was telling me he had been murdered.
And my ex-boyfriend was working for the killer.
“Tell me his name.”
Vincent looked toward the gated mansion ahead.
“Sarah—”
“His name.”
My voice cracked.
“I've spent seventeen years wondering why my father never came home. I've spent six years hiding behind a name that isn't mine. And you expect me to sit quietly because you've decided the truth is inconvenient?”
Something shifted in Vincent's expression.
“You sound like him.”
I stopped breathing.
“My father?”
He nodded.
“Alessandro Bellini never accepted an answer simply because a powerful man gave it.”
The name hurt.
Nobody had called my father Alessandro in front of me for years.
To Grandma Julia, he'd always been Sandro.
To me, he'd simply been Papa.
Vincent took a slow breath.
“The man you're looking for is Lorenzo Morelli.”
My blood turned cold.
I knew that name.
Lorenzo Morelli was a billionaire investor whose companies owned hospitals, shipping terminals, and half a dozen luxury hotels.
He also appeared frequently in charity advertisements beside politicians.
“He killed my father?”
“That's what the evidence suggests.”
“Then why isn't he in prison?”
Vincent's jaw tightened.
“Because the people who could testify either disappeared or changed their stories.”
I stared at him.
“And you?”
His silence answered before his mouth did.
“I was eighteen when it happened. I saw enough to know Alessandro was betrayed. But I didn't understand the entire arrangement until years later.”
Anger burned through me.
“You spent seventeen years doing nothing?”
“No.”
“Then what did you do?”
“I looked for you.”
The SUV stopped.
Outside stood a mansion surrounded by enormous iron gates and carefully trimmed hedges.
Vincent didn't reach for my hand.
He simply said, “You don't have to enter. But Daniel knows your address, and we need to make sure you're safe.”
I thought about my tiny apartment.
The photographs of Grandma.
The last birthday card she'd written.
And Daniel smiling outside my window.
Finally, I nodded.
“One night.”
Vincent agreed.
Inside, a housekeeper named Teresa brought me water and showed me a private guest room.
I barely noticed the expensive furniture.
My grandmother was dead.
My father had been murdered.
And the man I once loved had apparently spent months pretending to care about me.
I sat on the edge of the bed and cried until my chest hurt.
Then my phone vibrated.
Daniel.
One message.
I know where you are, Sarah.
Another followed.
Ask Vincent what happened to your mother.
I stared at the screen.
My mother had supposedly died when I was three.
May you like
But Daniel's final message made my hands turn to ice.
She's been alive all these years.
