CHAPTER 2 — THE GHOST IN THE ROOM

The drive back to the city was silent. Luca drove, his face a mask of grim determination. Damiano sat in the back with me and Nico, his left arm bound tightly in a makeshift sling.

He spent the entire ride holding Nico’s small hand, studying his son's face as if trying to memorize it.

"We can't take him to the shipyard," I whispered to Damiano, glancing at Nico, who was dozing against my side.

"We aren't," Damiano replied quietly. "Luca is going to drop us at St. Jude's Parish. Father Thomas will keep him safe in the rectory."

When we pulled up to the grand old stone church, the rain had turned into a torrential downpour. Damiano unbuckled Nico and carried him up the steps, wincing against the pain in his shoulder.

Father Thomas, an older man with kind eyes who had known Damiano since he was a boy, opened the heavy wooden doors immediately.

"Damiano," the priest said, taking in the blood and the child. "Bring him in."

Damiano set Nico down on the polished wooden floor of the vestibule. He knelt in front of his son, ignoring the pain it clearly caused him. He reached into his shirt and pulled a heavy wooden rosary over his head.

"Nico," Damiano said softly, pressing the beads into Nico’s small hands. "I need you to hold onto this for me. Can you do that?"

Nico looked at the beads, then up at Damiano. "Are you coming back?"

Damiano’s throat bobbed. He looked at me, then back to Nico. "I am going to do everything in my power to come back to you. I promise."

I kissed Nico's forehead, my tears wetting his hair. "Be good for Father Thomas, baby. Mama loves you."

We left him there, standing in the safety of the church, clutching the rosary. It took every ounce of strength I had not to turn around and run back inside.

"You're not coming to the pier, Sienna," Damiano said as we walked back to the SUV.

"The hell I'm not," I snapped, climbing into the passenger seat. "He has Dot. She's the only family I've had for six years. I am not letting you face him alone."

Damiano looked like he wanted to argue, but he simply nodded, handing me the spare handgun from his coat. "Safety off. Don't hesitate."

Pier 4 was a graveyard of rusted shipping containers and abandoned warehouses. The rain masked the sound of our approach. Luca parked a block away, and Damiano and I approached on foot, slipping through the shadows.

Inside the main warehouse, a single work light illuminated a brutal scene.

Dot was tied to a chair in the center of the room, her lip bleeding, but her eyes fierce. Enzo paced in front of her, holding a suppressed pistol. Five heavily armed men stood in the periphery.

"Enzo!" Damiano’s voice boomed through the cavernous space. He stepped into the light, his hands empty, raised in surrender. I stayed hidden behind a stack of wooden crates, my gun shaking in my hands.

Enzo stopped pacing, a triumphant smile spreading across his face. "Brother. You look terrible."

"Let the woman go, Enzo," Damiano said coldly. "You want the syndicate? It’s yours. The accounts, the territory, everything. Just let her walk."

Enzo laughed. "You think it’s that easy? You think you can just hand it over and walk away into the sunset with your resurrected wife and your bastard son?"

"He is my son," Damiano growled.

"Is he?" Enzo taunted, stepping closer to Damiano. "Did Sienna tell you everything, Damiano? Did she tell you who her father really was?"

My breath hitched behind the crates. My father? My father was a mechanic who died of a heart attack when I was in high school.

"Her father was a nobody," Damiano said dismissively.

"Her father," Enzo sneered, "was the mechanic who cut the brake lines on your father’s car twenty years ago. The crash that killed your mother, Damiano."

Damiano froze.

"Yes," Enzo purred, circling him. "The rival families paid him off. And when you met Sienna, when you fell in love with her, I couldn't stomach it. I couldn't watch you marry the daughter of the man who murdered our mother. So I made sure she wouldn't give you an heir. I tried to burn the bloodline out."

I slumped against the cold metal of the crate, my mind spinning. My father? He had murdered Damiano’s mother?

Damiano stood completely still, absorbing the blow. He looked toward the crates where I was hiding. He knew I was listening.

"Sienna didn't know," Damiano said, his voice terrifyingly calm.

"It doesn't matter if she knew!" Enzo screamed. "Her blood is poison!" He raised his gun, pointing it directly at Damiano's chest. "I'm going to take the empire, Damiano. And then I’m going to finish what I started six years ago. I'm going to find the boy."

That was the trigger.