Chapter 2 - THE MAN IN THE DOORWAY

“So she finally remembered where her son was.”

The voice was a jagged blade slicing through the silence of the restaurant.

I stopped breathing. My grip on Matteo tightened instinctively. The baby whimpered, pressing his warm face into my neck.

The man standing in the doorway was tall, wearing a tailored gray suit that couldn’t hide the violence in his posture. I didn’t know his name. But my body knew him. A cold, paralyzing terror spiked in my veins, the exact terror that woke me screaming in the middle of the night for two years.

Vincent moved so fast I barely registered it.

One second he was staring at my face, shattered by grief. The next, he had stepped between me and the doorway, his broad shoulders entirely blocking the man from my view. A heavy, dark handgun materialized in Vincent’s grip, aimed directly at the newcomer’s chest.

“Give me one reason not to put a bullet through your throat, Julian,” Vincent’s voice was a deadly, quiet rumble.

Julian. The name sparked a flash of fire in my head.

A dark hallway. The smell of bleach. A man laughing as he tightened a strap across my wrist.

“Now, brother,” Julian said, raising his hands in mock surrender. “Is that any way to greet family? I’m just here to welcome my sister-in-law back from the dead.”

Brother.

My stomach plummeted. Vincent’s brother was the monster from my nightmares?

“Claire is dead,” Vincent said, his gun not wavering a millimeter. “You identified the remains yourself after the fire at the safe house.”

“Did I?” Julian smirked, taking a slow step inside. The remaining restaurant staff scrambled for the back exits, terrified. “Or did I just tell you what you needed to hear so you’d stop tearing the city apart and focus on the family business?”

Vincent’s back stiffened. The betrayal hung in the air, heavy and suffocating.

“You took her,” Vincent whispered, the realization fracturing his iron composure.

“I removed a distraction,” Julian corrected coldly. “She was turning you soft, Vincent. A mafia boss who wants to buy a house in the suburbs and bake cookies? Pathetic. But the doctors promised me the electro-shock therapy would erase her. It seems they failed.”

Electro-shock. My hand flew to the scar on my wrist. Not a car crash. Restraints.

“Get behind me,” Vincent ordered, his voice raw with a protective fury I had never heard from a man before. He didn't look back at me, but his free hand reached back, his fingers grazing my apron, shielding me. “Now.”

I backed toward the kitchen doors, clutching Matteo. The baby wasn't crying. He was staring at his father’s back, his tiny fist gripping the broken chain of my necklace.

“You can’t run, Claire,” Julian taunted, his eyes finding mine around Vincent’s shoulder. “You think you’re safe? Ask Vincent what happened to the other thing you had with you the night I took you.”

I froze.

“What is he talking about?” I whispered.

Vincent’s gun hand trembled slightly. “Shut your mouth, Julian.”

Julian laughed, reaching into his tailored jacket. Vincent tensed, ready to fire. But Julian didn’t pull a weapon. He pulled out a small, crumpled piece of paper and tossed it onto the wet floor.

“Ask him why Room 417 had two cribs,” Julian smiled.

Julian turned and walked back out into the rain.

Vincent didn't chase him. He immediately turned to me, his dark eyes frantic, scanning me and Matteo for injuries. Then he looked down at the crumpled paper on the floor.

I knelt, balancing Matteo on my hip, and picked it up.

It was a child’s drawing. Crayon. A stick figure man in black, a woman with a birthmark near her eyebrow, a baby boy... and a baby girl in a pink blanket.