Chapter 4 - Echoes of the Empire
The birth was brutal, fast, and solitary. Elena held her newborn son and daughter in the quiet ward of the local hospital, the blizzard raging outside masking the sounds of her weeping. Leo had Dominic’s dark, impossibly thick hair. Mia had her father’s piercing, stormy gray eyes. Holding them, Elena felt a love so profound it terrified her. They were beautiful. They were innocent. And they were the most dangerous leverage in the world.
She knew she couldn’t stay in Portland. The hospital required paperwork, birth certificates, social security numbers. The web of bureaucracy was a net, and she could feel it tightening. Three days after giving birth, still bleeding and exhausted, she wrapped the twins in blankets, paid the nurse with the last of her emergency cash, and vanished into the snowy night, hitching a ride on a logging truck heading toward the Canadian border.
When Dominic’s blacked-out motorcade arrived at the Portland hospital twelve hours later, they found only an empty bed and a furious head nurse. Dominic stood in the sterile room, staring at the empty bassinet. He reached out, his large, scarred hand brushing the cheap cotton blanket left behind. He smelled baby powder and the faint, unmistakable scent of Elena’s vanilla perfume.
He fell to his knees. The Don of the Moretti family, a man who commanded thousands, wept openly on the linoleum floor. He had missed the birth of his children. He had driven the only woman he ever loved into the freezing wilderness because he couldn’t keep his vows. Gabriel stood in the doorway, blocking the view of the bodyguards, giving his boss the dignity of a private breakdown.
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“We will find them,” Gabriel swore.
“She’s running because she thinks I’ll take them,” Dominic choked out, staring at the floor. “She thinks I’m a monster.” He looked up, his eyes bloodshot and resolved. “I have to prove I’m not.”
