Chapter 2 - THE GHOST IN THE RESTAURANT
I stood frozen in the doorway of the men’s room, my chest tight, the air suddenly too thin to breathe. The polished marble floor of the restaurant hallway seemed to stretch out for miles. There, kneeling on the carpet to adjust the collar of one of the boys, was Clara.
Clara Hayes.
Six years had not dimmed the vibrant, breathtaking reality of her. Her dark hair fell in soft waves over her shoulders, framing a face that had haunted every quiet moment of my life since the day she disappeared. She wore a simple beige trench coat, looking utterly out of place in this high-end Back Bay establishment, yet she commanded the space effortlessly.
“Hold still, Leo,” she murmured, her voice a soft, melodic hum that struck me like a physical blow. “Your sweater is backwards.”
“I’m hungry, Mama,” one of the other boys complained, pulling at her sleeve.
“I know, Eli. We’re leaving right now.”
She stood up, brushing off her knees, and that was when she turned.
Her eyes met mine.
For a fraction of a second, the bustling noise of the restaurant—the clinking of crystal glasses, the low hum of expensive conversations, the jazz music drifting from the bar—completely vanished. Clara’s face drained of all color. Her lips parted, but no sound came out. She looked as though she had just seen a ghost. In a way, she had. We were both ghosts to each other, resurrected in the worst possible place.
“Dominic,” she whispered. My name on her lips broke the paralysis that had gripped my body.
I took a step forward, the engagement ring in my pocket feeling like a heavy, leaden weight. “Clara.”
Before I could close the distance, a man stepped out of the shadows near the coat check. He was tall, built like a heavyweight fighter, wearing a tailored gray suit that couldn’t hide the dangerous, coiled tension in his posture. He placed a heavy, possessive hand on Clara’s shoulder.
“Is there a problem here, Clara?” he asked. His voice was smooth, but his eyes were entirely dead.
I stopped. My blood ran instantly cold. I didn’t know the man’s name, but I knew the way he stood. I knew the bulge beneath his left armpit. He was an enforcer. But he wasn’t one of my men.
“No,” Clara said quickly, her voice trembling. She stepped back, instinctively pushing the four boys behind her legs, shielding them from me. “No problem, Marcus. He was just... we were just leaving.”
“Who is this?” I demanded, ignoring the enforcer entirely and keeping my eyes locked on Clara. “Clara, what is going on? Whose children are these?”
It was a stupid question, and we both knew it. The boys peering out from behind her beige coat were exact replicas of me. The identical dark hair, the jawline, the intense eyes. They were mine. I was a father. I was a father to four six-year-old boys I had never met, and the woman I loved was standing in front of me acting as if I were the threat.
“They’re mine,” Clara said, her chin lifting with a defiant, defensive tilt. “Just mine. Please, Dominic. Walk away.”
“You know I can’t do that,” I said, my voice dropping into the low, dangerous register that made grown men in the Boston underworld tremble. I stepped closer. Marcus, the enforcer, immediately stepped between us, his hand sliding subtly toward his jacket.
“The lady said walk away, buddy,” Marcus growled.
I didn’t even look at him. I looked at the silver cufflink on his wrist as he raised his arm. It was shaped like a coiled serpent. The crest of the Barrett family. Sloane Barrett’s family. The woman I was supposed to propose to in less than an hour.
The realization hit me with the force of a freight train. Clara hadn’t just run away six years ago. She had been taken.
“You’re with the Barretts,” I stated, my eyes finally flicking to Marcus. “You’re a long way from Southie, Marcus.”
Marcus’s smirk vanished. He realized exactly who he was talking to. “Mr. Moretti,” he said, his tone shifting from aggressive to carefully calculated. “I’m just doing my job. Escorting Miss Hayes and her children.”
“Escorting?” I repeated, the rage boiling up so fast it tasted like copper in my mouth. “Or guarding?”
Clara grabbed Marcus’s arm. “Don’t, please. Dominic, I’m begging you. Just let us go. If you do anything right now, they’ll hurt them.”
She looked down at the boys. Her terror was raw and unfiltered. But it wasn’t just fear of Marcus. When she looked back at me, I saw the silver chain resting against her collarbone. The delicate silver locket I had given her on our first anniversary. She still wore it. She had kept it hidden, but in her panic, it had slipped out from beneath her blouse.
She still loved me. And she was a hostage.
“No one is leaving,” I said, pulling out my phone. I pressed a single button, dialing my head of security, Luca. He was waiting in the SUV outside. “Luca. Front door. Now. Bring three men.”
Marcus pulled his weapon. Right there in the hallway of the upscale restaurant.
But before he could aim it at me, Clara moved. She didn’t scream or run. She reached into her trench coat, pulled out a small, suppressed pistol, and jammed the barrel directly into Marcus’s ribs.
“Drop it, Marcus,” Clara whispered, her voice suddenly devoid of all the terrified fragility she had shown seconds before. “Or I swear to God, I will empty this magazine into your liver.”
I stared at her, completely stunned. The sweet, innocent kindergarten teacher I had fallen in love with six years ago was holding a mafia enforcer at gunpoint with the steady, practiced hand of a seasoned killer.
Marcus froze, his eyes widening. “You’re dead, Clara. You and the little bastards.”
“Drop it,” I echoed, stepping forward and wrapping my hand over Marcus’s gun, twisting it out of his grip with a brutal snap of his wrist. He grunted in pain, falling to his knees.
The restaurant doors burst open. Luca and my men flooded the hallway, their weapons drawn, instantly securing the perimeter and dragging Marcus away before the screaming patrons could even process what was happening.
I looked at Clara. She slowly lowered her gun, her hands shaking violently now that the immediate threat was gone.
“Clara,” I breathed, stepping toward her. “What the hell is going on?”
She didn’t answer. One of the boys, the one she had called Leo, tugged on my suit jacket. I looked down into his wide, innocent eyes.
“Are you the bad man?” Leo asked, his little voice trembling. “The one who makes Mommy cry?”
Before I could answer, Leo dropped something onto the marble floor. It was a crumpled, blood-stained piece of paper. I picked it up and unfolded it.
It was a marriage certificate. Dated six years ago. With my signature, and Clara’s signature.
But I had never married Clara. We had only talked about it.
May you like
I looked up at her, my mind spinning. “Where did you get this?”
Clara looked at me, a single tear slipping down her cheek. “From your father, Dominic. On the night he told me you were dead.”
