Chapter 2 - BLUE EYES AND BROKEN SECRETSThe world outside my apartment dissolved into white noise. The rain beat a frantic tattoo against the glass, and the wind howled through the narrow alleys of Portland, but none of it mattered. The only sound that existed was the soft, confused shuffle of three-year-old bare feet on the hardwood floor and the low, heavy silence waiting behind my front door.
I froze, every drop of blood in my veins turning to ice.
"Mommy?" Luna whispered again, her small hand rubbing the sleep from her big, wide eyes as she clutched her worn-out stuffed elephant. "Is someone at the door?"
"Go back inside, sweetie," I hissed, my voice cracking with a panic I couldn't entirely mask. I lunged forward, scooping her up into my arms before she could take another step down the hallway.
Her little arms wrapped around my neck, warm and smelling of baby shampoo and lavender. But as she rested her head against my shoulder, her messy dark hair fell away, and the dim hallway light caught the precise curve of her profile. It was the profile that had haunted my nightmares for three years. The stubborn slope of the nose. The sharp, clean angle of the jaw.
And then she blinked, looking past my shoulder toward the front door, and revealed the terrifying truth I had tried so desperately to outrun.
Bright, luminous blue eyes. Exactly like the man standing on the other side of the wood.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
This time, the sound was deliberate, slow, and infinitely heavier.
"Eliza," Anthony’s voice murmured through the door. It wasn't loud. It didn't need to be. In Chicago, men like Anthony Russo didn't have to raise their voices to command a room. They whispered, and people died. "I know you're in there. And I know you're not alone."
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. He knows. The thought flashed through my mind with blinding clarity. He didn't just track my mother’s hospital bills in Seattle; he had pieced together the timeline. Three years away. A woman who vanished into thin air. A pair of toddlers with dark hair and striking blue eyes.
In the mafia world, men like Anthony didn't lose what belonged to them. And more than anything else in this world, those children were his.
"Mommy, you're shaking," Luna whispered into my ear, her tiny fingers clutching the collar of my shirt.
"I'm okay, baby," I lied, my voice shaking so badly I barely recognized it. I turned around and hurried back toward the bedroom, gently setting Luna down inside the walk-in closet where Liam was still hiding under a pile of heavy wool blankets.
"Liam, stay here with your sister," I whispered, kneeling down so I was eye-level with both of them. My hands cupped their little faces, my thumbs trembling as I stroked their cheeks. "Mommy has to talk to a bad man outside. If I tell you to run out the back window, you run as fast as you can. Do you understand?"
Liam frowned, his little forehead wrinkling in that exact, frustratingly familiar way Anthony used to furrow his brows when looking over a complex financial portfolio. "Is he going to take us, Mommy?"
"No," I said fiercely, swallowing the lump of hot tears in my throat. "No one is taking you. I love you."
I kissed them both—first Liam, then Luna—and closed the closet door until it clicked shut. I didn't lock it. Locks only slowed down people who didn't own crowbars or bullets.
I stood up, wiping my damp palms against my jeans. My gaze darted to the bedside table where the small, heavy revolver sat hidden beneath a stack of old paperbacks. My hand hovered over it for a fraction of a second. I picked it up, feeling its cold, brutal weight, then slid it into the waistband of my pants. I wasn't a killer. I knew that. But standing here with my children sleeping down the hall, I realized I would become one if I had to.
I walked back down the hallway, every step feeling like I was marching toward an execution block.
The apartment was dead silent except for the rain. I reached the front door, my hand resting on the cold brass of the deadbolt. I took one long, shaky breath, turned the lock, and pulled the door open.
Anthony Russo stood framed by the dim, flickering hallway light of the apartment building.
He hadn't changed. At thirty-seven, the years had only sharpened his features, carving them out of granite and shadows. He wore a dark wool overcoat damp from the Oregon rain, water droplets clinging to his dark hair and the collar of his shirt. His broad shoulders filled the doorway, blocking out the rest of the world.
And when his dark blue eyes locked onto mine, time collapsed. Three years of running, hiding, inventing new pasts, and sleeping with one eye open vanished in a single heartbeat.
"Hello, Eliza," he said softly.
His voice wasn't filled with rage. There was no shouting, no dramatic threats. It was worse than that. It was the cold, quiet stillness of a predator that had finally cornered its prey after a very long hunt.
"You shouldn't have come here, Anthony," I said, my voice barely above a whisper, though my fingers hovered dangerously close to the gun hidden at my waist.
Anthony didn't move. He just looked at me—truly looked at me—taking in the faded clothes, the tired lines around my eyes, the defensive posture of a cornered animal.
"You ran for three years," he said, taking a slow step forward across the threshold. He didn't wait for an invitation; men like Anthony never did. "You changed your name, you lived in cheap motels, you worked cash-register jobs in towns nobody has ever heard of. And all the while, you were raising my children."
My blood ran cold. The denial died in my throat before I could even shape the words.
"They aren't yours," I lied, though the lie felt pathetic even to my own ears.
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Anthony tilted his head, a dark, dangerous smile touching the corner of his lips—a smile that didn't reach his eyes. He stepped further into the apartment, closing the door behind him with a soft, final click that sounded like a tomb closing shut.
"Don't insult my intelligence, Eliza," he murmured, his gaze shifting past my shoulder down the dark hallway toward the bedrooms. "I’ve seen the way the boy frowns when he’s concentrating. I’ve seen the girl’s eyes. You can hide your face, sweetheart, but you can't hide my blood."
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