Chapter 3 - Someone Already Knew About the Baby
By sunrise, Vincent’s penthouse had become quieter rather than busier.
That frightened Clara more.
Vincent Rossi’s emergencies never produced panic.
They produced silence.
Phones stopped ringing in public rooms. Men spoke behind closed doors. Elevator access changed. Frankie and Dino moved through the apartment with the concentration of people who expected trouble but refused to allow anyone else to see it.
Clara sat beside the windows wearing borrowed sweatpants and one of Vincent’s old shirts.
Her feet were elevated.
A glass of water rested beside her.
No one had told her to remain there.
That mattered.
At seven fifteen, Vincent entered carrying breakfast himself.
Not a servant.
Not a guard.
Vincent.
He set down scrambled eggs, toast, fruit, and orange juice.
Clara stared.
“What happened to you?”
He frowned.
“You’re carrying food.”
“I have carried objects before.”
“Briefcases don’t count.”
“Eat.”
“There he is.”
Vincent exhaled.
“Please eat.”
“Better.”
He sat opposite her.
Clara took a bite.
Neither mentioned the photograph.
Finally she asked, “How many people knew you were coming to Highway 9 last night?”
“Six.”
“Frankie and Dino?”
“Yes.”
“Do you trust them?”
“With my life.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
“No.”
Clara waited.
“I trust Frankie with your life,” he said. “That is more significant.”
“And Dino?”
“Same.”
“The other four?”
“One driver. One dispatcher. My operations chief and Sal Greco.”
The last name was familiar.
“Your adviser.”
“For fourteen years.”
Clara remembered Salvatore Greco.
Polished.
Gray-haired.
Soft-spoken.
He had brought wine to their wedding.
He had also once interrupted Clara’s birthday dinner because Vincent had to approve some late-night shipment that apparently could not survive another hour.
“What does Sal know?”
“Everything that matters.”
“That sounds reassuring.”
Vincent ignored the sarcasm.
“He handled financial arrangements after our divorce.”
Clara stopped chewing.
“The Swiss account?”
“Yes.”
“So he knew I refused the money.”
“Yes.”
“Did he try to find me?”
Vincent didn’t answer quickly enough.
“Vincent.”
“I ordered a discreet search two weeks after you disappeared.”
Clara pushed the plate away.
“You told me you let me go.”
“I did.”
“No, you searched for me.”
“To confirm you were alive.”
“You had no right.”
“I know.”
The answer disarmed her.
Vincent leaned forward.
“I stopped the search when a private investigator reported that you had boarded a flight under your maiden name.”
“I never boarded any flight.”
“I know that now.”
Clara’s anger gave way to confusion.
“Then someone created a false trail.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“That is what I’m trying to discover.”
He placed his phone on the table.
A map appeared.
Red marks traced movements across several cities.
“Someone made it appear that you went from New York to Montreal, then Geneva.”
“Who could do that?”
“Someone with access to Rossi resources.”
Clara looked toward the hallway.
“You think Sal?”
“I think accusing a man before I know the answer is how innocent people get buried.”
She studied him.
“Is that something you recently learned?”
“Yes.”
There was no pride in the answer.
Only weariness.
Clara looked again at the map.
“Why would anyone care whether you found me?”
Vincent was silent.
“Tell me.”
“If I died without a child, control of several family holdings would transfer through an internal council.”
“And?”
“Sal controls the council.”
The baby shifted.
Clara instinctively put both hands around her belly.
“So my son changes who gets your empire.”
Vincent’s expression hardened.
“Our son inherits nothing I don’t choose for him.”
“That isn’t what your people think.”
“No.”
“Then maybe the threat isn’t only from the Morettis.”
Vincent looked at her.
For eight months, Clara had lived on tips and canned soup.
But she had once sat beside Vincent at enough dinners to understand how powerful men smiled while counting what would happen after someone died.
“Maybe somebody wanted you to believe I was gone permanently,” she said.
“And now someone knows you aren’t.”
Clara’s skin prickled.
A phone rang in the next room.
Frankie answered.
Seconds later he entered.
“Sal wants to meet.”
Vincent didn’t move.
“Why?”
“He heard there was an issue last night.”
“From whom?”
“He didn’t say.”
Vincent and Clara exchanged a look.
Frankie understood immediately.
“I didn’t call him.”
“Dino?”
“No.”
“The driver?”
“His phone is clean.”
Vincent stood.
“Tell Sal I’ll see him at noon.”
Clara stood too.
“No.”
All eyes turned toward her.
Vincent frowned.
“You’re not coming.”
“I wasn’t asking to.”
“Then what?”
“You’re doing the thing again.”
“What thing?”
“Deciding everyone’s position before they get a sentence out.”
Frankie suddenly found the kitchen fascinating.
Clara stepped closer.
“If Sal is involved and you leave, what happens to me?”
“You remain here.”
“With guards.”
“Yes.”
“Then someone inside your organization decides who guards me.”
Vincent became still.
She watched him understand the flaw.
“Who chooses the rotation?” she asked.
“Sal’s office,” Frankie said quietly.
Vincent’s face turned to stone.
Within ten minutes, every guard on the residential floor was replaced by men Frankie personally selected.
Clara didn’t enjoy knowing that.
But she appreciated that Vincent explained it before doing it.
At eleven thirty, he prepared to leave.
Clara stood near the elevator.
“If you find out Sal did this…”
Vincent buttoned his jacket.
“What?”
“What will you do?”
His eyes were unreadable.
“Whatever protects you.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I can give.”
“Then hear me first.”
He waited.
“I left because I was tired of blood being the answer to every problem around you.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“If you come back here covered in someone else’s blood and call it protecting our son, nothing has changed.”
A heavy silence passed.
“Some people cannot be reasoned with.”
“I’m not asking you to be stupid.”
“What are you asking?”
“To remember that our son will someday ask what kind of man his father was.”
That hit somewhere beneath the armor.
Vincent stepped into the elevator.
“I’ll remember.”
The doors closed.
Clara remained beside Frankie.
“Will he?”
Frankie looked at the elevator.
“He remembered you for eight months.”
“That’s different.”
“Maybe.”
Frankie’s expression softened.
“I’ve worked for him since before he learned how to wear those ridiculous suits. He has changed exactly twice.”
“When?”
“The day he married you.”
“And the second?”
Frankie glanced toward her stomach.
“Last night.”
At noon, Vincent met Salvatore Greco in a private room above a downtown restaurant.
Sal arrived smiling.
He was sixty-one, silver-haired, elegant, and carried himself with the confidence of a man who had survived three bosses.
“Vincent.”
They embraced briefly.
“I heard you had an unexpected evening.”
Vincent poured coffee.
“Did you?”
Sal sat.
“Rumors move.”
“Not that quickly.”
The older man smiled.
“We built an organization on information.”
Vincent pushed a phone across the table.
Clara’s photograph appeared.
Sal’s smile vanished.
“Where did this come from?”
“You tell me.”
Sal picked up the phone.
“You think I sent it?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t need to.”
Vincent watched his eyes rather than his mouth.
“You knew about the Swiss account.”
“Yes.”
“You knew Clara never touched it.”
“Yes.”
“You handled the investigator.”
“Yes.”
“You told me she boarded a flight.”
“That is what I was told.”
“She didn’t.”
Sal leaned back.
“Then someone deceived us.”
“Us?”
“Vincent—”
“Who benefited from me believing she was gone?”
Sal’s gaze hardened.
“This is insulting.”
“Answer.”
“You were unstable after she left. Finding her would have made things worse.”
There.
Too quick.
Too personal.
Vincent leaned forward.
“Why would you care?”
“Because your weakness affects every man under you.”
“My wife was not weakness.”
“She left you.”
Vincent became silent.
Sal recognized his mistake.
He softened his voice.
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you aren’t.”
Vincent stood.
“Your access is suspended.”
Sal’s chair scraped back.
“You cannot remove me because your pregnant ex-wife suddenly reappears.”
Vincent looked at him.
“I didn’t mention she was pregnant.”
Silence.
Sal’s face changed.
Only slightly.
But Vincent saw it.
He had spent his adult life surviving on smaller mistakes.
Sal stood.
“Everyone knows.”
“No.”
Vincent’s voice dropped.
“Only six people knew when I arrived.”
Sal’s hand moved toward his jacket.
Frankie stepped from behind the door.
Dino appeared beside the window.
Vincent didn’t touch a weapon.
He remembered Clara.
“What happens now?” Sal asked.
“You leave.”
Sal blinked.
“That’s it?”
“Today.”
“You’ve become soft.”
“No.”
Vincent opened the door.
“I’ve become patient.”
Sal walked past him.
At the threshold, he stopped.
“You think that woman will make you into a different man?”
Vincent looked straight at him.
“No.”
He thought of Clara demanding the SUV doors be unlocked.
“I think she reminded me I’m allowed to choose.”
Sal left.
Vincent immediately called Frankie’s technology team.
“Watch him. Nobody touches him.”
At the penthouse, Clara was asleep when her phone buzzed.
An unknown number.
She almost ignored it.
Then a photograph appeared.
Vincent standing outside the restaurant fifteen minutes earlier.
Beneath it was a message.
HE CAN’T PROTECT YOU FROM HIS OWN FAMILY.
Clara’s blood went cold.
Another message appeared.
ASK HIM WHAT HAPPENED TO THE LAST ROSSI HEIR.
Then a third.
A photograph.
An old black-and-white image of Vincent as a child standing beside another boy.
The other child’s face had been circled in red.
Clara heard the elevator doors open.
She grabbed the phone.
Vincent entered.
One look at her face stopped him.
“What happened?”
She held out the screen.
Vincent read the messages.
When he reached the photograph, every trace of color left his face.
“Who is that boy?” Clara asked.
Vincent didn’t answer.
“Vincent.”
His voice was almost inaudible.
“My brother.”
Clara stared at the photograph.
“You never told me you had a brother.”
“He died when I was twelve.”
“How?”
Vincent looked toward her stomach.
And for the first time since finding Clara, the most dangerous man in the city looked not angry—
but haunted.
May you like
“He was supposed to inherit everything.”
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