Chapter 2 - Evelyn CarterThe drive to Brooklyn was silent except for the sound of windshield wipers cutting through falling snow.
Lily sat in the back seat between Dominic and Marco.
She held the rabbit against her chest.
Dominic watched her through the rearview mirror.
“You're not scared?”
Lily looked at him.
“A little.”
“Of me?”
She considered it.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Mom said you were scary to other people.”
Marco coughed.
Dominic looked at him.
Marco suddenly became very interested in the road.
Lily continued.
“She said you weren't scary to people who didn't deserve it.”
Dominic stared through the windshield.
That sounded exactly like Evelyn.
The apartment building was old, narrow, and wedged between a laundromat and a closed bakery.
Dominic climbed the stairs two at a time.
Lily followed.
When they reached the third floor, she stopped.
“Mom?”
No answer.
Dominic knocked.
Nothing.
He knocked harder.
“Evelyn Carter?”
Silence.
Lily's face changed.
“She always answers.”
Dominic tried the handle.
Locked.
Marco moved forward.
Dominic raised one hand.
“Let me.”
He knocked again.
“Evelyn.”
Still nothing.
Lily whispered, “Mom?”
Dominic stepped back.
Then kicked the door.
The lock broke.
The apartment was dark.
“Mom!”
Lily ran inside.
Dominic followed.
The apartment was painfully modest.
A secondhand sofa.
A tiny kitchen.
A children's drawing taped to the refrigerator.
A stack of library books.
A small Christmas tree beside the window with only twelve ornaments.
But Evelyn wasn't there.
On the kitchen table sat a mug of cold tea.
Beside it was a note.
Dominic picked it up.
His expression hardened.
Lily,
If you're reading this, something went wrong.
Do not trust anyone who says they are helping you.
Go to the Moretti building. Find Dominic.
He doesn't know the whole truth.
But he needs to.
Dominic read it twice.
Marco looked over his shoulder.
“What truth?”
Dominic folded the note.
“I don't know.”
Lily stood frozen in the doorway.
“Where's my mom?”
Dominic crouched.
“I don't know yet.”
“She wouldn't leave me.”
“I know.”
“She promised.”
“I know.”
Her lower lip trembled.
Dominic had faced men with guns.
He had stared down federal agents.
He had buried friends.
But nothing had prepared him for the sight of a little girl trying not to cry because she believed crying might make the adults around her panic.
Dominic removed his coat.
He wrapped it around her.
“Your mother left that note because she believed I could find her.”
“Can you?”
He looked directly into her eyes.
“Yes.”
It was the first promise Dominic Moretti had made in years without considering whether he could afford to keep it.
And he intended to keep it.
Marco searched the apartment.
“Boss.”
Dominic looked up.
Marco held a shoebox.
It was tucked behind a row of books.
The lid had been taped shut.
Written across the top in faded blue ink were two words.
FOR DOMINIC.
Dominic's heart stopped.
He took the box.
Inside were letters.
Dozens of them.
Some were yellow with age.
Others were newer.
All were unopened.
Every envelope carried his name.
Dominic Moretti.
Marco stared.
“Why didn't you get these?”
“I never saw them.”
Dominic opened the first envelope.
The handwriting was unmistakable.
Evelyn.
He unfolded the paper.
Dominic,
I tried to tell you.
You never came back.
Dominic's eyes moved lower.
Then stopped.
The date was eighteen years old.
Marco watched his face.
“What does it say?”
Dominic didn't answer.
He opened another.
Then another.
Every letter contained the same desperate attempt to reach him.
She had written after his father's death.
After Dominic disappeared from the old neighborhood.
After Evelyn discovered she was pregnant.
Dominic's fingers tightened around the paper.
Pregnant.
He read the sentence again.
The room seemed to tilt.
Marco spoke carefully.
“Dominic?”
Dominic looked toward Lily.
She was sitting on the sofa, hugging her rabbit.
He looked back at the letters.
The dates.
The unanswered messages.
The photographs tucked between the envelopes.
And then he saw a photograph that made his breathing stop.
A younger Evelyn stood in front of a hospital.
Beside her was a newborn baby.
On the back, in handwriting Dominic remembered from a time before power and money had changed him, were five words.
Our daughter. Her name is Lily.
Dominic closed his eyes.
For eighteen years, he had believed Evelyn had walked away from him.
For eighteen years, he had believed the child he once dreamed about had never existed.
And now that child was sitting six feet away, wearing yellow boots on the wrong feet.
Dominic opened his eyes.
Lily looked at him.
“Did you find something?”
Dominic swallowed.
“Yes.”
“What?”
May you like
He looked at the little girl.
“I found a reason to bring your mother home.”
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