Chapter 3 - THE BLOODLINE SEQUENCED
The main study of the Moretti estate was bathed in harsh, white halogen light.
Dr. Vane, a grey-haired physician who had served as the Moretti family's private surgeon for thirty years, stood beside a high-tech portable PCR machine resting on the mahogany desk. His hands were shaking so violently he could barely hold the glass capillary tube.
Sitting on the leather sofa across the room was a ten-year-old boy.
He wore a dark blue sweater, frayed jeans, and a pair of muddy sneakers. His hair was thick, dark, and unruly, curling slightly at the nape of his neck just as Alessandro’s had when he was a boy. On his left forehead, right along the hairline, was a faint, jagged white line—a scar that caught the overhead light only when he turned his head at a specific angle.
The boy was holding a silver pocket watch that Marco had given him, watching the second hand sweep across the dial with quiet, intense fascination.
Beside him sat Chloe, happily coloring in a book with a red crayon, completely unbothered by the heavy silence in the room.
Alessandro stood near the fireplace, twenty feet away. He hadn't touched the boy. He hadn't said a word to him since Marco had picked the boy up from the local elementary school forty minutes ago. He was afraid—a man who had faced down federal indictments, rival cartels, and automatic gunfire was terrified that if he reached out his hand, the boy would vanish like smoke.
The PCR machine let out a sharp, electronic BEEP.
Dr. Vane pulled the paper printout from the thermal feed. He read the numbers once. He read them twice. Then his knees seemed to buckle, and he had to catch himself on the edge of the mahogany desk.
"Don Alessandro..." Dr. Vane’s voice cracked, tears springing into his old eyes. "The locus alignment is ninety-nine point nine nine percent. The Y-STR haplotype matches your lineage across all twenty-four markers."
The old doctor looked up at the ten-year-old boy sitting on the sofa.
"It’s Matteo," Dr. Vane sobbed softly. "My God... it’s your son, Alessandro. He's alive."
Alessandro didn't shout. He didn't drop to his knees.
He slowly walked across the Persian rug, stopping two feet from the sofa.
The boy looked up from the pocket watch. His eyes were wide, clear, and a striking, familiar shade of deep hazel—the exact eyes of Alessandro’s late wife, Isabella.
"Are you the boss man?" the boy asked quietly. His voice was soft, melodic, entirely devoid of the harshness that filled the rest of the house. "Mama said the boss man lives here, but that I shouldn't bother him because he's very busy."
Alessandro lowered himself until his eyes were level with the boy's.
"I am the boss man," Alessandro whispered, his throat so tight he could barely force the words past his teeth. "What's your name, son?"
"Noah," the boy said proudly. "Noah Bennett."
Alessandro reached out a heavy, trembling hand. His long fingers hovered an inch from the boy's face before gently, impossibly soft, touching the pale scar along the boy's hairline.
"Do you know where you got this scar, Noah?" Alessandro asked.
The boy thought for a moment, shaking his head. "Mama says I was born with it. She says a star fell on my head when I was little so I would always remember where home was."
Alessandro closed his eyes as a single, hot tear finally escaped his eyelid, tracing a dark path through the dust on his cheek.
"Your mama was right," Alessandro choked out, pulling his hand back and looking at the boy’s wrist, where a thin white band of un-tanned skin showed where the silver bracelet had rested for six years. "A star did fall."
Suddenly, the heavy oak doors of the study flew open.
Marco stepped into the room, his face pale, his phone pressed against his ear.
"Boss," Marco said, his voice tight with immediate tactical danger. "We have a critical breach."
Alessandro stood up, his posture instantly shifting from a grieving father back into the iron tyrant of Chicago. "Speak."
"Detective Vance just pulled into the front gate with four CPD tactical cruisers and two federal vans," Marco reported, his hand resting on his weapon. "He brought a felony arrest warrant from the State Attorney’s Office."
"On what charge?" Alessandro asked coldly.
May you like
Marco looked at the ten-year-old boy on the couch, then back at Alessandro.
"The warrant is for Olivia Bennett," Marco said grimly. "Donato filed a formal complaint two hours ago. They are accusing her of kidnapping the son of Donato Moretti six years ago... and murdering a state witness."
