Chapter 2 - Nobody Leaves the BuildingBy sunrise, Vincent Moretti’s penthouse had become a fortress.
The most feared man in New York opened his eyes before the sound had finished.
He did not startle.
Men like Vincent did not survive by sleeping deeply.
His hand slid beneath the pillow and closed around the grip of the pistol hidden there.
Then came another sound.
Three tiny knocks.
Vincent stared toward his bedroom door.
No one entered his private suite without permission.
Not his soldiers.
Not his lawyer.
Not even his younger brother.
Another flash of lightning illuminated the room.
Then came the voice.
“Mr. Vincent?”
A child.
Vincent released the pistol.
“What?”
The door opened two inches.
A small face appeared.
Sofia Romano was three years old, though she insisted she was “almost four.”
She wore blue pajamas covered in little silver stars. Her curly brown hair was tangled from sleep. A stuffed white bear hung beneath one arm, and a cream blanket dragged across the marble floor behind her.
Her lower lip trembled.
Vincent sat up.
“Sofia?”
She stepped inside.
“I’m scared.”
Another explosion of thunder shook the windows.
Sofia jumped.
Vincent’s expression changed before he could stop it.
Three weeks earlier, Sofia’s mother, Isabella Romano, had died in a car crash on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
Officially, it had been an accident.
Vincent knew better.
Isabella had been his late sister’s closest friend.
And before dying, she had left one instruction with Vincent’s attorney.
If anything happened to her, Sofia went to Vincent.
Nobody understood why.
Vincent least of all.
He had spent twenty years building an empire that stretched through unions, nightclubs, construction companies, import businesses, and several enterprises polite society preferred not to discuss.
Children did not belong in his world.
Yet Sofia had arrived with two pink suitcases and a stuffed bear named Buttons.
For three weeks, she had lived in the guest wing under the care of a nanny, two housekeepers, and enough armed security to protect a foreign president.
Vincent had spoken to her perhaps six times.
Now she stood beside his bed.
“Where’s Maria?” he asked.
“The storm woke me.”
“Maria should be with you.”
“I called.”
Sofia looked down.
“She didn’t wake up.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
That was wrong.
Maria slept in the adjoining room.
He reached for his phone.
Sofia suddenly whispered, “Can I sleep here tonight?”
Vincent stopped.
The question should have been easy.
No.
He had meetings beginning at seven.
Half the city feared him.
Three men were waiting for his decision on a dispute that could start a war by sunrise.
And sleeping children were not part of his skill set.
Then Sofia looked toward the windows as lightning flashed.
Her little fingers tightened around Buttons.
“My mommy used to let me sleep with her when the sky got mad.”
Something inside Vincent went still.
He remembered another storm.
He had been eight.
His younger sister, Elena, had been five.
They had lived above their father’s butcher shop in Queens, before money, before power, before people crossed streets to avoid him.
Elena had crawled into his bed crying during a storm.
Vincent had complained.
Then he had held her hand until she fell asleep.
Elena had been dead nine years now.
Vincent looked at Sofia.
“Yes.”
She blinked.
“Yes?”
“Tonight.”
Her fear disappeared so quickly it almost hurt to watch.
She climbed onto the enormous bed and crawled beneath the blankets like she had been given permission to enter a castle.
Vincent moved to the other side.
Sofia placed Buttons between them.
“He needs space.”
“Of course.”
“He kicks.”
Vincent looked at the stuffed bear.
“I’ll take my chances.”
For the first time since arriving, Sofia smiled at him.
Three minutes later, she was asleep.
Vincent was not.
He stared at the ceiling while rain struck the glass.
Then his phone vibrated.
His security chief.
Vincent answered quietly.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“We have a problem.”
Vincent glanced at Sofia.
“What kind?”
“Maria’s unconscious.”
Vincent sat upright.
“What?”
“We found her on the floor in the nanny suite.”
His voice became ice.
“Call the doctor.”
“Already did.”
A pause.
Then the security chief said something that changed the night completely.
“Vincent… someone put something in her tea.”
Vincent’s eyes moved toward the bedroom door Sofia had walked through minutes earlier.
The thunderstorm had not brought the little girl to his room.
Someone else had.
Someone had drugged her nanny.
Someone had expected Sofia to be alone.
Vincent stepped silently from the bed.
He crossed the room and locked the door.
Then he called his head of security again.
“Seal the building.”
“Already happening.”
“No one leaves.”
“Yes, boss.”
Vincent looked back at the sleeping child.
Buttons was tucked beneath her chin.
Her tiny hand rested on Vincent’s pillow.
His voice dropped.
“Marco?”
“Yes?”
“If anyone came into this building tonight because of that little girl…”
He paused.
Twenty years of violence lived inside that silence.
“Find them before I do.”
When he ended the call, Sofia stirred.
Her eyes opened halfway.
“Mr. Vincent?”
“I’m here.”
“Don’t go.”
Vincent stared at her.
For years, grown men had begged him for mercy.
Nobody had ever asked him simply to stay.
He returned to the bed.
Sofia reached out.
Her hand wrapped around one of his fingers.
Within seconds, she was asleep again.
Outside, thunder continued shaking the city.
Inside, Vincent Moretti watched the bedroom door.
Neither of them knew it yet.
May you like
But the moment Vincent had said yes, the most dangerous empire in New York had begun to change.
And somewhere inside that empire, a traitor had just realized the little girl was no longer unprotected.
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