Chapter 2 - The Men Who Lowered Their Heads
There are moments when your life changes loudly.
Car crashes.
Gunshots.
Someone screaming your name.
Mine changed while six armed men stood in Rose’s kitchen dripping rainwater onto a floor I had refinished myself.
The man who seemed to be in charge introduced himself as Marco DeLuca.
He was somewhere in his fifties, broad-shouldered, silver at the temples, dressed too well for a mountain road.
His eyes kept moving toward my locket.
I tucked it beneath my shirt.
“Stop staring at me.”
Marco immediately looked away.
“Forgive me.”
Vincent shifted on the table.
Pain tightened his jaw.
“Doctor.”
Marco nodded.
One of the men stepped outside.
I stared.
“A doctor is coming here?”
Vincent looked at me.
“Yes.”
“Of course one is.”
Marco appeared confused by my irritation.
Vincent wasn’t.
He looked almost amused again.
That annoyed me more.
“I pulled you up a cliff.”
“You did.”
“You refused an ambulance.”
“Yes.”
“Now your private doctor appears because men in SUVs called him?”
“Yes.”
“And I’m supposed to act like this is normal?”
“No.”
At least he was honest.
I folded my arms.
“What exactly are you?”
Marco looked at Vincent.
Vincent gave the smallest shake of his head.
That was answer enough.
I knew the Moretti name now.
Not from personal experience.
From newspapers.
Restaurants.
Construction firms.
Shipping companies.
And stories people lowered their voices to tell.
The Moretti family had been part of New York organized crime history for generations.
Depending on which article you believed, the modern Morettis had either become mostly legitimate or simply better at hiding what they did.
Vincent Moretti’s name appeared in both versions.
I stepped backward.
“You’re that Moretti.”
He watched me.
“Yes.”
“Fantastic.”
Marco looked offended on his behalf.
I ignored him.
“You were shot?”
“No.”
“Attacked?”
“Yes.”
“By who?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Do they know you’re here?”
Vincent looked toward the windows.
“Hopefully not.”
I stared.
“Hopefully?”
“Hannah—”
“You need to leave.”
Marco stiffened.
Vincent didn’t.
“This is my home.”
“I understand.”
“No, I don’t think you do. Six weeks ago I got thrown out of somebody else’s house. I am not getting chased out of mine because some mob war followed a bleeding stranger into my kitchen.”
Nobody spoke.
Then Vincent said:
“You’re right.”
Marco turned.
“Sir—”
“She’s right.”
He looked at Marco.
“As soon as the doctor stabilizes me, we leave.”
That surprised me.
Men like Vincent Moretti were not supposed to accept being told no.
At least not in movies.
Maybe real danger made people more practical.
The doctor arrived twenty-five minutes later.
Broken tibia.
Two cracked ribs.
Deep bruising.
Mild hypothermia.
A cut above the eyebrow needing stitches.
The doctor wanted him transported.
Vincent refused again.
Eventually they compromised on taking him to a private clinic once security confirmed the road.
While Marco organized everything, I cleaned blood from my kitchen.
That was when he approached me.
Quietly.
“Miss Bell.”
I looked up.
“What?”
He glanced at my necklace.
“May I ask when Rose gave you that?”
“Two years ago.”
“Before she died?”
“Yes.”
“What did she tell you?”
My irritation returned.
“Why does everybody suddenly care about my mother’s jewelry?”
Marco hesitated.
“That symbol is not ordinary.”
“It’s Saint Michael.”
“The back.”
I froze.
I had never thought much about the back.
The front showed Saint Michael.
The reverse had three tiny marks.
An M.
A star.
And what looked like a flame.
Marco said:
“That mark belonged to Salvatore Moretti.”
I stared at him.
“Vincent’s father?”
“Yes.”
“Why would my mother have something belonging to him?”
Marco did not answer.
Vincent did.
“Because he gave it to her.”
I turned.
He was sitting in the chair now, leg immobilized.
His face looked even paler.
I hated how weak he looked.
Hated that I cared.
“How do you know?”
“Because there were only seven made.”
He touched beneath his own shirt and pulled out a chain.
A smaller metal medallion hung there.
Same markings.
M.
Star.
Flame.
Mine was older.
His was polished.
“My father gave one to each person whose life he considered his responsibility.”
I laughed nervously.
“That sounds ominous.”
“It was.”
“What was Rose to him?”
Vincent looked at Marco.
Something unspoken passed between them.
Then he turned back to me.
“Rose Bell worked for my father.”
My mouth went dry.
“No.”
“She did.”
“She was a nurse.”
“She became one later.”
“What did she do for him?”
“Protected people.”
I almost laughed again.
Rose had been five-foot-three, wore flowered aprons, and believed every illness could be improved with chicken soup.
She also knew how to shoot a rifle.
Tie rescue knots.
Hotwire an old truck.
Identify which mushrooms would kill you.
Maybe I should have asked more questions.
Vincent continued.
“Twenty-nine years ago, someone inside my father’s organization discovered money was being stolen.”
I listened.
“A bookkeeper named Daniel Vale found the records.”
The name meant nothing to me.
Vincent noticed.
“He had a wife. Rebecca. And a baby daughter.”
Something inside me tightened.
“The people stealing the money found out Daniel had copied evidence.”
I whispered:
“What happened?”
“The house burned.”
My skin went cold.
“Daniel and Rebecca died.”
I could hear rain hitting the windows.
Nothing else.
“The baby?”
Vincent looked at my locket.
“Was gone.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“My father ordered Rose to take her somewhere nobody would connect to the Moretti family.”
“No.”
“Hannah.”
“No.”
I stood.
The chair scraped backward.
“My mother was Rose Bell.”
“She raised you.”
“My birth certificate—”
“Was created afterward.”
I stared at Marco.
He looked down.
Vincent continued quietly.
“Rose disappeared from New York for almost two years.”
My lungs stopped working properly.
I thought of Delia.
Rose’s biological daughter.
The unfinished sentence on the porch weeks earlier.
You aren’t even really—
“What was the baby’s name?”
Vincent’s eyes stayed on mine.
“Her parents called her Hannah.”
My hand flew to the locket.
Everything in the room tilted.
I thought of Rose dying.
Her fingers struggling with the clasp.
Her final warning.
Never sell it. Never take it off.
Someone paid a high price so you could wear it.
I thought she meant love.
Maybe she meant blood.
Marco spoke gently.
“Rose hid you because someone was still searching.”
I looked at Vincent.
“Who?”
He hesitated.
That frightened me.
“Who was searching for me?”
“We never proved it.”
“Twenty-eight years and you never proved it?”
“My father died before he could.”
“And now?”
Vincent looked toward the driveway.
“Now someone just tried to kill me seven miles from the house where you were hidden.”
Silence.
A horrible thought formed.
“You think the two things are connected?”
“I don’t know.”
“That means yes.”
“It means I don’t know.”
Marco’s phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
Then his face changed.
Vincent noticed immediately.
“What?”
Marco looked at me before speaking.
“The wrecked vehicles were found.”
“And?”
“Two of our men are dead.”
My stomach turned.
Vincent’s expression became stone.
“Who knew the route?”
“Four people.”
Vincent’s fingers tightened around the chair.
Marco continued.
“And someone searched the wreck after the attack.”
“For what?”
“Your phone. Wallet. Anything identifying where you went.”
Vincent looked toward me.
Then at the locket beneath my hand.
Marco lowered his voice.
“There’s more.”
Vincent waited.
“One of the tire tracks from the second vehicle matches a truck registered to a company we’ve seen before.”
“Whose?”
Marco paused.
“Aldo Russo.”
Vincent stopped breathing.
I had never heard the name.
But I understood his reaction.
Not an enemy.
Something worse.
“Who is Aldo?” I asked.
Vincent looked out at the rain.
May you like
When he answered, his voice was almost too quiet to hear.
“My best friend.”
