Chapter 5 - Shadows of the Past
Kate stared at him, unblinking, her chest heaving under the thin hospital gown.
"You haven't changed at all," she said softly, her voice laced with bitter sorrow. "Always violence. Always control. You think everything in this world can be solved with a threat or a gun."
"I am protecting what is mine," Luciano retorted.
"I am not yours!" Kate yelled, her voice breaking. "You threw me away! You left for Europe seven months ago without so much as a goodbye. You left me in that house alone, waiting for news that you had been killed in some alley in Milan or Warsaw!"
"I left to keep you alive!" Luciano snapped, his composure slipping for the first time. "The Moretti family was moving on my family's turf. They were tracking my movements, looking for a weakness. If I stayed near you, they would have used you to break me! I cut ties so you would be invisible!"
"And you succeeded!" Kate sobbed. "I was invisible! I was so invisible that I spent seven months grieving a marriage that was already dead!"
Luciano closed his eyes, taking a slow, deep breath to reclaim his composure. When he opened them again, the anger was gone, replaced by a cold, sharp focus.
"You didn't answer my question, Kate."
"She is my daughter," Kate said stubbornly, clutching the blanket to her chest. "That's all you need to know."
Before Luciano could press further, his phone buzzed in his pocket again. He pulled it out, saw Marco’s name on the caller ID, and stepped out into the quiet hospital hallway.
"Speak," Luciano said.
"Boss," Marco’s voice was tense. "I ran the background check on Kate's movements for the past seven months, just like you asked."
"And?"
"She didn't leave Hawthorne Ridge, Luciano. Not once. She didn't see anyone except the local grocer and Mrs. Gable, the midwife. No visitors, no phone calls to untracked numbers, no men."
Luciano felt a strange, heavy knot in his chest loosen slightly. "Are you sure?"
"One hundred percent," Marco confirmed. "She lived like a recluse. But Luciano... we have a bigger problem."
"What problem?"
"While we were securing the house at Hawthorne Ridge, my guys found fresh tire tracks near the tree line behind the property. Someone was watching the house before you arrived tonight. And there's more."
"Go on."
"A dark sedan was spotted circling the perimeter of Saint Jude’s Hospital twenty minutes ago. It's registered to a front company owned by Julian Moretti."
Luciano’s jaw set into stone.
Julian Moretti—the ruthless heir of the Moretti syndicate, a man who had been trying to reclaim Boston's shipping routes for three years. If Julian knew Kate was in the hospital, it meant his intelligence network had tracked Luciano to Hawthorne Ridge.
"They don't know about the baby yet," Luciano said coldly.
"If they see you at that hospital, they'll figure it out quickly," Marco warned. "What do you want to do?"
"Lock down the hospital," Luciano ordered. "Put four of our best men at every exit. Nobody enters or leaves this floor without my explicit permission."
"Understood, boss."
Luciano hung up the phone and turned back toward Room 212. Through the small glass window on the door, he watched Kate. She was staring down at her lap, her hand absentmindedly touching her hollow abdomen, her face etched with profound loneliness and fear.
May you like
He realized then that the threat was no longer just outside the hospital walls.
The danger was closing in on the fragile life currently hooked up to machines down the hall—and whether Kate admitted it or not, she was going to need the devil she knew to keep their child alive.
