Chapter 1 - The Four Boys Who Shouldn't Exist

## Chapter 1 - The Four Boys Who Shouldn't Exist

The first photograph arrived on Elena Rossi's phone at 6:43 p.m.

It showed her four sons standing outside their school.

The second photograph arrived eleven seconds later.

It showed Dominic Moretti entering Bellamy House.

Beneath the photographs was a message from an unknown number.

You were warned six years ago. Don't make us remind you what happens when you disobey.

Elena stopped walking.

Around her, Boston continued its ordinary Friday evening. Cars rolled through Back Bay. Couples passed beneath the glowing restaurant windows. Somewhere nearby, a woman laughed.

But Elena could hear only the blood rushing through her ears.

She stared at the second photograph.

Dominic.

Six years.

Six years of avoiding his name, his family's businesses, and every neighborhood where she might encounter him.

And now he was inside the same restaurant where she was supposed to meet her friend Caroline for dinner.

Elena immediately called Caroline.

No answer.

She called again.

Voicemail.

Her four sons were already inside Bellamy House with Caroline's elderly aunt, who had offered to watch them while Elena parked.

Elena hurried toward the entrance.

Her phone vibrated again.

Turn around, Elena.

She stopped.

For one terrible second, she considered obeying.

Then she thought of Luca, Leo, Nico, and Matteo.

Her boys.

Her entire world.

And she walked inside.

Dominic Moretti had spent most of his adult life believing that nothing could truly surprise him.

He had negotiated with men who carried guns beneath their jackets. He had watched politicians promise loyalty and sell it before dessert. He had learned to recognize betrayal in the fraction of a second between a question and an answer.

But he had never prepared himself for four little boys with his face.

They stood before him in the men's room at Bellamy House, wearing matching bow ties and expressions of undisguised curiosity.

The boy in blue tilted his head.

"Are you famous?"

Dominic blinked.

"Why would you ask that?"

"Because you look like someone famous."

"Who?"

The child considered this.

"Me."

His brothers burst into laughter.

Dominic didn't.

The resemblance was extraordinary.

Not merely the dark hair or the nearly black eyes. It was the shape of the eyebrows, the stubborn set of the chin, the way the boy pushed his hair backward while thinking.

Dominic had seen that gesture in photographs of himself as a child.

He crouched slowly.

"What's your name?"

"Luca."

The boy in cream stepped forward.

"I'm Leo."

"Nico," said the one in green.

The fourth boy folded his arms.

"I'm Matteo. I'm the youngest."

"By three minutes," Nico corrected.

"Three minutes is still younger."

Dominic almost smiled.

Almost.

"How old are you?"

"Six," Luca answered.

Six.

A particular memory rose so sharply that Dominic felt physically struck.

Elena Rossi standing barefoot in his Beacon Hill apartment, wearing one of his shirts.

Elena laughing when he burned breakfast.

Elena telling him that someday she wanted a house with a garden and children who weren't afraid to get dirty.

Then Elena disappearing.

Six years ago.

"What's your last name?" he asked.

"Rossi."

Dominic's smile vanished.

He heard the click of approaching heels.

A familiar voice called from the corridor.

"Luca? Boys, where are you?"

His entire body went rigid.

Elena appeared in the doorway.

For several seconds, neither of them moved.

She was wearing a dusty rose dress. Her brown hair was pinned loosely behind her head. She looked older than the woman in his memories, but there was no mistaking her.

And there was no mistaking the fear that crossed her face.

"Dominic."

He stood.

"Elena."

The boys gathered around their mother.

Luca looked between them.

"You know each other?"

Elena swallowed.

"Yes, sweetheart."

Dominic looked at the children again.

He already knew.

Some part of him had known from the moment Luca turned around.

But he needed to hear it.

"Are they mine?"

Elena's eyes filled with tears.

"Yes."

One word.

Four sons.

Six missing years.

Dominic felt something inside him break.

He thought of birthdays, Christmas mornings, first steps, first words. All the moments he would never recover.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I tried."

"Elena—"

"I tried, Dominic."

He studied her face.

She wasn't lying.

Or if she was, she had become frighteningly good at it.

"Then why did you disappear?"

Her gaze flickered toward the children.

"Not here."

"Six years, Elena."

"I know."

"Six years of thinking you walked away because you couldn't stand being part of my family."

Her expression changed.

"Your family?"

The bitterness in those two words stopped him.

"Your family is exactly why I left."

Before he could respond, his phone rang.

Sloane Barrett.

His future fiancée.

The woman waiting at his family's conservatory for a proposal everyone had already agreed would happen.

Dominic ignored the call.

Elena saw the name.

Her face tightened.

"You're getting married."

"No."

"Don't insult me. I know about tonight."

Dominic reached into his jacket and removed the velvet box.

For a moment, he stared at it.

Then he placed it on the marble counter.

"Tonight isn't happening."

Elena looked away.

"That doesn't change anything."

"It changes everything."

"No, Dominic. You don't understand."

"Then explain it."

She hesitated.

And he saw the same terror he remembered from the final weeks of their relationship.

The way she had started checking windows.

The way she sometimes stopped speaking when his father entered a room.

The way she once begged him not to tell anyone where they spent their weekends.

At the time, Dominic had believed she was struggling with the pressure of his family's reputation.

Now he wondered whether he had been blind.

"Who made you leave?" he asked quietly.

Elena gripped her purse.

"Your father."

Dominic stared at her.

"My father died five years ago."

"I know."

"He told me you abandoned me."

"And he told me that if I ever let you know about the boys, one of us would die."

Silence settled between them.

Leo tugged at Elena's hand.

"Mommy?"

She immediately crouched.

"It's okay, baby."

"Are you crying?"

"No, sweetheart."

But she was.

Dominic turned away, fighting an emotion he could barely identify.

His father.

Vittorio Moretti.

The man who had taught him that family was sacred.

The man who had spent his final months insisting that Dominic forget Elena and marry someone suitable.

The man Dominic had buried with tears in his eyes.

"Why would he do that?" Dominic whispered.

Elena shook her head.

"I never understood all of it."

"All of what?"

"Dominic, please. The boys shouldn't hear this."

He looked at his sons.

His sons.

The words still seemed impossible.

"All right."

He opened the door and called to the restaurant manager, who was passing through the corridor.

"Anthony."

The manager stopped immediately.

"Mr. Moretti."

"Find a private dining room. Somewhere quiet."

"Of course."

"And bring hot chocolate for four."

Matteo brightened.

"With marshmallows?"

Dominic looked at him.

For the first time that evening, his expression softened.

"With as many marshmallows as you want."

Matteo smiled.

And Dominic felt a terrible ache in his chest.

He had never bought his son a birthday present.

Never helped him tie his shoes.

Never held him after a nightmare.

Yet a cup of hot chocolate was enough to make the boy look at him like a hero.

Twenty minutes later, the children sat in a private dining room with hot chocolate and miniature pastries.

Dominic had arranged for a trusted female member of the restaurant staff to remain nearby while he and Elena spoke just beyond the glass doors, within sight of the boys.

Elena watched him carefully.

"You don't have to do this."

"Do what?"

"Act like everything can be fixed."

Dominic's jaw tightened.

"I know it can't."

She looked surprised.

He continued.

"I can't recover six years. I can't make them know me. I can't pretend I haven't spent tonight wondering what kind of man misses his own children's childhood."

"You didn't know."

"That doesn't make it hurt less."

Elena looked through the glass.

Luca was helping Matteo clean chocolate from his sleeve.

"Do they know about me?" Dominic asked.

"They know they have a father."

"What did you tell them?"

"That you lived far away."

"Did you tell them I didn't want them?"

Her eyes flashed.

"Never."

He looked at her.

"Thank you."

The words seemed to hurt her more than an accusation would have.

For a moment, the years between them felt unbearably heavy.

Then Dominic asked the question he had been avoiding.

"Who threatened you after my father died?"

Elena went pale.

"How do you know someone did?"

"Because you're still afraid."

She said nothing.

"Elena."

She opened her purse.

Inside was a small envelope, worn at the edges.

She removed a photograph.

Four newborn babies lay beside one another in a hospital nursery.

Across the photograph, written in black ink, were five words.

Keep them away from him.

Dominic stared.

"When did you receive this?"

"Three days after they were born."

"From my father?"

"I thought so."

"You thought?"

Elena took a shaky breath.

"Your father called me the night before I left Boston. He told me you knew I was pregnant."

Dominic's head snapped up.

"I didn't."

"He said you wanted the pregnancy ended. That you would never acknowledge the children."

"Elena—"

"He knew things, Dominic. Things only you and I had discussed. He played me a recording of your voice."

Dominic went cold.

"What recording?"

"You said that children were a weakness. That no Moretti child would ever be allowed to grow up outside the family."

Dominic remembered the conversation.

A private meeting with his father during the family's power struggle.

He had been discussing the danger of involving children in organized crime.

Someone had cut his words apart.

Someone had turned a warning into a threat.

"My father manipulated you."

"I know that now."

"Why didn't you contact me after he died?"

Elena's fingers tightened around the photograph.

"Because the letters didn't stop."

Dominic slowly looked up.

"What letters?"

"Every year. On the boys' birthday."

She opened a folder on her phone.

There were photographs of envelopes.

Six in total.

Each contained a photograph of the boys taken without her knowledge.

At school.

At a playground.

Outside their home.

And each carried the same warning.

He must never know.

Dominic felt his anger transform into something colder.

His father had been dead for five years.

Someone else had inherited the secret.

Someone who had watched his children grow.

"Did you go to the police?"

"Twice."

"What happened?"

"The first officer said there wasn't enough evidence. The second told me I should stop attracting attention."

Dominic knew what that meant.

Someone had influence.

Someone wanted Elena frightened.

And someone had been willing to use his children to accomplish it.

His phone vibrated again.

This time, it wasn't Sloane.

It was his mother.

He declined the call.

Immediately, a message appeared.

Where are you? The Barretts are asking questions. Your uncle says you've been seen at Bellamy House with a woman and four children.

Dominic read the message twice.

His uncle.

Richard Moretti.

The man who had helped manage the family businesses after Vittorio's death.

The man who had personally arranged tonight's engagement.

Dominic looked toward the dining room.

His sons were laughing.

Elena followed his gaze.

"What is it?"

"Someone knows we're here."

She stiffened.

"Who?"

"I don't know."

"Dominic, we have to leave."

He was about to answer when Luca approached the glass door.

The boy held up a folded piece of paper.

"Mom?"

Elena opened the door.

"What is it, sweetheart?"

"A man gave me this."

Dominic's expression changed instantly.

"What man?"

Luca pointed toward the restaurant corridor.

"The nice man in the gray coat. He said he knew Grandpa."

Elena went completely still.

"Grandpa?"

Luca nodded.

"He said to give it to you."

Dominic took the paper.

It was a restaurant receipt.

On the back, someone had written a message in neat black handwriting.

Ask your mother what happened at the hospital on October 14, six years ago.

Dominic looked at Elena.

Her face had drained of color.

"Elena?"

She didn't answer.

"What's October fourteenth?"

Her lips parted.

For a moment, he thought she might faint.

Then she whispered something he could barely hear.

"That's the day I was told one of our babies had died."

Dominic looked through the glass.

Four boys.

Four living sons.

And a woman staring at him as though she had just seen a ghost.

"Elena," he said slowly, "how many babies were you carrying?"

She began to cry.

"Five."