Chapter 1 - The Child Under My Desk
Sixty million dollars had just changed hands when a baby crawled under my desk, grabbed my trouser cuff, and looked up at me with the exact gray eyes of my dead brother.
For three seconds, nobody moved.
Not my accountant.
Not the three men sitting across from me.
Not even the two armed guards stationed outside my office.
I looked down at the tiny girl clinging to my leg.
She wore a faded yellow onesie, one white sock, and a ridiculous expression of confidence for someone who had just invaded the private office of the most feared man in New Jersey.
I slowly crouched.
“Where did you come from?”
She smiled.
Then she raised both arms.
Pick me up.
I had spent thirty-eight years making people afraid of me.
Men twice my size lowered their eyes when I entered a room. My captains surrendered their phones before stepping inside. Nobody touched anything on my desk without permission.
This child apparently had different rules.
I picked her up.
She immediately grabbed my tie.
One of the men across the desk swallowed nervously.
“Mr. Caruso…”
I ignored him.
The baby rested her cheek against my chest as though she'd known me forever.
Then something silver slipped from beneath her shirt.
A Saint Christopher medal.
I stopped breathing.
I knew that medal.
I had given it to Julian when he was seventeen.
He'd laughed because I had told him it would keep him safe.
“I'm the one who needs protection,” he'd joked.
I had carved a crooked J into the back with a pocketknife.
The same crooked J stared back at me now.
My fingers tightened around the medal.
“Where did you get this?”
The office door opened.
Hannah Reed stood there.
My maid.
Her face went white.
“Mr. Caruso…”
I held up the medal.
“Whose child is this?”
Hannah's mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
“That wasn't a difficult question.”
“She…”
Her eyes dropped to the baby.
“She belongs to me.”
I stared at her.
“You brought your child into my private office?”
“I didn't mean to.”
“Then explain.”
Hannah stepped inside and closed the door.
Her hands trembled.
“The sitter was hospitalized this morning. Daycare wouldn't take Grace without the full payment. I couldn't afford it.”
“So you brought her here.”
“I kept her downstairs.”
“Then how did she get upstairs?”
“I don't know.”
I looked toward the hallway.
One guard immediately checked the cameras.
Hannah whispered, “Her name is Grace.”
I looked down.
Grace was chewing on my tie.
“How old?”
“Nine months.”
I froze.
“Nine months?”
“And twelve days.”
My mind calculated automatically.
Julian had died eight months before.
I looked at Hannah.
“Who is her father?”
She didn't answer.
“Hannah.”
“He called himself Evan Cole.”
“That wasn't his real name.”
“No.”
“Who was he?”
Tears filled her eyes.
“Julian Caruso.”
The room seemed to lose oxygen.
My brother.
Dead for eighteen months.
My younger brother, whose burned car had been found beneath an overpass outside Newark.
My brother, whose remains I had buried.
My brother, whose death had turned my grief into a war.
I had spent eighteen months hunting everyone I believed responsible.
And now his daughter was sitting in my arms.
“Why didn't Julian tell me?”
“He said you couldn't know.”
“Why?”
“He was afraid.”
“Of me?”
“No.”
She looked toward the door.
“Of someone close to you.”
I thought of the medal.
Then of the note.
Hannah slowly reached into Grace's diaper bag.
She pulled out a folded piece of paper.
“I found this with her things.”
I opened it.
Six words.
If anything happens, don't trust Vincent.
My blood turned cold.
Vincent Rizzo.
My father's oldest friend.
My consigliere.
The man who had stood beside me at Julian's funeral.
The man who had identified the burned body.
The man I trusted more than almost anyone alive.
My phone vibrated.
A message from Vincent.
We have a problem. The maid's baby is missing.
I stared at the screen.
Then at Grace.
Then at Hannah.
“How does he know?”
Hannah's face crumpled.
“He shouldn't.”
I stood.
The men from the transaction watched me nervously.
“Lock the building.”
One guard immediately reached for his radio.
“No one enters. No one leaves.”
I handed Grace to Hannah.
She clung to my shirt.
I looked at the baby's face again.
Julian's eyes.
Julian's medal.
Julian's daughter.
“Mr. Caruso?” my accountant asked quietly.
“What?”
“The sixty million.”
I looked at the briefcases of cash.
For the first time in my life, sixty million dollars meant absolutely nothing.
I pointed at the door.
“Forget the money.”
Everyone stared.
“Find my brother.”
One of my guards frowned.
“Sir?”
I looked at him.
“Julian Caruso is alive.”
Silence.
“And someone has been lying to me for eighteen months.”
Then Grace began crying.
Not loudly.
Just one frightened little sound.
I looked down.
Her tiny hand was reaching toward me.
And something inside me broke.
I took her back from Hannah.
“I'm here.”
She stopped crying immediately.
Hannah stared.
I stared too.
Because Grace didn't just have Julian's eyes.
She had his habit of trusting the wrong people.
And I suddenly had a terrifying suspicion.
May you like
Julian hadn't stayed hidden because he wanted to.
He had stayed hidden because someone had made sure he couldn't come home.
