Chapter 2 - THE MAN AT THE DOOR
The pounding came again.
Three hard strikes.
Then a familiar voice called through the heavy oak doors.
“Lorenzo! Open up. We need to talk.”
My cousin.
Anthony Moretti.
I hadn't seen him since breakfast, when we'd discussed a shipment scheduled to arrive at the Brooklyn docks. He had sat across from me, drinking espresso and joking about how marriage had made me soft.
Now he was standing outside my home, apparently intending to take my daughter.
I handed Sophie to Margaret.
“Take her upstairs. Stay with her. Lock the bedroom door.”
Sophie immediately grabbed my shirt.
“Don't go, Daddy.”
I kissed her forehead.
“I'll be right outside, princess. Nobody is taking you anywhere.”
She searched my face.
“Promise?”
“On my life.”
Margaret carried her away, whispering reassurances.
I turned toward my security chief, Victor.
“Pull every camera recording from the last thirty days. Nobody leaves this property. Nobody makes a phone call without my authorization.”
Victor nodded.
I opened the front door.
Anthony stood on the marble steps in an expensive charcoal suit. His dark hair was perfectly styled, and his fingers rested casually against the gold lion ring on his right hand.
Behind him stood four armed men.
“Cousin,” he said, smiling. “You're making a scene.”
“Why are you here?”
“I'm here for Sophie.”
The temperature in the doorway seemed to drop.
“You're not taking my daughter.”
Anthony sighed as if I were being unreasonable.
“There's paperwork, Lorenzo. A temporary guardianship arrangement. Vanessa explained everything.”
“Vanessa doesn't have authority over my daughter.”
“She does if you've legally appointed her.”
I stepped closer.
“I haven't appointed anybody.”
His smile disappeared.
“Then somebody has been lying to you.”
I stared at the lion ring.
“Where did you get that?”
Anthony looked down at it.
“This? Family heirloom.”
“Why did my daughter tell me a man wearing it promised to take her?”
He shrugged.
“Children have active imaginations.”
I grabbed his wrist.
“Don't ever use my daughter's name to tell me what she imagined.”
His men reached inside their jackets.
Victor immediately stepped forward with six of my guards.
Nobody drew a weapon.
Nobody needed to.
Anthony slowly pulled his wrist free.
“You're making a mistake,” he whispered.
“No. I made one mistake. I let you into my family.”
His expression hardened.
Then he produced a manila envelope.
“Read this before you embarrass yourself.”
Inside were copies of the adoption application, a temporary custody authorization, and medical documents supposedly proving I had been declared an unfit parent.
The signature looked like mine.
The documents even carried my private office seal.
But one detail caught my attention.
The date.
The authorization had supposedly been signed six weeks earlier.
Six weeks ago, I'd been in London.
My passport, flight records, and security footage could prove it.
“This is forged.”
Anthony shrugged.
“Prove it.”
I looked at him.
“Who paid you?”
He laughed.
“Still think this is about money?”
Before I could answer, Victor's radio crackled.
“Boss. We have a problem upstairs.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
“Miss Vanessa is trying to leave through the east entrance.”
I looked at Anthony.
He smiled.
For the first time, I understood.
He hadn't come to fight me.
He'd come to distract me.
I pushed past him and ran upstairs.
Margaret stood outside Sophie's bedroom, pale and shaking.
“Where's my daughter?”
“She was here a minute ago!”
I threw open the door.
The room was empty.
Her pink backpack lay on the bed.
Her favorite teddy bear was on the floor.
And the window was open.
I rushed to it.
Below, the garden stretched toward the eastern service road.
A black SUV was disappearing through the trees.
Then I saw something on Sophie's pillow.
A small white envelope.
My name was written across it.
Inside was a photograph of Sophie sitting in a strange bedroom.
On the back, someone had written:
YOU HAVE UNTIL MIDNIGHT TO SIGN AWAY YOUR EMPIRE. OTHERWISE, YOUR DAUGHTER DISAPPEARS.
I looked at the photograph again.
There was something reflected in the mirror behind my little girl.
A man.
Wearing a gold lion ring.
And he wasn't Anthony.
May you like
It was my own father.
The man who had supposedly been dead for five years.
