Chapter 3 - The Boy On The Porch
Dominic stared at the ferry ticket on the table.
For the first time in thirty-one years, I saw true panic flash across my husband's face. He snatched the ticket, his eyes scanning the printed date. Today's date.
“How do you know this?” Dominic demanded, turning on Sophia. “My men have been watching Jack’s apartment in Seattle for four years.”
“Your men are idiots,” Sophia shot back, her voice shaking but defiant. “Jack hasn't lived in that apartment for six months. He’s been paying a friend to turn the lights on and off. He’s been searching for Elena. And he found her.”
I clutched Jack’s gold watch to my chest. My son was back. And he had a child. A grandson I had never met.
“Where is he?” I asked, my voice rising. “Sophia, where is my son?”
Before she could answer, the heavy oak front door of our mansion echoed with a loud, rhythmic knock.
Not the frantic pounding of police. Not the heavy fists of Dominic’s enforcers. It was a specific knock. Three short taps, a pause, then two more.
My heart completely stopped. It was the knock Jack used when he was a teenager, sneaking back into the house after curfew.
Dominic reached under his suit jacket. I saw the glint of his shoulder holster.
“Don't you dare,” I hissed, stepping in front of him.
“Rose, move,” Dominic ordered. “If he brought the Rossi family with him, this is a hit.”
“He’s your son!” I screamed.
I didn't wait for his permission. I ran down the long marble hallway toward the foyer, my heels clicking sharply. My hands were shaking so violently I could barely turn the deadbolt.
I threw the door open.
The Chicago wind rushed in, cold and biting. But it wasn't Jack standing on the porch.
Standing beneath the amber glow of the porch light was a little boy.
He couldn't have been more than four years old. He had Jack’s dark, unruly hair and my eyes. He was shivering, wearing a yellow raincoat that was a size too big for him.
There was no one else in the driveway. No cars. No Jack. No Elena.
“Hello,” the little boy said. His voice was tiny, sweet, and terrified.
I fell to my knees, ignoring the pain as they hit the marble floor. I reached out, my hands hovering over his small shoulders, afraid he was a mirage.
“Sweetheart,” I choked out, tears spilling down my face. “What’s your name?”
“Leo,” he whispered.
He reached into the pocket of his raincoat and pulled out a piece of paper. It was a child’s drawing, done in bright crayons. It showed a tall man holding a little boy’s hand. The man had a star drawn on his chest.
“My daddy said to give this to Grandma Rose,” Leo said, holding it out to me.
I took the drawing, my vision blurring with tears. “Where is your daddy, Leo? Where is Jack?”
Leo looked down at his light-up sneakers. “He told me to wait here. He said he had to go talk to the bad man in the black car.”
Dominic’s heavy footsteps echoed behind me in the foyer.
I turned around. Dominic was staring at the boy. The grandson he had threatened to kill.
“Get him inside,” Dominic barked at me. He pulled out his phone, dialing his head of security. “We have a breach. Find Jack Moretti.”
I pulled Leo into my arms. He smelled like baby shampoo and rain.
“Rose,” Sophia called out from the dining room doorway. Her face was chalk white.
“What?” I snapped, holding Leo tight.
She pointed a trembling finger at the child’s drawing in my hand. “Rose... look at the back of the paper.”
I flipped the crayon drawing over.
May you like
Written on the back, in Jack’s frantic handwriting, were three words.
Sophia is lying.
