Chapter 6 - Shadows of the Past
The morning sun cast long, golden beams across the manicured lawns of the Moretti estate, but inside the east wing, the air felt heavy with the lingering ghosts of yesterday.
Rosa stood by the tall, arched window of the master suite, watching the autumn wind scatter fallen leaves across the gravel driveway. For four years, she had viewed this estate as a gilded cage—a place where she was invisible, tolerated only because she scrubbed the floors and kept her head down. Now, standing here in silk and cashmere, the weight of a completely different reality pressed down on her shoulders.
She wasn't just a maid anymore. She was the woman standing beside Don Moretti. And in the underworld, that made her the primary target for anyone desperate enough to strike at the king.
The heavy oak door opened softly, and Alessandro stepped into the room. He had already been up for hours, reviewing financial logs and syndicate transfers following the dismantling of the Romano empire. He removed his suit jacket, tossing it over a chair, and walked up behind Rosa, wrapping his strong arms securely around her waist.
Rosa leaned back against his chest, letting out a soft sigh as she felt the steady, reassuring beat of his heart.
"You're still worrying," Alessandro murmured against her neck, his voice a low, soothing rumble.
"Can you blame me?" Rosa turned slightly in his embrace, looking up into his dark, intense eyes. "Vincent Romano lost everything, Alessandro. Men like that don't just disappear into the night. They grow desperate. And desperate men do reckless things."
Alessandro’s jaw tightened slightly, though his expression remained calm. "Vincent is broken, Rosa. His capos have surrendered their routes, and his accounts have been frozen. He has no money, no men, and no power left."
"And what about Elena?" Rosa asked quietly.
Alessandro froze. The name hung in the air like a sudden drop in temperature.
Elena Moretti. His mother.
For years, Alessandro had believed his mother died in a tragic car crash outside Naples when he was twelve years old—a story his father, the previous Don, had repeated endlessly until it became absolute truth. But in the wake of the estate's upheaval, Rosa had spent hours going through the old estate archives in the library, stumbling upon documents, letters, and financial ledgers that painted a much darker, more complicated picture.
"What did you find, Rosa?" Alessandro asked, his voice dropping into a dangerous, guarded register.
Rosa reached over to the bedside table, picking up a faded, leather-bound journal with yellowed pages. She handed it to him.
"I found this hidden beneath the floorboards in the old servants' quarters," Rosa said softly. "It belonged to Maria, who was your mother’s personal maid before she supposedly died."
Alessandro flipped the journal open. His eyes scanned the messy, hurried handwriting of a woman writing in terror.
*‘The Don is lying to the boy,’* one entry read, dated twenty-six years ago. *‘Mistress Elena didn't die in a crash. She discovered the truth about the syndicate’s human trafficking rings—she threatened to take little Alessandro and leave. The crash was staged. She was locked away in the asylum on the cliffs of Salerno. God forgive us all.’*
The book slipped from Alessandro’s fingers, hitting the Persian rug with a dull thud.
The color drained entirely from his face. His breathing hitched, and for the first time since Rosa had known him, the unbreakable Don Moretti looked like a shattered, helpless child.
"My father..." Alessandro choked out, his voice shaking with a fury and grief so profound it seemed to shake the very foundations of the room. "He lied to me for twenty-six years. He told me she died a hero... while he kept her locked in a cage."
Rosa stepped forward, cupping his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. "Alessandro, listen to me. Your father is gone. But if the journal is right... your mother might still be alive."
***
Three hundred miles away, perched on the jagged, windswept cliffs overlooking the dark, crashing waves of Salerno, Italy, stood the San Michele Sanitarium—an imposing, fortress-like asylum built of gray stone and iron-barred windows. It was a place where inconvenient secrets were buried alive, forgotten by the world.
Inside a damp, whitewashed cell on the subterranean level, an elderly woman sat on a narrow iron cot. Her hair was completely silver, her skin pale and paper-thin, but her dark, luminous eyes—the exact same eyes that Lily possessed—burned with an unyielding, fierce intelligence.
She stared out the small, barred high window toward the endless sea, clutching a small, worn photograph of a twelve-year-old boy.
The heavy iron door of her cell rattled. The slot at the bottom slid open, and a tray of tasteless gruel was shoved inside.
"Eat, Elena," a harsh voice grunted from the hallway.
The woman didn't touch the food. Instead, she looked toward the heavy door, a faint, melancholic smile touching her lips.
"You can keep me here all you want, Vincent," she whispered to the empty room, though she wasn't speaking to the guard. "My son is grown now. And he will find the truth."
***
Back in New York, the private airstrip owned by the Moretti syndicate was bathed in the red glow of sunset. A sleek, private twin-engine jet stood ready on the tarmac, its turbine engines whining softly in the cool evening air.
Inside the cabin, Dante stood near the cockpit door, reviewing flight clearances with the pilot.
Rosa walked up the boarding stairs, holding Lily tightly in her arms. A moment later, Alessandro ascended the steps. He had changed into a dark tactical turtleneck and heavy wool coat, his expression locked in a terrifying, glacial focus.
He looked at Rosa, then down at Lily, who was happily clutching her stuffed rabbit, *Bun*.
"You don't have to come with me, Rosa," Alessandro said, his voice unusually hesitant. "Italy... Salerno... it could be dangerous. My father’s old loyalists might still control the region."
Rosa looked up, her eyes blazing with an unshakeable, fierce loyalty that mirrored his own.
"You think I'm going to let you walk into a ghost town alone to rescue your mother?" Rosa asked, raising an eyebrow. "I'm a Moretti now, Alessandro. We don't leave our family behind."
A slow, fierce smile broke through the dark tension on Alessandro’s face. He reached out, pulling both of them into his arms, pressing his forehead against Rosa’s.
"To Salerno," Alessandro whispered against her lips. "Let's go home."
May you like
The cabin door sealed shut. The jet surged forward down the runway, lifting gracefully into the night sky, headed straight into the heart of a storm that had been brewing for twenty-six years.
---
