Chapter 3 - Blood Doesn't Lie
"They are not your sons!" Elena said sharply, grabbing the boys' hands and shoving past me toward the revolving doors. "Boys, hold hands. Red rover line, right now!"
The four boys moved with military precision, locking hands instantly. It was clear this was a practiced drill. She had trained them to move fast, to stick together. To run.
She pushed through the glass door into the biting December wind of Back Bay. Snow flurries were swirling through the air, catching in the yellow halos of the streetlamps.
I stepped out behind them, the cold air slapping my face. Across the street, the yellow taxi she had hailed honked twice, idling against the curb with its hazard lights flashing.
"Driver! Hold on!" Elena called out, practically dragging the four boys across the slushy sidewalk.
"Elena, stop!" I barked.
She didn't stop. She reached the curb, opened the cab’s rear door, and began lifting the boys inside. "In, in, Leo, Mateo, slide all the way over—"
I caught the cab door before she could slam it shut.
My black leather glove gripped the frame, holding the heavy metal door wide open. The cab driver turned his head around, annoyed. "Hey, pal, what’s the problem? We got a fare here—"
The driver caught one look at my face under the streetlight, recognized the cut of my coat and the scar along my jaw, and immediately went gray. In this city, everyone who drove a cab knew the faces you never argued with.
"Shut off the meter," I told the driver quietly, tossing a rolled-up hundred-dollar bill onto his front passenger seat. "Get out."
"Dominic, stop it!" Elena screamed, trying to pull the door shut with both hands. "You can't do this! You can't just bully your way into our lives after six years of silence!"
"I've been looking for you for six years!" I roared over the howling wind, finally letting the fury that had festered inside me for half a decade break through the surface. "I turned this city inside out! I sent men to New York, to Chicago, to Rome! You vanished like smoke!"
"Because you wanted me dead!" she screamed back.
The words froze me cold. The snow seemed to stop falling between us.
"What did you say?" I whispered.
Inside the cab, the four boys had gone completely silent. Four small, pale faces pressed against the glass, their eyes wide with terror as they watched us.
Elena was breathing hard, her chest heaving beneath her worn coat. Her face was flushed with anger and heartbreak. "Don't play the innocent prince, Dominic. I know what your family is. I knew what you were becoming. But when Salvatore showed up at my clinic with a suitcase of cash and your signet ring... when he told me you had chosen Sloane Barrett and that if I didn't take the money and leave Massachusetts, you’d make sure my baby was never born..." She swallowed hard, a sob catching in her throat. "I wasn't going to let you kill my children."
A sick, poisonous realization exploded in my mind.
*Salvatore.*
My uncle. The man who had sat at my father's right hand. The man who had been pushing for the Barrett alliance since the day my father’s casket went into the ground.
Six years ago, Elena hadn't abandoned me. She had been exiled by my own blood, under threat of death. And while she was running for her life, pregnant with quadruplets, I was drinking myself into a coma, believing she was a mercenary who sold our love for three million dollars.
"Elena," I said, my voice dropping, stripped of all anger, leaving only raw devastation. "I didn't send him."
She scoffed, wiping tears from her cheeks with the back of her woolen mitten. "Of course you'd say that. You’re a Moretti. Lies are your native language."
"Look at me!" I stepped closer, grabbing her shoulders gently. She flinched, but I didn't let go. I held her firmly, looking deep into her eyes. "I never gave Salvatore that ring. I lost it the night before you disappeared. I tore my apartment apart looking for it. Elena... I loved you. I was going to leave the syndicate for you. I had the paperwork drawn up to hand the territory to Salvatore so I could walk away."
Elena stared at me, the air catching in her throat. For a fraction of a second, the iron wall in her eyes cracked. She recognized the sincerity in my voice—the same voice that had whispered promises against her skin six years ago.
"No," she whispered, shaking her head in denial. "No, you're lying. You have to be lying."
Suddenly, the blinding headlights of two black Cadillac Escalades cut through the darkness, screeching to a halt right alongside the cab.
My private security team spilled out of the first SUV, led by Marco, my right-hand man and the only person in Boston I truly trusted with my life. He looked winded, his coat unbuttoned, his hand resting near his concealed firearm.
"Boss!" Marco shouted, rushing over. "Your phone was off. Salvatore is going out of his mind at the conservatory. The Barretts are threatening to pull the port contracts if you don't show up in ten minutes. Senator Barrett is demanding an explanation."
Marco stopped dead in his tracks as he looked from Elena to the four boys peering out of the cab window. His jaw dropped. His eyes darted between me and the quadruplets.
"Holy shit," Marco breathed under his breath. "Dominic... they look..."
"Get them into the Escalade," I commanded Marco, cutting him off before he could say another word on the public street.
"Dominic, no! Don't touch them!" Elena fought against my grip, pounding her fists against my chest. "You can't take them! I will scream, I will call the police—"
"Elena, listen to me carefully," I said, pulling her close, speaking directly into her ear so only she could hear. "If Salvatore finds out you’re alive—if he finds out there are four legitimate Moretti heirs breathing Boston air right now—he won't just threaten you. He will finish what he started six years ago. The Barretts have connections to the state police. You are not safe on this street. You are not safe in this city."
She stopped struggling. The truth in my words was cold and undeniable.
May you like
"They are my sons, Elena," I said softly, brushing a stray snowflake from her forehead. "And no one touches what is mine. Ever again."
***
