Chapter 1 - The Father With No Face
“How long?”
Dr. Elena Maren did not look away from Adrian Moretti.
That was one reason he trusted her.
Most people lowered their eyes when he became angry.
Elena never had.
“Without treatment?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“I can’t give you a countdown.”
Adrian stared at the white hospital ceiling.
His left shoulder was wrapped beneath fresh dressings where a bullet had passed through muscle three nights earlier. The surgeons had been almost irritatingly cheerful about the wound.
No artery.
No lung.
No bone.
Lucky.
The heart was different.
Elena placed the rhythm strip on the rolling table beside him.
“You have arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy with documented ventricular arrhythmia,” she said. “Your family history makes this more concerning. Your father died suddenly at forty-five.”
“I remember.”
“You’re thirty-four.”
“I can count.”
“Then count this too. Medication helps. An implantable cardioverter-defibrillator can protect you from some lethal rhythms. Neither gives you permission to go back to the life you were living before the shooting.”
Adrian looked toward the window.
Manhattan was gray beneath rain.
“What life is that?”
Elena gave him a flat stare.
“The one where men shoot at you outside restaurants.”
He almost smiled.
Almost.
Then the door opened.
Vincent Russo entered wearing yesterday’s dark suit.
At forty-two, Vincent had been beside Adrian longer than almost anyone still alive.
Eleven years.
Too many funerals.
Too many closed-door meetings.
Too many nights spent pretending the Moretti organization was a business simply because several of its companies filed ordinary tax returns.
Vincent waited until Elena left.
Then locked the door.
“Volkov?”
Adrian asked.
“Most likely.”
“Most likely is not proof.”
“We have a car on Mulberry. One shooter’s face appears on a traffic camera. He has ties to Dimitri’s people.”
“Police?”
“Working it.”
“Federal?”
“Also interested.”
Adrian looked at him.
“You sound unhappy.”
“I don’t enjoy federal interest.”
“Neither do I.”
Vincent sat.
For several seconds he said nothing.
That was unusual.
“What?”
Vincent reached into his inside jacket pocket.
He removed a folded piece of paper.
Not a report.
Construction paper.
Purple crayon.
Green grass.
Yellow house.
A woman with brown hair.
A little girl.
And beside them, a tall gray figure.
No eyes.
No mouth.
No hair.
No face.
Adrian stopped breathing.
“Where did you get that?”
“Sarah’s daycare contact mentioned Lily’s class did family drawings.”
“You have a daycare contact?”
“Not employee. One of our security people knows a parent.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Vincent leaned back.
“You told me to keep eyes on them after the shooting.”
“From distance.”
“This came through conversation, not inside access.”
Adrian looked at drawing again.
The little girl had written something in purple beneath the blank figure.
Three letters.
DAD.
“A man with no face,” Vincent said quietly. “Teacher asked Lily who he was.”
Adrian’s thumb pressed against the paper.
“What did she say?”
“She said, ‘My daddy is somewhere but Mommy says he can’t come home.’”
Adrian closed his eyes.
Sarah had never promised to lie.
That was one of the reasons he still trusted her.
Three years earlier, Sarah Caldwell had sat across from him in a private lawyer’s office while Lily was six weeks old.
“You do not get to visit secretly,” she had told him.
“I can protect you.”
“You are the danger.”
“I would never hurt her.”
“I know. Your enemies would.”
He had wanted to argue.
Could not.
At the time, two men connected to Adrian’s father’s old organization had already been arrested.
A rival had set fire to a Moretti warehouse.
An assistant district attorney had publicly described Adrian as “a central figure in a violent criminal network.”
Sarah was right.
So Adrian stayed away.
Mostly.
He paid no informal cash under tables.
Through lawyers, he funded a separate child-support account Sarah could draw from for Lily’s documented needs.
Sarah accepted only enough to cover childcare, insurance, and future education savings.
No control attached.
No visitation agreement.
No paternity acknowledgment filed yet.
He watched from across streets sometimes.
A mistake.
A selfish one.
Lily’s first day at daycare.
Her second birthday.
One afternoon when she dropped a stuffed rabbit outside a grocery store and Sarah doubled back to find it.
He told himself that standing fifty yards away was safer than being seen.
Now Lily had drawn him without a face.
Vincent said:
“There’s more.”
Adrian did not look up.
“Volkov’s people are moving.”
“Where?”
“Red Hook. Queens. Two bookmakers we used to share access to have switched sides.”
“I asked about Lily.”
Vincent hesitated.
That was enough.
“Say it.”
“One of our guys spotted the same black SUV twice near Sarah’s neighborhood.”
Adrian’s head snapped up.
“When?”
“Yesterday afternoon and this morning.”
“You waited until now?”
“We couldn’t confirm.”
“License?”
“Stolen plate.”
“Occupants?”
“Unknown.”
Adrian pushed the blanket away.
Pain tore across his shoulder.
The monitor accelerated.
Vincent stood.
“Boss.”
“Get Sarah on the phone.”
“You need to stay in bed.”
“Get Sarah.”
Vincent reached for his phone.
Adrian’s monitor began chirping.
Elena returned immediately.
“What are you doing?”
“Leaving.”
“No.”
“I have something to handle.”
“You have an unstable ventricular rhythm, a bullet wound, and a talent for making bad decisions.”
“My daughter may be under surveillance.”
Elena stopped.
She knew about Lily only as a medical-history question Adrian had finally answered that morning.
“You have a daughter?”
“Three.”
“And you’re just telling me?”
“Not medically relevant until now.”
“It is medically relevant if this condition has a genetic component.”
Adrian froze.
He had spent three years thinking only about bullets.
Never chromosomes.
Elena stepped closer.
“You need electrophysiology consultation. Genetic counseling. Treatment. And if you have a pathogenic variant, your daughter may eventually need age-appropriate evaluation.”
Adrian sat very still.
His world narrowed again.
Enemies outside.
A failing electrical system inside his chest.
A daughter drawing a blank where his face should be.
Vincent’s phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
Then looked at Adrian.
“Sarah isn’t picking up.”
“Call again.”
Vincent did.
No answer.
Then another phone began vibrating.
Vincent’s work line.
He checked the screen.
A photograph had arrived from an unknown number.
He opened it.
Lily stood outside her daycare wearing a red coat and holding Sarah’s hand.
Across the bottom:
YOU HID HER WELL.
May you like
Adrian’s heart monitor erupted into a warning tone.
Continue to the next chapter: Volkov had found Lily, Sarah was not answering her phone, and Adrian’s first attempt to become a father would begin with a decision he had spent his entire criminal life avoiding—whether to call the police before calling his own men.
