Chapter 1 - The Child at My Gate
“Someone left your baby outside.”
The little girl’s voice trembled beneath the thunder, but she did not lower her eyes.
She stood on the marble steps of my mansion, barefoot and soaked through, holding a newborn wrapped inside a black trash bag. Rain ran through her tangled brown hair and down the dirt on her cheeks. Her arms shook from the weight, yet she protected the child’s face beneath her chin.
I had seen grown men collapse when I opened that door.
She looked seven years old and close to freezing, but she did not step back.
“I do not have a child,” I said.
The baby cried weakly.
The girl tightened her grip.
“Then somebody lied to you.”
Behind me, my guards exchanged glances. Nobody spoke that way to Roman DeLuca and remained standing unless I permitted it.
The girl had no idea who I was.
Or perhaps she knew and had decided the baby mattered more.
Mrs. Harlow hurried into the foyer wearing the red dress she reserved for formal dinners. Her silver hair was pinned perfectly, but the moment she saw the newborn, the color left her face.
“Bring them inside,” she said.
I looked at her.
Mrs. Harlow had worked for my family since before I was born. She did not give orders in front of my men.
That night, she did.
The girl crossed the threshold. Water dripped from her clothes onto the black marble floor. Mrs. Harlow removed the trash bag and discovered a clean blue blanket beneath it.
A sealed envelope was tucked against the baby’s chest.
My name was written across the front.
Roman.
No title.
No surname.
Only three people had ever written my name with that narrow slant.
My mother.
My brother Luca.
And Evelyn Moretti.
My mother died when I was eighteen. Luca was buried after the warehouse bombing twelve years ago.
Evelyn had supposedly died three weeks later.
I tore open the envelope.
Inside were medical records from Saint Adrian’s Research Clinic. Twelve years earlier, after surviving a poisoning that damaged my reproductive system, I had been told I would never father a child. Before the treatment, samples had been collected and frozen.
The clinic later reported that every sample had been destroyed in a fire.
The records in my hand showed otherwise.
One sample had been transferred eight months ago.
The authorization contained my private security code.
Only three people had known it.
Luca.
Evelyn.
And Mrs. Harlow.
I looked at the elderly woman.
She nearly dropped the glass in her hand.
“Where did you find him?” I asked the girl.
“Near the dumpsters outside your wall.”
“Did you see who left him?”
She hesitated.
“Yes.”
Every guard in the foyer became still.
“A woman,” she continued. “She wore a dark coat. She was bleeding.”
“What did she look like?”
“She had black hair and a mark near her eye.”
My heart struck once against my ribs.
Evelyn had carried a thin scar beneath her left eyebrow after an accident during childhood.
I had kissed that scar the night before she disappeared.
The newborn opened his eyes.
Gray blue.
The same unusual color reflected from every mirror I had passed since childhood.
I had survived bullets, knives, poison, and the explosion that killed my brother without allowing my hands to shake.
They shook when that child looked at me.
The girl noticed.
“He makes the same angry face you do.”
“What is your name?”
“Mia.”
“Where are your parents?”
Her expression closed.
“I do not have any.”
Mrs. Harlow touched her shoulder.
The child flinched.
Before I could question her further, a door clicked shut on the second floor.
Mia looked toward the staircase.
Her face changed.
“That is her.”
I followed her gaze.
A shadow moved behind the upper railing.
Mrs. Harlow whispered something beneath her breath.
A name.
Evelyn.
I raised one hand.
Every guard drew a weapon.
“Lock every exit.”
The mansion’s security doors sealed.
The baby began crying harder.
Mia pressed herself against Mrs. Harlow and whispered, “She told me not to let the man upstairs see him.”
I looked toward the dark hallway above us.
“There is no man upstairs.”
Mia shook her head.
May you like
“Yes, there is.”
Continue to the next part: Roman begins searching his own mansion while Mia claims someone has been living above him for weeks.
