Chapter 6 - A Mother’s Fiercest Shield
The Moretti estate on the Upper East Side was an impenetrable fortress of limestone, bullet-resistant glass, and unobtrusive security gates.
Inside, the atmosphere was luxurious yet strangely sterile. High ceilings of carved plaster, priceless oil paintings, and polished herringbone floors stretched in every direction. Staff moved like phantoms, preparing hot soup, dry clothes, and fresh tea within minutes of their arrival.
Lily was immediately enchanted. After changing into a warm oversized sweater that belonged to Julie, she sat on the massive velvet sofa in the grand salon, happily dipping buttery bread into chicken broth while Buster, an older retired Belgian Malinois that served as Leo’s personal companion, laid his massive head across her small knees.
"He's a big puppy!" Lily giggled, scratching the dog behind his ears.
Across the room, standing beside a roaring limestone fireplace, Naomi paced like a caged tigress. She had refused to change out of her damp clothes, clutching a porcelain mug of black coffee like a weapon.
"You're tracking my phone," Naomi accused, glaring at Leo as he walked into the salon after changing into a crisp black shirt.
"I put a security geofence around this entire city block," Leo corrected smoothly, taking a seat in a leather wingback chair opposite her. "No one enters within three hundred yards without facial recognition clearance."
"How long do you expect to keep us prisoners here?"
"You are guests, Naomi. The doors are unlocked from the inside."
"Don't play word games with me!" she snapped, lowering her voice as she glanced toward Lily and Julie. "Valenti called you twenty minutes ago. That wasn't a coincidence, Leo. Someone inside your network saw you pull up to Mercer Gallery. Someone saw you put a four-year-old child in your car."
Leo looked at her, a faint flicker of admiration breaking through his stern facade. "You always were smarter than most of my board members."
"I have to be smart! I'm a mother!" she spat. "A mother whose life you just threw into a lion's den! What do you want, Leo? Custody? Do you want to take her away to raise her as some cold, calculating corporate heir who looks down on normal people?"
Leo set his crystal glass down on the side table with a sharp click. He rose to his feet and crossed the room, stopping inches from where she stood.
"I don't want to change a single thing about her," Leo said, his voice raw with sudden vulnerability. "She is kind. She is fearless. She looked at me on that plane and asked if I lie, and when I looked at her, I saw you. Every scrap of light I thought I lost five years ago was sitting right there in seat 3B."
Naomi looked away, her jaw trembling. "Don't do this, Leo."
"Do what? Tell you the truth?" He reached out, his knuckles brushing gently against the hollow of her cheek. Naomi shivered, fighting every instinct in her body that screamed to lean into his touch. "For five years, I thought you abandoned me because you discovered the blood on my hands. I thought you took fifty thousand dollars and laughed behind my back while I buried my father."
"I loved you!" Naomi cried out, the truth tearing through her lips before she could stop it. The words echoed off the vaulted ceiling, hanging between them like a shattered crystal.
Across the room, Julie quietly led Lily toward the adjacent library, closing the heavy oak double doors to give them privacy.
Naomi’s breath hitched, her eyes burning with angry tears. "I loved you, Leo. In Florence, I thought you were just a man who carried too much weight. I would have stood by you through anything. But your uncle showed me pictures of you dining with syndicate heiresses while I was starving in an apartment with no heat. He told me you considered me a cheap vacation toy."
Leo closed his eyes, a muscle leaping in his temple as sheer fury waged war against his grief. When he opened them again, his silver eyes burned with an icy resolve.
"Tonight, Dominic pays for every lie he ever fed you," Leo said.
May you like
Before Naomi could reply, the lights in the grand salon flickered once, twice, and then plunged into total darkness.
The emergency backup red lights snapped on instantly, bathing the room in crimson shadows. Outside, the sharp, rhythmic crack of suppressed gunfire echoed across the limestone courtyard.
