Chapter 2 - The Contract In Blood
""I don't know who he is!"" I cried out, stepping back until my spine struck the closed door. The cold brass knob dug into my lower back. ""I swear on my mother’s grave, Mrs. Sartori! I grew up in foster homes across northern New Jersey. I worked at a diner in Secaucus until it burned down. I met a man four years ago—he called himself Thomas, he was an apprentice carpenter, he stayed in my apartment for three weeks and disappeared before I even knew I was pregnant! I have never met Matteo Sartori in my entire life!""
Rosalind’s piercing hazel eyes studied my face, dissecting every micro-twitch of my eyelids, the frantic flutter of the pulse point at my throat. She had spent forty years married to a don; she could spot a lie through ten layers of concrete. Finally, her shoulders eased by a fraction of an inch.
""Sit down, Nell,"" she ordered, gesturing to a velvet armchair.
My legs gave out. I collapsed into the seat, burying my face in my hands. ""Please just let me take Poppy and leave. We’ll pack our duffel bag and catch the noon train to Philadelphia. We won't say a word about this place.""
""You are going nowhere,"" Rosalind replied coldly, pulling a heavy ledger from her safe. ""At seven this morning, I had Matteo's chief physician run a rapid saliva swab taken from the gray stuffed rabbit your daughter left behind on his bed. Along with the hair follicles retrieved from Matteo’s pillow.""
A cold dread flooded my veins. ""What did you do?""
""I own three genetic research laboratories in Cambridge, child. A priority sequence takes two hours when you own the machines."" She slid a sealed white folder across the blotter. ""Matteo is not Poppy's father. But do you know who is?""
I stared at the envelope, terrified to touch it. ""Who?""
""Julian Sartori,"" Rosalind whispered, the name dropping like lead into the air. ""My younger son. Matteo's brother. The boy who was supposed to take over our shipping lines before he vanished four years ago under an alias.""
The breath abandoned my lungs entirely. The shy, gentle carpenter who had bought me cherry pastries and fixed my broken screen door... the man whose laughter used to echo in my cramped studio apartment before he walked out into the rain and never returned.
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""Julian is dead, Nell,"" Rosalind continued, her voice trembling with a mother's ancient grief. ""His body was pulled from the East River three years ago. The Romano syndicate murdered him because they thought he was Matteo. But before Julian died, he told his brother everything. Matteo searched for you for eighteen months, but your records had been wiped clean by whoever was hunting Julian. Matteo wasn't ambushed randomly on Route 9W. He was driving to a foster home registry in upstate New York because he finally found a lead on you.""
She leaned in, her gaze burning into mine. ""Poppy is the only blood Julian left behind in this world. And Matteo drove himself into a concrete barrier trying to bring her home. Now, my son is dying, Nell. The doctors want to pull life support by Friday to satisfy the board of our holding company. Unless you take your daughter back into that room.""
