Chapter 3 - The Coldest Winter
Alessandro walked over to a concealed safe behind an oil painting of the Amalfi coast. With quick, practiced motions, he entered an eight-digit code and retrieved a thick manila folder, tossing it onto the mahogany desk. It landed with a dull thud, spilling surveillance photographs across the polished surface.
Isabella crept forward, her eyes darting over the glossy 8x10 prints. There she was, walking out of Chicago General Hospital with Sophie bundled in pink fleece. There was a photo of her buying groceries at a corner market. And behind her, in every single frame, was a tall man with a scarred neck wearing a charcoal peacoat—Victor Castillo’s right-hand enforcer.
"Castillo knew about Sophie before I did," Alessandro stated, his jaw grinding with barely suppressed rage. "My uncle, Dominic Moretti, died three months ago. On his deathbed, he confessed to me that my late brother didn't die in a random car crash. It was orchestrated. Dominic warned me that an old debt was coming due, and that Castillo was searching for any living bloodline that could contest the family trust."
Isabella felt the world spinning around her. "I don't care about your family trust! I don't care about your billions, your estates, or your bloody turf wars! I took a bus here in a blizzard tonight because I thought giving you that pendant would break the curse! I thought it would make you leave me alone!"
"The pendant was never a curse, Isabella. It was a beacon," Alessandro said softly, stepping in front of her. His hand reached out again, and this time she didn't flinch away when his thumb gently brushed the peach-fuzz hair on Sophie’s forehead. The child sighed softly in her sleep, opening tiny rosebud lips. "My mother gave that sapphire to my father when he was nothing more than an ambitious dockworker. She told him that whatever man held that stone was bound by honor to protect the woman who wore it. When I placed it in your hands that night, I wasn't just grieving. I was asking you to stay."
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"You were a stranger with a broken soul," Isabella cried, tears finally spilling over her dark eyelashes. "You told me your name was Alex! You told me you managed a freight company! You didn't tell me you were the Don of Chicago! My father warned me about men like you until the day he died. He said the Moretti family was quicksand—once you step in, you never get out."
"Your father was right about the danger," Alessandro confessed, his dark eyes brimming with an uncharacteristic vulnerability. "He was right to fear the shadows. But he was wrong about me. I would tear this entire empire to the ground with my bare hands before I let anyone harm a single hair on your head. Or on hers."
