Chapter 3 - BLOOD AND ECHOES
The convoy moved through the northern suburbs of Chicago under the veil of twilight.
I had abandoned the mansion. Once a stronghold has been breached by tactical teams with blueprints, it is no longer a fortress; it is a tomb waiting for its occupants. We rode in three armored Suburbans, stripped of all GPS tracking units, navigating the back roads toward my private compound on the shores of Lake Michigan near Kenosha—a property purchased under an untraceable shell corporation twenty years ago, known only to me and my personal driver, Paulie.
Inside the rear cabin of the lead Suburban, the atmosphere was thick with silence.
The four boys sat across from me on the wide bench seat. Mateo sat on the far left, his fingers intertwined with Leo’s. Luca pressed his nose against the tinted, bulletproof glass, watching the streetlamps blur past in streaks of amber. Dante, the quietest of the four, sat with his chin tucked into his chest, clutching a worn stuffed bear whose ear had been sewn back on with black thread.
"Why do you look like us?" Luca suddenly asked, turning away from the window. His voice was lighter than Mateo’s, carrying a curious, lilting pitch that pierced through the hum of the engine.
Paulie’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror for a fraction of a second before darting back to the asphalt.
"You look like me," I corrected quietly. "Not the other way around."
"Elena said our father was an eagle," Leo said, his dark brows drawing together in a fierce little frown that was so unmistakably my own expression it knocked the air from my chest. "He flew away because the crows wanted his feathers."
A bitter smile touched my lips. "Elena tells very poetic stories."
"Are you an eagle?" Mateo asked. He hadn't let go of my face with his eyes since we left the panic room. He studied me with an analytical weight that belonged to a seasoned general, not a four-year-old child.
"No," I told him honestly. "I'm the man who shoots the crows."
Mateo considered this for a long moment, then nodded once, satisfied with the answer. He leaned back against the leather seat and let out a small sigh. "Good. The crows make too much noise."
Beside me, Elena sat stiffly, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. Her gaze kept darting to the dashboard clock.
"Alejandro," she said under her breath, speaking in Italian so the boys wouldn't catch the nuances. *"Roberto will know the raid failed within thirty minutes. When his men don't report in, he will mobilize the Five Families. He will claim you have gone mad and violated the Commission's peace."*
*"Let him mobilize,"* I replied in the same tongue, my gaze never leaving my sons. *"The Commission is a council of old men who eat from my hand. They tolerate Roberto because he manages the shipping docks and the union payoffs, but they fear me because they know I am the only one among them who doesn't care about money."*
*"They will care when they learn about the boys,"* she warned. *"Four legitimate Moretti sons mean the family line is unbroken. It means none of Roberto's nephews will ever touch the throne. They will burn the state down to find them."*
*"Then I will give them the ashes."*
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees, closing the distance between myself and the four boys. They didn't shrink back. Despite the guns, despite the blood they had seen on my boots, despite the terrifying speed with which their small world had been upended, they watched me with an innate, primal trust that defied all logic.
It was blood calling to blood.
"Mateo," I said.
The boy straightened. "Yes, sir?"
"Don't call me sir."
"What do I call you?"
The word caught in my throat. For twenty years, men had addressed me as *Don Moretti*, *Boss*, *Signore*, or simply lowered their eyes and backed out of the room. I had buried my father, my mother, and my wife. I had resigned myself to being an empty vessel of violence, an instrument designed to maintain order in a jungle of predators until someone younger and faster put a bullet in the back of my skull.
"Papà," I said. It came out rough, scraped against the gravel of my soul. "You call me Papà."
Lucas, the smallest, tilted his head. He looked down at his shoes, then up at me, a shy, tentative smile curling the corner of his mouth. "Papà has big boots."
A sound escaped my chest—a short, broken laugh that startled even Paulie in the front seat.
"Yes, Lucas," I said, reaching out to gently tap the tip of his nose with my finger. "Big boots. And they are going to crush every single person who ever made your mother cry."
The car turned off the highway, entering the winding, tree-lined lane that led toward the secluded shoreline of the lake. The high pine trees blocked out the moonlight, plunging the cabin into shadow.
In the dark, I felt a small, warm hand slip into my open palm.
It was Dante. He hadn't said a word since I found them in the dining room. But his little fingers curled around my thumb, gripping with surprising strength, his worn stuffed bear tucked securely beneath his other arm.
I closed my hand over his, holding him with a gentleness I hadn't known my scarred, calloused fingers were capable of.
May you like
Sofia had wanted to keep them safe from me. She had thought my darkness would swallow them whole. But she had forgotten who I was before the war turned me into a phantom. She had forgotten that a wolf does not abandon his cubs to the jackals.
***
