Chapter 2 - The Woman He Buried Was Still AliveFor several seconds, Dominic couldn't move.
His sister's name echoed through his mind, dragging him back to a night he had spent seven years trying to forget.
Elena Evans had been twenty-four when the warehouse on the Brooklyn waterfront exploded. Dominic had arrived twelve minutes after the first emergency call, only to find the building consumed by flames. Firefighters had searched through the wreckage for hours.
They had recovered a woman's body.
A ring belonging to Elena had been found nearby.
The funeral had been closed-casket.
Dominic had never seen her face again.
Now a little girl sat across from him, holding a fork with both hands, telling him that Elena had promised he would find her.
“Marco,” Dominic said softly.
His bodyguard straightened.
“Clear the restaurant.”
The manager protested until Marco showed him the expression that had ended countless arguments. Within two minutes, every customer and employee had been escorted outside.
Dominic locked the private dining room door himself.
Then he returned to Ellie.
She had pushed her plate away. Her eyes were fixed on the pendant lying inside the plastic bag.
“Are you mad at me?” she asked.
The question nearly undid him.
“No.”
“Because I told you my mommy's name?”
“No, sweetheart.”
“Are you going to send me away?”
Dominic crouched beside her chair.
“Look at me, Ellie.”
She hesitated before meeting his eyes.
“You haven't done anything wrong. Do you understand?”
She nodded, though he could tell she wasn't convinced.
He held out his hand, letting her decide whether to take it.
She took it immediately.
That small act of trust frightened him more than any enemy ever had.
“Marco,” Dominic said without turning. “Tell me everything.”
Marco glanced at Ellie.
“Your sister contacted me three months before the fire.”
Dominic's head snapped around.
“What?”
“I didn't tell you because she asked me not to. She said someone was watching her, and she needed help leaving the city.”
“You knew Elena was alive?”
“No. I knew she'd contacted me. By the time I reached the address she gave me, she was gone.”
Dominic stood.
“You let me bury an empty hope while you sat on information about my sister?”
“I searched for her, boss. Every hospital, every shelter, every border crossing I could reach. I found nothing. Then the warehouse burned, and I believed—”
“You believed what they wanted you to believe.”
Marco lowered his eyes.
Ellie slowly slipped off her chair.
“Please don't fight.”
Both men stopped.
She stood between them, gripping the sleeves of her oversized coat.
“My mommy said grown-ups sometimes shout when they're scared. But shouting doesn't bring people back.”
Dominic looked down at her.
“Your mother told you that?”
Ellie nodded.
“She used to say that when she had nightmares.”
“About what?”
“The fire.”
Dominic felt the room grow colder.
“How old were you when it happened?”
“I don't know. Mommy said I was a baby. We moved a lot after that. Sometimes we stayed in houses. Sometimes we stayed in places where people didn't want us.”
“Did you go to school?”
“For a little while.”
“Where is your mother now?”
Ellie looked at the floor.
“She went to find medicine.”
The answer came so quietly that Dominic almost missed it.
“When?”
“Three nights ago.”
“And she hasn't come back?”
Ellie shook her head.
“She told me to stay behind the thrift store because it was safer there. She said if someone asked about the moon, I should say I didn't know anything.”
Dominic looked at the pendant.
“What moon?”
Ellie pointed at the crescent.
“This one. Mommy said the moon would lead me home.”
A sick realization settled over him.
Elena had spent years keeping this child hidden, and now both of them had disappeared.
Dominic turned to Marco.
“Find every hospital within fifty miles. Check police reports, emergency admissions, unidentified patients, everything. Quietly.”
Marco was already dialing.
“And find every record connected to the warehouse fire. I want the original evidence, not the convenient version the authorities gave me.”
“Yes, boss.”
Dominic looked at Ellie again.
“Do you know your last name?”
“Mommy called me Ellie.”
“Ellie what?”
She frowned, concentrating.
“Sometimes she called me Ellie Evans when she thought nobody was listening.”
Dominic's heart pounded.
“Did she ever tell you who your father was?”
Ellie shook her head.
“She said he was a good man who had forgotten how to be happy.”
Dominic turned away.
Because only one person had ever spoken about him that way.
Elena.
He pressed a hand over his mouth, struggling to steady his breathing.
Then Ellie tugged gently at his jacket.
“Daddy?”
He looked at her.
“Can I ask something?”
“Anything.”
“If my mommy comes back, will you let me go with her?”
The question cut straight through him.
“Yes,” Dominic said, forcing the words past his throat. “If she comes back, I'll make sure you can be with her.”
Ellie considered this carefully.
“Even if you like me?”
“Even then.”
She nodded, accepting his answer with the solemnity of someone who had learned never to expect too much.
Dominic crouched and straightened the collar of her coat.
“But until we find her, you're staying somewhere safe. Nobody gets to send you back onto the street.”
For the first time since entering the restaurant, Ellie looked relieved.
Then Marco's phone rang.
He listened for five seconds before his expression changed.
“Boss,” he said, voice suddenly low. “We've found a hospital admission from two nights ago. Woman, approximately thirty-one. Burn scars on her left hand. She gave a false name before she lost consciousness.”
Dominic grabbed the phone.
“What's the name on the admission?”
Marco hesitated.
“Anna Reed.”
“That's not my sister's name.”
“No. But there's something else.”
Marco turned the screen toward him.
A photograph showed a woman lying unconscious in a hospital bed. Her hair had gone gray at the temples. A scar crossed her cheek, and one hand was wrapped in bandages.
But her face was unmistakable.
Dominic knew those eyes.
He had watched them sparkle over birthday cakes. He had watched them fill with tears at their father's funeral. He had seen them staring back at him in the last photograph they ever took together.
“Elena,” he whispered.
The woman was alive.
Dominic started toward the door.
Then Marco caught his arm.
“Boss, there's a guard outside her room. Our people didn't put him there.”
Dominic's expression became murderous.
“Who did?”
Marco's phone vibrated again.
A message had arrived from an unknown number.
It contained one sentence and a photograph of Ellie sitting inside the restaurant.
WE KNOW YOU FOUND THE GIRL. BRING HER TO THE OLD WATERFRONT WAREHOUSE BEFORE MIDNIGHT, OR YOUR SISTER DIES.
Dominic stared at the photograph.
Someone had been watching them.
Someone had followed Ellie.
And whoever sent the message had just made the biggest mistake of his life.
Dominic handed Ellie to Marco's protection detail and walked into the corridor.
“Call every man we have,” he ordered. “Nobody touches that hospital room without my permission.”
“What about the warehouse?”
Dominic looked toward the window, where the morning sunlight fell across New York like a blade.
“I'm going to discover who thought he could use my family against me.”
May you like
He paused.
“And then I'm going to make him wish he'd never learned our name.”
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