Chapter 6 - THE SHADOW PASSES
Vincent slowly pulled his head back, his eyes locked onto Lily’s small, pale face.
"Are you sure?" Vincent whispered, his raspy voice trembling slightly—a sound that Maria or his enforcers would have sworn was impossible for Vincent Moretti to make.
Lily nodded once, a slow, solemn motion. Her eyes were filled with a quiet, childish fear, but there was no doubt in her expression.
Vincent slowly turned his head to his right.
Beside the dark ceramic coffee mug on the mahogany nightstand stood a row of three silver-framed family photographs.
The first photograph showed a young Vincent standing alongside his late father, Marco Moretti, on the deck of a commercial fishing vessel in Montauk.
The second photograph depicted Vincent and his younger brother, Julian, standing in tailored suits outside the grand opening of the Moretti Financial Center downtown.
The third photograph—a recent image taken eighteen months ago—showed Vincent standing flanked by his three closest, most trusted lieutenants: Dominic, his head of close protection; Anthony, his chief financial advisor; and Marcus, his cousin and second-in-command of the Brooklyn operations.
Vincent’s pale gray eyes moved across the glass frames. They passed over his father. They passed over Julian. They settled directly on one face in the third photograph—a face smiling warmly beside Vincent at a victory dinner.
The camera never tilted to reveal which of the three men Vincent’s eyes were locked onto.
Lily watched him from the duvet, her small hands wringing the ears of her stuffed rabbit as she felt the cold, suffocating rage radiating off the man beside her.
Suddenly, a faint sound echoed from the dark corridor outside the master suite.
Squeak.
It was the microscopic, friction-driven sound of a custom leather shoe pressing against the polished walnut floorboards of the grand hallway forty feet away—a sound so subtle that only a man who lived in perpetual, paranoid silence would ever have caught it.
Vincent’s head snapped toward the three-inch gap of the bedroom door.
In the dim, ambient light filtering from the hallway, a dark human shadow passed smoothly across the vertical opening of the door frame. It moved without a sound, a tall, broad silhouette blocking the distant light of the elevator lobby for a fraction of a second before vanishing into the darkness of the east wing.
Vincent didn't yell. He didn't reach for his gun.
With fluid, silent grace, Vincent reached out with his left arm, pulling Lily gently but protectively against his broad chest, shielding her tiny body behind his ribs while keeping his pale, lethal eyes fixed on the dark doorway.
Vincent leaned down, his voice dropping into a barely audible whisper against Lily’s brown curls.
"How long has this been happening, Lily?"
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Lily didn't need to answer with words. Her wide, terrified eyes, staring back into the dark hallway, gave Vincent the only answer he needed:
It had been happening every single night.
