Chapter 5 - A GHOST IN THE BEDROOM
The chill in the narrow corridor deepened. Nathan raised a hand, his large palm hovering over Lily’s trembling shoulder, hesitating before gently resting against her back to steady her shaking frame.
Then, from deep within the darkened bedroom, cutting through the child’s muffled sobs, a voice drifted through the wood.
It was weak, thin, and raspy from a dry, persistent cough, carrying the faint, melodic lilt of an accent Nathan had not heard in a decade.
“Nate?”
The single syllable struck Nathan Moretti like an armor-piercing round to the chest.
The Chicago mob boss, a man who had faced down rival machine guns without blinking, went completely, utterly rigid. The air left his lungs in a silent, stunned gasp. His dark eyes widened, his pupils dilating in the dim hallway light.
Nate.
Nobody called him Nate.
His enemies called him Moretti. His capos called him Boss. The press called him an untouchable industrialist. Only one person in forty years of life had ever shortened his name to that gentle, breathless whisper—and she had been dead, burned out of his memory and buried beneath ten years of cold Chicago rain.
Lily froze, her tears stopping mid-gasp, her small hands loosening their grip on his coat sleeve.
Nathan didn't push the girl aside. He reached past her with infinite, terrifying slowness, his fingers wrapping around the cold brass doorknob.
He turned the latch. The lock gave way with a soft, hollow click.
Nathan pushed the door open.
The bedroom was small, freezing, and shadowed. The only window was covered by an old wool blanket pinned to the frame, blocking the view of the alley outside, allowing only a pale, diffuse amber light to seep around the edges.
In the center of the room sat a narrow iron-frame cot.
Lying beneath a thin, faded quilt was a woman.
She wore a simple pale cotton nightgown that hung loosely around her hollow collarbones. Her chestnut-brown hair was splayed across a flat, lumpy pillow, damp with the cold sweat of a breaking fever. Her face was terribly thin, her cheekbones sharp and pale, but beneath the ravages of exhaustion and chronic illness lay a breathtaking, unforgettable beauty—the delicate, aristocratic features, the soft curve of the lips, and the large, intelligent slate-gray eyes.
Sarah Bennett.
Nathan’s breath caught in his throat, a sharp, ragged sound that scraped against the quiet.
Ten years ago, Sarah Bennett had been the only clean thing in his violent world. She was an art student from Evanston, gentle, fierce, and entirely untainted by the blood that paid for his family’s empire. He had loved her with an obsessive, protective devotion that terrified his rivals. And then, during the bloody winter war of 2014, when car bombs turned Michigan Avenue into a war zone, Sarah had vanished. Her apartment was cleared, her phone disconnected, and a forged suicide note left in her wake. Nathan had spent millions hunting her shadow, eventually believing his father’s enemies had put her in the river.
She had not been in the river.
She had been here. Ten miles from his penthouse. Living in the freezing dark of a tenement he owned, sending her seven-year-old daughter to sew overcoats for fifty cents.
Sarah turned her head slowly on the pillow. When her gray eyes locked onto his towering silhouette in the doorway, a profound, agonizing mixture of terror, relief, and devastating sorrow washed over her gaunt face.
May you like
A tear slipped from the corner of her eye, tracking through the cold sweat on her cheek.
“You found us,” Sarah whispered, her voice barely more than a dry rustle of leaves.
