Chapter 3 - The Boy at Salvatore’s Table
Gabriel had never seen a house where the ceiling was taller than the buildings he used to sleep behind.
He noticed strange things first.
The heat.
The silence.
The smell of roasted coffee coming from somewhere far beyond the marble foyer.
Mostly the heat.
His fingers hurt as they thawed.
A housekeeper named Rosa wrapped him in three blankets, guided him toward a fireplace, and set down a bowl of chicken soup so large it looked like something a family might share.
Gabriel stared at it.
“You can eat,” Rosa said gently.
He did not move.
She frowned.
“You don’t like chicken?”
“Is it mine?”
Rosa’s mouth parted.
“All of it?”
Her eyes shined instantly.
“Yes, sweetheart. All of it.”
Gabriel picked up the spoon.
Across the room, Salvatore Moretti watched him.
The boy ate too carefully.
Salvatore knew hunger.
He had grown up poor before Moretti money became the kind of money politicians pretended not to know existed.
Hungry children did not eat wildly when they had been hungry long enough.
They rationed.
One spoon.
Pause.
Two spoons.
Pause.
As if somebody might take the bowl away and they needed to make every mouthful last.
Salvatore felt something brutal rise inside his chest.
His son.
His son had learned to ration soup.
Behind him, Vincent lowered his voice.
“You need to think before you believe this.”
Salvatore turned.
Vincent stood beside the library door, arms folded.
He was forty-six, handsome in the polished way of a man who had never been punched enough as a young person. He ran legitimate Moretti shipping operations and several businesses Salvatore preferred regulators to misunderstand.
“Elena’s handwriting,” Salvatore said.
“Handwriting can be copied.”
“The photograph.”
“Photographs prove you slept with her. We knew that already.”
Salvatore’s gaze became lethal.
Vincent lowered his voice further.
“I’m saying someone could be using the boy.”
“An eight-year-old walked nine miles in a storm to manipulate me?”
“Someone sent him.”
“He said nobody did.”
“And children never lie?”
Salvatore looked back at Gabriel.
The boy had finished half the soup.
Then he stopped.
Carefully, he tore a dinner roll in half and slipped one piece beneath the blanket.
Rosa noticed.
So did Salvatore.
“For later?” Salvatore asked.
Gabriel froze.
His eyes dropped.
“Sorry.”
“Why are you apologizing?”
“I wasn’t stealing.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
Gabriel slowly brought the bread back out.
Salvatore crouched across from him.
“You can have ten rolls if you want.”
The child looked suspicious.
“What’s the catch?”
Something stabbed through Salvatore.
“No catch.”
“People say that when there’s a catch.”
Behind Salvatore, Carmine turned away.
Salvatore sat in the chair opposite the boy.
“Elena raised you?”
“For a while.”
“What does that mean?”
Gabriel stared into his soup.
“We moved a lot.”
“Where?”
“Different places.”
“Names.”
Gabriel shrugged.
“Baltimore. Philly. Somewhere in Ohio. Then Queens.”
“Why?”
“Mom said we had to stay invisible.”
Salvatore’s stomach turned.
“What happened six days ago?”
The spoon stopped.
For the first time, Gabriel looked like a child.
Not a messenger.
Not a survivor.
A child.
“She got sick.”
“What kind of sick?”
“Cancer.”
Salvatore looked away.
“She knew?”
Gabriel nodded.
“How long?”
“Long time, I think.”
“And she didn’t go to a hospital?”
“She said hospitals make records.”
Of course she did.
If Elena believed someone was hunting her, medical records could expose her location.
Salvatore stood abruptly.
“Carmine.”
“Yes, boss?”
“Call Dr. Kaplan. I want Gabriel examined here tonight. No hospital records.”
Vincent muttered, “Sal—”
Salvatore turned.
“Say another word about the boy, and I’ll forget we share a mother.”
Vincent stopped.
Gabriel watched everything.
Too closely.
Salvatore noticed.
“What?”
Gabriel hesitated.
“My mom said there were three brothers.”
Every adult in the room went still.
Salvatore pulled a chair closer.
“There are.”
“You. Vincent.”
“Yes.”
“And Dominic.”
Vincent’s eyes flickered.
Salvatore caught it.
Gabriel continued.
“Which one is Dominic?”
Nobody answered immediately.
Then footsteps sounded from the upper corridor.
Polished shoes descended the curved staircase.
Dominic Moretti smiled as he came into view.
At fifty-eight, he was the eldest brother, the family’s public face. He donated to hospitals. Sat on museum boards. Shook hands with governors. Unlike Salvatore, who wore power like armor, Dominic wore it like perfume.
“Apparently,” Dominic said, “we have a visitor.”
Gabriel stopped breathing.
Salvatore saw it.
A tiny reaction.
But unmistakable.
The boy’s hand gripped the blanket until his knuckles whitened.
Dominic approached.
He smiled warmly.
“You must be Gabriel.”
Gabriel leaned backward.
Salvatore stood between them.
Dominic noticed.
His smile remained.
“What’s wrong?”
Gabriel stared at him.
“I know you.”
The room became silent.
Dominic laughed softly.
“I’m afraid we’ve never met.”
Gabriel reached into the inside pocket of the dead woman’s coat.
Salvatore had not realized he still had it.
The boy withdrew something wrapped in cloth.
A silver pendant.
He held it toward Dominic.
The eldest Moretti brother’s smile disappeared.
Gabriel spoke.
“My mother kept this next to her bed.”
Dominic said nothing.
“She said if I ever saw the man wearing the same symbol…”
Gabriel turned the pendant over.
On the back was engraved a black bird surrounded by three stars.
“…I should run.”
Dominic’s right hand moved unconsciously toward the cuff of his shirt.
Salvatore saw the edge of a matching tattoo beneath his sleeve.
Gabriel saw it too.
His voice became a whisper.
“That’s him.”
Dominic’s expression changed.
Not much.
Just enough.
Salvatore stepped forward.
“What did you do to Elena?”
Dominic smiled again.
But this time nobody believed it.
“Careful, little brother.”
May you like
Salvatore’s eyes turned black.
“Wrong answer.”
