“I’m here, baby.”
“He does that with everyone?” Franco’s voice came from the doorway. He looked exhausted, his tie undone.
“No,” she said. “Just me.”
Franco leaned against the frame, a ho:llow look in his eyes. “His biological mother, Sophia, came by today. He scre:amed until he vomited. Tra:uma makes strange choices.”
“That’s a cr:uel way to describe a child,” Alexis countered.
Franco’s gaze dropped. “Maybe I was describing myself.” In that moment, the legend vanished. He wasn’t a don; he was a father who had forgotten how to enter his own son’s heart.
Part 2: The Ghost in the West Wing
A week later, Alessandro began calling her “Mama” as if it were his North Star. Each time he said it in front of Franco, the air in the room grew heavy with old grief.
Alexis found Franco on the balcony one evening, staring at the New York skyline. “He isn’t punishing you, Franco,” she said gently.
“I had a daughter once,” he whispered. “Lucia. She di:ed before her first birthday. Fast. After that, Sophia and I broke. She left when Alessandro was nine months old.” He rolled up his sleeve, revealing roses tattooed among thorns. “Lucia,” he pointed to a name in tiny script.
Alexis traced the ink with her finger. “You loved them. That means they didn’t leave empty.”
Franco froze, caught between the comfort and the da:nger of her touch. The moment was broken by a cry from the monitor. “Go,” he breathed. “He wants you.”
The next day, while playing in the garden, Alexis felt a chill. She looked up and saw a curtain flutter in the west wing—a part of the house supposed to be locked and empty. She told Marco, who looked nervous. “If something feels wrong, tell Mr. LaRosa.”
Alexis decided to handle it herself. At midnight, she crept into the west wing. It smelled of dust and secrets. She followed fresh footprints to an office at the end of the hall. Inside, her heart stopped.
The walls were covered in photos of Alessandro. Timetables. Security routes. Claudia’s household calendar. It wasn’t a memory room—it was a hit list.
A hand sl:ammed over her mouth. A gun barrel pressed into her ribs.
“Men like Franco confuse mercy for leadership,” Claudia hissed in her ear. “They bring girls like you into rooms meant for blo:od.”
“You threw a baby in the trash,” Alexis gasped.
“I corrected an instability.”
Claudia dragged her to Franco’s study, forced a ruby ring into her palm, and smashed her fingers against the desk to leave prints. “Now scre:am,” Claudia whispered. “Or I go upstairs and suffocate him.”
Alexis scre:amed.
Franco burst in, finding Alexis with the ring and Claudia looking “horrified.”
“Search her,” Franco barked. A guard found a surveillance override key in Alexis’s pocket.
“It was planted!” Alexis cried.
Franco looked at her with cold, calculating eyes. For a second, she was back in the alley—the suspect, the stranger. “Put her in restraints,” he ordered.
But then, a blo:od-curdling scre:am ech:oed from upstairs. Alessandro. He was thrashing in Maria’s arms, hysterical. When he saw the handcuffs on Alexis, his face turned purple.
“MAMA! MAMA!”
Franco looked at his son’s te:rror, then at Claudia. “Take them off,” he commanded.
“Don—” Claudia started.
“I said take them off.”
The cuffs fell. Alexis ran to the boy, holding him until his convulsions ceased. Franco stood at the bottom of the stairs, the truth rearranging itself in his mind. He ordered everyone out. Only he and Claudia remained.
Alexis heard one shot. Just one.
Part 3: The Bridge and the Blo:od
By 3:00 a.m., they were fleeing to a safe house. Claudia hadn’t been alone. As the convoy hit the Verrazzano Bridge, the lead SUV vanished in a fireball.
Gunfire shattered their windows. Franco yanked the door open. “Out! South checkpoint! Run!” He shoved a gun into Alexis’s hand.
“I don’t know how to use this!”
“Point and pull! RUN!”
Alexis grabbed Alessandro and bolted through the smoke. Halfway to the lights, a man stepped out with a rifle. Alexis didn’t think. She raised the g:un and fired. The recoil nearly broke her shoulder, but the man went down. She kept pulling the tr:igger until he stopped moving.
Franco grabbed her, dragging her toward the police line. He shoved Alessandro into her arms and turned back to face the oncoming van alone.
The world detonated.
Franco survived—barely.
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