Chapter 2 - The Fire in the Alley
The air in the children’s clothing store had turned electric. Serena moved like a frantic bird, sweeping into the coloring corner where the three five-year-olds were sprawled across a low table, surrounded by blue and red crayons.
“Mommy?” the serious boy—Leo—asked, looking up with his piercing blue eyes. “Are we going home now? Ava took all the green crayons.”
“I didn’t take them, he dropped them!” Ava shot back, her hand firmly planted on her hip.
The third child, Luca, was quietly staring at Rocco, who stood at the entrance of the nook. The little boy reached up and adjusted his collar, unknowingly mimicking the exact gesture Rocco had used ten seconds earlier.
“Collect your things, sweethearts,” Serena said, her hands shaking as she zipped up their light jackets. “We are going out the back way.”
“Serena,” Rocco said gently, kneeling down so he was at eye level with the three little faces staring at him.
Leo narrowed his eyes. “Are you the man from the coffee place? Why is that big guy standing outside watching the door?”
Rocco looked into his son’s eyes—his own eyes—and felt a profound, crushing ache in his chest. “My name is Rocco,” he said softly. “I’m a… friend of your mother’s. I’m going to make sure you all get home safe today.”
Ava looked him up and down with absolute authority. “You have dirty shoes. Mommy says people with dirty shoes shouldn't walk on clean rugs.”
A small, genuine smile touched Rocco’s lips for the first time in half a decade. “I’ll be sure to clean them, little princess.”
“Boss,” Dante called out from the glass storefront. “They’re in the corridor. Three minutes out.”
“Take the service stairs,” Rocco ordered, standing up and pulling a heavy silver compact pistol from his shoulder holster, concealing it inside his coat pocket. “Serena, stay between Dante and me. Keep the children close.”
They moved out through the back stockroom, past bewildered sales associates and stacks of shoe boxes, bursting through a heavy steel door into the cold, concrete service alley behind the shopping center. The Boston winter air bit into Rocco’s face, sharp and smelling of wet asphalt and exhaust fumes.
At the end of the alley, blocking the street exit, sat a black Cadillac Escalade.
The driver’s side door opened, and a tall, silver-haired man in a tailored camel coat stepped out. It was Dr. Aris—the family physician who had served Beatrice Duca for thirty years. Behind him, two thick-necked security guards stepped into the alley, their hands tucked deep inside their coats.
“Rocco,” Dr. Aris said, his voice smooth, calculated, and devoid of warmth. “Your mother received a notification from your tracking detail. She was concerned for your safety when she heard you were in this part of town.”
Rocco stepped forward, positioning his body as a human shield in front of Serena and the triplets.
“Did she?” Rocco asked, his voice deathly calm. “Or was she concerned that I might find the three human beings she ordered you to kill five years ago, Aris?”
Dr. Aris’s eyes flicked past Rocco, landing on Serena and the three terrified children huddled behind her. A faint, slick sweat broke out on the old doctor’s forehead.
“Rocco, you don't understand the broader picture,” Aris said quickly, taking half a step back toward his vehicle. “Donna Beatrice was preserving the stability of the enterprise. The Moretti alliance saved our docks in Rotterdam. A marriage to a girl with no lineage would have destroyed us—”
Before Aris could finish his sentence, Rocco closed the distance between them in three terrifying strides.
He didn't draw his gun. He grabbed Aris by the throat with one hand, slamming the older man against the hood of the Escalade so hard the metal buckled. The two security guards reached inside their jackets, but Dante and Vitale instantly drew their weapons, aiming directly at their heads.
“Don’t even think about it,” Dante growled.
Rocco leaned down, his face inches from Aris’s pale, gasping face.
“You put a hand on my wife,” Rocco whispered, his voice vibrating with absolute, unfiltered rage. “You brought a poison into my home. And for five years, you let me believe she walked away from me.”
“It… it was your mother’s orders!” Aris choked out, clutching at Rocco’s iron grip. “She paid me… she threatened my family!”
“Where are the original medical records?” Rocco growled, tightening his grip until Aris’s eyes bulged. “The real ones. The proof that my mother faked the fertility panel and ordered the chemical termination.”
“In… in my safe,” Aris gasped. “At the Brookline clinic… private server… password is in my coat pocket!”
Rocco reached into Aris’s coat, pulled out a encrypted flash drive attached to a leather lanyard, and shoved the suffocating doctor onto the freezing pavement.
“If I ever see your face in Massachusetts again,” Rocco said, staring down at the groveling doctor, “I won't use my hands. Dante, clear the road.”
Dante kicked the Escalade’s side mirror, shattering it, and signaled for Rocco’s armored SUV to pull up from the street.
May you like
Rocco turned back to Serena. She was holding Leo and Luca by their hands, while Ava was clinging tightly to her skirt. All three children were staring at Rocco with wide, bewildered eyes.
“Get in,” Rocco said softly, holding the heavy door of his armored vehicle open. “You’re coming home.”
