Chapter 2 - The Reclaiming of June Rose
The mahogany table felt a mile long, yet the air inside the room was so thick it felt as though the walls were physically pressing inward. Harper—no, June Rose—could hear the frantic, uneven breathing of the people she had called her parents for twenty-four years. Daniel and Marlene Keene stood paralyzed, the arrogance they had walked in with draining out of them like cheap wine from a cracked glass.
Dominic Vale did not yell. He didn't have to. The silence he commanded was a lethal weapon, sharpened by decades of absolute authority in the Newark underbelly. He kept his eyes on the tiny locket, his massive thumb gently brushing against the faded photograph of the woman with the dark curls.
"Twenty-four years," Dominic whispered, his voice dangerously soft. "Twenty-four years I spent digging graves across this state, looking for the people who took my wife’s life and walked out of the hospital with my newborn child. I thought it was the Lucchese family. I thought it was a rogue crew from Philly. I never imagined it was two pathetic, debt-ridden cockroaches who couldn't even pay their weekly protection dues."
"Dominic, please," Daniel whimpered, his knees visibly shaking beneath his cheap trousers. "We didn't hurt her. Look at her! She’s alive, she’s healthy. We raised her. We gave her a home."
"You raised her to be a transaction," Dominic hissed, his dark eyes snapping up to lock onto Daniel’s face. The sheer force of his gaze made the older man take a clumsy step backward, bumping into one of the armed guards standing like a stone statue by the exit. "You brought her to my house to sell her body and her labor to clear a gambling debt. Do not speak to me of giving her a home."
Marlene tried to find her voice, her fingers twitching near her thrift-store purse. "The hospital was in chaos that night, Mr. Vale. Your men were shooting in the lobby. Someone threw the baby into a crib near the exit. We... we just took her to keep her safe."
"You took her because you knew who I was, and you thought she was a golden ticket for a rainy day," Dominic corrected coldly. He turned his back on them, walking slowly toward the large arched window that overlooked the manicured courtyard of his estate. "But you got scared. You realized that if I ever found out you had her, I wouldn't just kill you—I would erase your entire lineage from the earth. So you hid her. You changed her name. And you treated her like dirt because every time you looked at her, you saw your own death sentence."
Harper stood completely frozen, her mind spinning into a void. The thrift-store dress. The locked bedroom doors. The constant moving from town to town. Her entire childhood had been an exercise in hiding, not from the world, but from the truth. The people who had starved her of affection, who had told her she was a burden, weren't her parents. They were her kidnappers.
Dominic turned back around, his expression softening instantly as his eyes landed on Harper. The hardened crime boss vanished, replaced by a man looking at a miracle.
"June," he said, his voice cracking slightly on the name. "Step away from them."
Harper looked at Marlene, then at Daniel. For twenty-four years, her survival had depended on obeying their commands. But looking at them now, stripped of their parental authority, they looked small. Pathetic. Dangerous.
She took a slow step forward, away from the Keenes, toward the man with the silver watch and the tired eyes.
"Marco," Dominic commanded, gesturing to the lead guard. "Take the Keenes down to the basement. Keep them comfortable, but do not let them speak to each other. I want every detail of the night they took my daughter recorded. If they lie, remind them of what happens to people who steal from the Vale family."
"No! Harper, tell him! Tell him we loved you!" Marlene screamed as Marco and another broad-shouldered man grabbed her arms, dragging her ruthlessly toward the side door. Daniel didn't even scream; he just wept silently, his loafers scuffing against the polished wood as they were removed from the room.
The heavy door clicked shut. The silence returned, but this time, it was empty of their fear.
May you like
Dominic walked over to Harper, stopping just two feet away. He looked down at her face, his eyes tracing the line of her jaw, the curve of her nose, the identical dark curls that matched the photo in the locket.
"You have your mother’s eyes," he said, a single tear escaping his eye and rolling down his weathered cheek. "I’m sorry it took me so long to find you, June."
