Chapter 4 - The Confession in the Nursery
Dr. Aris Thorne did not look like a monster.
At fifty-five, with thinning silver hair, wire-rimmed reading glasses, and a tailored charcoal suit that smelled faintly of expensive cologne and antiseptic, he looked like a man who belonged on a university board or a philanthropic foundation.
Except for the fact that his hands were cuffed behind his back, his lip was split, and two of Thomas Russo’s enforcers were holding him upright by his elbows as they shoved him through the double doors of the master suite.
Thorne stumbled across the Persian rug, his glasses sliding down his nose. When he caught sight of Rocco standing beside the fireplace, his knees buckled.
“Rocco—Mr. Moretti—please,” Thorne choked out, his voice trembling with hysterical panic. “There’s been a terrible misunderstanding. Valentina—Mrs. Moretti—she pressured me, she threatened me, she said—”
“Shut your mouth,” Thomas snarled, giving the doctor a sharp shove that forced him down onto his knees on the floor.
Rocco didn't move. He stood with his hands resting casually in his trouser pockets, looking down at the physician as if he were an insect crawling across a polished floor.
“Aris,” Rocco said softly. “Do you know what room this is?”
Thorne’s eyes darted wildly around the vast, luxurious suite, finally landing on the mahogany crib by the hearth. He swallowed hard, his throat working convulsively. “It’s... it’s the master bedroom.”
“It’s the nursery,” Rocco corrected him. “We spent six months designing it five years ago. My wife—the woman you conspired with—picked out the wallpaper. Imported silk from France. Little painted stars on the ceiling that glow in the dark.”
Thorne whimpered, pressing his forehead against the floorboards. “I’m sorry. I was heavily in debt. The online poker debts—they were going to kill me, Rocco. Valentina offered me a way out. She had access to the maternity ward oversight accounts—”
“Get up,” Rocco interrupted.
Thorne hesitated. One of the enforcers grabbed him by the collar of his suit jacket and hauled him to his feet like a rag doll.
“Look at the child in that crib,” Rocco commanded, pointing a finger toward the bassinet.
Thorne turned his head slowly, his eyes widening in terror as he looked down at the sleeping infant. “He... he was supposed to be delivered to the Zurich contact. Why is he here?”
“Because your courier is an idiot, and a little eight-year-old girl with more courage than everyone in this room combined found him in the trash,” Rocco said.
Thorne opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.
“Now,” Rocco continued, stepping closer until he was standing directly over the doctor, “let’s talk about the other child. Five years ago. October fourteenth. My firstborn son. You told me he died of respiratory complications during delivery.”
Thorne’s face turned the color of curdled milk. His eyes darted toward the door, as if hoping for a rescue that would never come.
“Well?” Rocco prompted, his voice dropping into a lethal purr. “Did he die, Aris? Or did my wife decide she didn't want the burden of raising a Moretti heir while she was planning her exit strategy?”
“He... he didn't die,” Thorne whispered, the words dragging out of him like teeth being pulled without anesthesia.
Across the room, Thomas Russo’s hand tightened instinctively around his holster.
“Where is he?” Rocco demanded, his hands gripping Thorne’s lapels with enough force to lift the doctor onto his tiptoes. “Tell me where my son is, or I swear to God I will dismantle your entire family tree, brick by brick, until there is nothing left of your name to write on a tombstone.”
“He was sold!” Thorne sobbed, tears streaming down his face as he sagged against Rocco’s grip. “To a shipping magnate in Marseille! A man named Jean-Luc Laurent! He couldn't have children of his own, and Valentina wanted a clean break from the Moretti bloodline without leaving a body behind! The adoption papers were forged through a shell bank in Geneva!”
Rocco stared at him. The rage that had been burning in his chest like white-hot phosphorus suddenly crystallized into something clear, cold, and absolute.
Five years of grief. Five years of manufactured mourning. Five years of sleeping in a tomb of his own making, all because the woman he married viewed his children as pawns in a game of domestic escape.
“Thomas,” Rocco said quietly, letting go of Thorne’s jacket.
“Boss?”
“Book a private flight to Marseille for tomorrow morning. Notify our maritime contacts in the Mediterranean. Tell Jean-Luc Laurent that an old friend is coming to collect a stolen package.”
“Consider it done,” Thomas said, a grim, satisfied smile touching the corners of his mouth.
Rocco looked down at Thorne, who was weeping uncontrollably on the floor.
“Take him down to the basement,” Rocco told the enforcers. “Lock him in the secure holding cell. Let him think about the price of a human life until I decide what to do with him.”
The enforcers hauled the sobbing doctor out of the room, slamming the heavy oak doors shut behind them.
The master suite fell quiet once more.
Rocco walked slowly over to the bassinet. He leaned down, resting his forearms on the edge of the wood, and looked at the newborn baby sleeping peacefully inside. The storm outside had finally cleared, leaving behind a sky of deep, infinite indigo, pierced by the cold, brilliant light of the stars.
The housekeeper’s little girl had saved him.
A child from the outside had breached the fortress that wealth and power had built, bringing back what the inside had tried so desperately to throw away.
Rocco reached out, sliding his finger gently into the baby’s tiny, warm palm.
May you like
The infant’s fingers curled around his index finger with an unbreakable, instinctive grip.
“I have you now,” Rocco whispered into the quiet room. “And I am coming for your brother.”
