Chapter 2 - THE MAN IN THE VIDEO
Alexander Romano had trusted Nicholas DeLuca with his life for fourteen years.
Now he was staring at a video showing Nicholas standing behind the mother of his daughter, watching her struggle against the ropes around her wrists.
For the first time in his life, Alexander wanted to kill his best friend.
“Bring Nick to me,” he ordered.
His voice was so quiet that the security guards exchanged nervous looks.
Across the ruined wedding ballroom, guests were still being escorted outside. The wedding cake stood untouched beneath the golden chandeliers. Vanessa Carter had been taken to a private room for questioning.
And eighteen-month-old Rosie sat on Margaret's lap, playing with the ribbon from her red balloon.
She had no idea that her entire world was changing.
“Dada?”
Alexander turned.
Rosie reached toward him with her little frosting-covered fingers.
For one second, his expression softened.
Then Nicholas DeLuca entered the room.
“Alexander, we have a problem.”
Alexander grabbed him by the collar.
“You have ten seconds to explain why you're standing behind Emily Parker in that video.”
Nicholas went completely still.
He didn't deny it.
Instead, he looked toward Margaret and the little girl.
“Take Rosie somewhere safe.”
“Answer me!”
Nicholas slowly removed Alexander's hands from his jacket.
“I was there because I've been trying to get Emily out.”
Alexander stared at him.
“Get her out of what?”
“An operation involving the Carter family, your shipping companies, and a man who wants you dead.”
“You knew Emily was alive?”
“I found her four days ago.”
Alexander stepped backward.
Four days.
For four days, his closest friend had known that Emily was alive.
And said nothing.
“She's been missing for six months,” Alexander whispered. “And you didn't tell me?”
“Because I didn't know who inside your organization I could trust.”
“You could have trusted me.”
Nicholas looked away.
“That was what Emily said, too.”
The words struck harder than a fist.
Alexander reached for the phone.
“Play the video again.”
Margaret held Rosie close while the recording restarted.
Emily sat in a wooden chair inside a dimly lit room. Her dark hair had been cut unevenly near her shoulders. She looked exhausted.
Nicholas stood behind her.
But this time, Alexander noticed something.
Nicholas wasn't holding her shoulders.
His hands were working near the ropes.
“You were trying to untie her,” Alexander said.
“Yes.”
“Then why didn't you?”
“Because someone was watching through the camera. They told me if I untied her completely, they'd move her somewhere I couldn't reach.”
“Who?”
Nicholas hesitated.
“Vincent Ferraro.”
Alexander knew the name.
Ferraro controlled several shipping routes along the East Coast. For years, he had tried to force Alexander out of the Manhattan waterfront.
Six months earlier, Ferraro had disappeared from public view.
Now Alexander knew why.
“He's working with Vanessa?”
“Vanessa is involved. But she isn't the person giving the orders.”
Alexander looked toward the empty wedding stage.
“Then who is?”
Nicholas pulled a folded photograph from his inside pocket.
It showed Emily leaving a Manhattan medical clinic nearly two years earlier.
She was pregnant.
And standing beside her was an elderly woman Alexander recognized immediately.
Margaret.
“Emily asked me to give you this if something happened to her,” Nicholas said.
Margaret began crying.
“I promised her I'd protect Rosie.”
Alexander studied the picture.
Emily's face looked frightened.
But her hand rested protectively over her stomach.
His daughter had been there all along.
Growing.
Waiting.
While he had been living a life that suddenly seemed meaningless.
“Why didn't Emily tell me?”
Margaret spoke quietly.
“She tried.”
Alexander turned.
“What?”
“She sent a letter to your office after Rosie was born. Someone returned it unopened with a message saying you wanted nothing to do with her.”
Alexander's jaw tightened.
“I never received any letter.”
“I know that now.”
A terrible possibility began forming in his mind.
Someone had deliberately kept Emily away from him.
Someone with access to his office.
His mail.
His personal security.
Nicholas approached the wedding table.
“There's something else.”
He enlarged the video on Margaret's phone.
Beside Emily's chair stood a small wooden table.
On it lay a silver pocket watch.
Alexander stopped breathing.
The watch had belonged to his father, Lorenzo Romano.
It had a tiny scratch across the glass from the night Lorenzo survived an attack twenty years earlier.
After Lorenzo died, the watch passed to his younger brother.
Alexander's uncle.
Salvatore Romano.
“That watch,” Alexander whispered.
Nicholas nodded.
“I saw it, too.”
Just then, a security guard approached.
“Mr. Romano, your uncle is asking to see you.”
Alexander turned toward the ballroom entrance.
Salvatore Romano stood beneath the chandelier, wearing his usual charcoal suit.
He looked worried.
Almost fatherly.
And hanging from the chain of his vest was the same silver pocket watch.
Salvatore opened his arms.
“Alexander, thank God you're alive. I came as soon as I heard.”
Alexander didn't move.
He stared at the watch.
May you like
Then he asked a question that made his uncle's smile slowly disappear.
“Uncle Sal, why was your watch sitting beside the woman they're holding prisoner?”
