Chapter 1 - The Name in Black Ink
For several seconds, I could only stare at Luka Moretti’s signature.
The black ink looked impossibly dark against the white hospital form.
My daughter shifted against my chest, making a tiny sound in her sleep.
I instinctively pulled her closer.
“You can’t just sign that.”
My voice came out weaker than I wanted.
Luka handed the pen back to the nurse.
“I already did.”
The nurse looked almost as stunned as I felt.
“Mr. Moretti, there are procedures.”
“I know.”
His gaze never left mine.
“And my attorney will handle every one of them.”
I stepped backward.
“I don’t know you.”
“No.”
Luka’s expression tightened.
“But your father did.”
Everything inside me went still.
“My father?”
Luka reached inside his black coat.
For one terrifying second, I thought he was reaching for a weapon.
Instead, he removed an old photograph.
He held it toward me.
My father, Robert Carter, stood outside a brick medical building beside a much younger Luka.
Dad looked nervous.
Luka looked furious.
Written across the bottom of the picture were four characters.
M-17.
My mouth went dry.
“Where did you get this?”
“Your father gave it to me.”
“That’s impossible.”
Dad had disappeared eleven months earlier.
His car had been found abandoned near the Hudson River.
Police never found his body.
Everyone eventually assumed he was dead.
Everyone except me.
Luka lowered his voice.
“Robert called me three days before he disappeared.”
My knees nearly gave out.
“What did he say?”
“He told me that if anything happened to him, I had to find you.”
I looked at my daughter.
“Why?”
Luka’s answer never came.
A hospital alarm suddenly sounded at the nurses’ station.
A nurse hurried around the corner.
“Someone just attempted to access the newborn records.”
Luka turned sharply.
“Which records?”
The nurse looked directly at me.
“Your daughter’s.”
My pulse exploded.
Luka immediately stepped between the corridor and us.
“Lock the maternity floor.”
The nurse hesitated.
“You can’t order—”
“Call security.”
His voice changed.
It was colder now.
Controlled.
The kind of voice people obeyed before realizing they were obeying.
Two security officers appeared near the elevator.
At that exact moment, the elevator doors opened.
And my husband stepped out.
Ryan.
Vanessa stood beside him.
His mistress.
But Ryan wasn’t looking at me.
He wasn’t looking at our daughter either.
He was staring at Luka.
And for the first time since he abandoned me, Ryan looked afraid.
Luka slowly turned toward him.
“Come back for something?”
Ryan’s face drained of color.
May you like
Then Luka said one sentence that made my blood run cold.
“Or did you come back because you heard M-17 survived?”
