Chapter 12 - Bloodlines and Bulletproof Glass
The sub-basement of the Moretti estate hummed with the high-tech resonance of an underground bunker.
Behind reinforced steel walls and three inches of ballistic glass, Poppy was sitting up in a hospital-grade bed, a cartoon playing silently on a wall-mounted screen. Her IV stand stood beside her, but the bag hanging from it wasn't the cheap saline from the county hospital; it was the specialized experimental compound Julian had flown in from Zurich.
Josie stood outside the glass for a long moment, watching the steady rise and fall of her daughter's small chest.
"She doesn't know anything," Julian’s voice rumbled softly from behind her.
He had changed into a midnight-black tuxedo, sharp as a razor, his cuff links forged from antique Roman coins. He looked lethal, aristocratic, and impossibly terrifying.
"She knows you gave her a stuffed bear that smells like lavender," Josie murmured, her forehead resting against the cold glass. "She thinks you’re a prince."
"Children are notoriously poor judges of character," Julian replied, though there was an unfamiliar softness clinging to his words.
He stepped up beside her. He looked through the pane, his eyes tracing the pale outline of the little girl who had inadvertently bound his fate to this fearless woman.
"Dr. Rossi is remaining with her," Julian said, his voice dropping to a low, intimate cadence. "Four armed men inside, twelve outside the blast door. If the city burns to ash tonight, Josephine, this room will not fall. You have my word on my mother’s grave."
Josie turned her head to look at him. Up close, beneath the faint scent of sandalwood and expensive linen, she could smell the faint trace of gun oil.
"Why do you care so much about her?" Josie asked, the question slipping out before she could stop it. "You could have hired any actress, any socialite to play this part. Why me? Why save a dying child you never knew?"
Julian remained silent for several seconds. When he finally looked down at her, the shadows beneath his high cheekbones made him look ancient, weathered by grief that went far deeper than mob rivalries.
"Because your hands were honest," Julian said quietly. "Twenty-two years of playing that piano, wearing your fingers down to calluses, scrubbing floors, begging doctors... you never broke. You never lied to the world about who you were. Everyone in my life is a snake wearing silk. When I looked at you, I saw something this city couldn't corrupt."
He reached out, his leather-gloved fingers gently trailing over the slope of her bare shoulder, left exposed by the off-the-shoulder neckline of her black velvet gown. A shiver tore down Josie’s spine—not of fear, but of an electric, untamed heat.
"Let’s go, Mrs. Moretti," he whispered. "The lions are waiting."
Josie pressed two fingers to her lips, pressed them against the glass toward Poppy, and turned on her high heels.
May you like
She didn't look back.
***
