Chapter 24
Lucien
The small wooden door slammed shut in the howling snow. The harsh sound of the lock falling echoed across the dead-silent snowfield like a final verdict.
I stood frozen in the bone-chilling snow, the wind hurling ice particles that stung my face. My left cheek throbbed and burned where Julian's fist had landed, swollen and numb. But compared to the pain in my face, the hollow ache in my chest nearly drove me insane.
She'd been holding Julian's arm.
Four years ago, her eyes had been full of trust when she looked at me. Just now, in that warmly lit room, all I saw in her eyes was ice-cold disgust.
I staggered back to the black SUV parked two hundred yards away in the shadow of the pines and yanked open the door. The heater blasted warm air, but it couldn't touch the cold buried in my bones. Enzo and Rocco watched me nervously through the rearview mirror.
A deranged thought took root in my brain, spreading like poison—I'd have someone grab the kid.
I'd find out who the hell fathered that child. I'd force that woman back to my side. Even if I had to level this whole town, even if I had to lock her in the basement of the Genovese Manor, I'd never let her leave me again.
That violent impulse raged through my veins, sustaining me through a long, suffocating night without a second of sleep.
The next afternoon at three, the blizzard finally stopped. After the storm, Sturgis's sky was blue as glass, sunlight glaring off the endless white.
I sat in the car, temples pounding. Then the cabin door opened from inside.
A little figure bundled in a bright yellow puffer jacket—looking like a walking lemon drop—waddled into the yard on short legs, sinking with every step. He tilted his head back, staring at a raggedy red kite caught in the branches of a tall black pine at the yard's edge.
The nanny hadn't followed him out. Elora seemed to still be inside packing. The three-year-old was alone in the yard.
Perfect opportunity.
My gaze went cold instantly, predator instinct flooding my veins. I pushed open the door and moved through the deep snow, step by step, toward that defenseless child.
Just a few steps. All I had to do was reach out, clamp my hand over his mouth like scooping up a kitten, tuck him against me—no technique required—and I'd have complete leverage over Elora.
The crunch of snow under my boots caught the little guy's attention. He stopped and turned around.
When he saw me, he didn't scream or run like most kids would. He just tilted his head and studied me with those bright black eyes for three seconds before speaking in a small, serious voice.
"You're the bad man from yesterday. You broke my Lego boat."
He added gravely, holding up one small hand in a red mitten to demonstrate. "It snapped in half."
My hand, already reaching out, froze mid-air.
"...I'll buy you a new one."
"Really?" His eyes lit up like two small suns.
"Yeah."
He seemed satisfied with this promise. Without any fear, he trudged through the snow straight toward me, stopping just one step away and looking up at my face.
His cheeks were flushed from the cold, a bit of moisture still on his nose. The eyes, the nose—Elora's, no question. But when he looked up at me, that stubborn tilt of his chin...
A ridiculous, baseless sense of familiarity crawled out from my bones, hitting me square in the chest.
The urge to grab him and take him vanished. I slowly crouched down, bringing my eyes level with his.
"What's your name?" I asked.
"I'm Leo."
"Hello, Leo. I'm Lucien."
The little guy blinked, then pointed at my swollen, bruised left cheek. "What happened to your face?"
"I fell."
"That's rough." He nodded seriously. "I scraped my knee in the yard once. Mom put this green medicine on it—really cool, really cool. After that it didn't hurt anymore."
Looking at his earnest little face, I reached out without thinking and ruffled the soft hair under his hat.
"Oh, Lucien." The little guy turned around, pointing at the towering black pine with some frustration. "That kite's been stuck up there forever. Julian was too busy. He came last weekend to play Legos with me and then left. He didn't have time to get it down."
Julian?
My brain exploded like a thousand thunderclaps going off at once.
"You call him... Julian?" I gripped his small shoulders. "He's not your dad?"
"Julian is just Julian." Leo looked at me like I was an idiot. "He's not my dad! Mom says my dad is far, far away!"
Julian wasn't his father. He wasn't Julian Moretti's son at all!
Joy erupted through me like a volcano. I looked at the tree. The kite hung about twelve feet up, half-buried in leftover snow.
I'd held guns, knives—but I'd never held a soft, small child. Yet my hands moved faster than my brain—two large hands slid under his armpits and lifted him smoothly from the snow, raising him toward the sky.
He was lighter than I expected. Softer too. He wasn't afraid of heights at all. He giggled and stretched his arms toward the branch. Snow cascaded down into my collar, ice-cold against my skin, but my heart burned.
"A little higher! Lucien!"
I lifted him another half inch. His fingers finally caught the colorful kite string.
"Got it! I got it—"
The little guy looked down at me excitedly and reached out one mittened hand, gently touching my bruised left cheek.
"Does your face hurt? I'll blow on it for you."
He pursed his warm little mouth and blew on my cold, aching cheek twice.
In that instant, my heart melted completely.
As I lowered him back down, I trembled as I stroked the back of his head. My fingers brushed the edge of his wool cap and pinched a single light brown strand of hair with a follicle attached, slipping it silently into my palm.
"Leo!"
A furious, terrified scream exploded from the porch.
Elora ran through the snow without even a coat, nearly falling. She charged at me like a crazed lioness and ripped Leo from my arms, clutching him against her neck.
"Stay away from him!" Her eyes were bloodshot, chest heaving violently. "I'm warning you, Lucien Genovese. If you touch one hair on his head, I swear I'll put a bullet through your skull!"
Seeing the lethal resolve in her eyes, I raised both hands and backed away slowly. "Okay... I won't touch him. Just calm down."
As Elora crashed through the door with the child, I bolted back to the SUV and carefully sealed that precious strand of hair in a bag.
"Take this! Get to the best private clinic in Rapid City! Rush DNA paternity test! I want results in three hours!"
Rocco jumped. "Boss, this is—"
"Go! Get me those results now!"
The car tore off. Three hours of waiting. Every minute, every second felt like torture on the rack.
I leaned back in the seat, chain-smoking, my brain frantically rewinding—Leo was three. I remembered Enzo telling me she'd been dry-heaving, nauseous in that holding room... Had she already been carrying my child then?
"No... God, no..."
What had I done? When she needed protection most, I'd given her cold suspicion. When she'd been alone in this remote town, giving birth to our child, I wasn't even there.
Violent brakes shattered the silence. Rocco stumbled over without even closing the car door and shoved a rush-sealed report into my hands.
"Boss! The results!"
My hands shook so badly I could barely tear the envelope. I unfolded the white paper, eyes flying past the complex genetic charts, slamming straight to the conclusion box—
[Based on DNA loci comparison, biological paternal relationship confirmed (probability 99.999%)]
My world shattered completely in that second.
Leo... was my son.