His Hidden Heir (Crowned in Sin #2)

Chapter 1 Elena

ELENA

For four years, I have lived like a ghost.

I wear a name that isn’t mine and carry documents that insist I belong here, that I am legally and unquestionably American.

I’ve learned how to smile and offer bland explanations when asked where I’m from, how to keep my accent soft and unremarkable, and how to make myself completely forgettable.

That’s how you survive.

My world has shrunk down to a few city blocks in Brooklyn in a narrow apartment above a small, dusty bookstore with a landlord who hardly ever checks on me.

By day, I shelve books and ring up customers who don’t know me despite their best efforts. The owner pays me in cash and never asks questions about why I have no bank account for direct deposits.

At night, when the city changes and the sirens echo loudly outside the front facing windows, I find myself holding my breath and listening to every set of footsteps that linger too long on the stairs outside my apartment door.

Every creak of the building makes my heart slam against my chest no matter how often I tell myself it’s just the structure settling.

I sleep lightly with my phone face up on the nightstand and the number pad already pulled up on the off-chance I might need it to dial 911 at a moment’s notice.

Unknown numbers always make my hands shake, and the Italian voices that sometimes filter in through my windows from the street below never fail to send ice shooting through my veins.

I tell myself I’m safe. That the worst is behind me.

My father’s disappearance, the money he tried to move to keep us safe but failed before he was forced to flee, the secrets he uncovered right before everything went to shit… that night is burned into my memory.

It has been for the past four years, slowly eating at me until all I feel is the rotted out wound left behind.

I try to tell myself that it was another life. One I buried along with the name Elena Vitale. But unfortunately, even ghosts can’t forget where they came from.

I jump when Luca stirs beside me.

His warm, solid form curls into a tighter ball against my side.

His small fingers flex around the fabric of my shirt and a soft sigh leaves him.

He’s three now.

It simultaneously feels like a lifetime since I gave birth to him and just yesterday.

He’s clever and too observant for his own good.

He has questions I don’t know how to answer yet about before I came to the States, about his father, about why we don’t have aunties and uncles like the kids next door do.

About why I have so many locks on the inside of our front door.

Every time the questions come, all I can do is kiss his hair and breathe him in because I have nothing I can say.

Not without confusing him even further than he already is by my silence.

He is the only reason I get up every morning and the only reason I’ve kept up this charade for as long as I have.

Whatever I was before this—fiancée, lover, daughter of a man who knew too much—I don’t let myself think about it.

I am just a mother now to a toddler who is growing up way too fast. I am a woman who will do anything to keep him safe, even if it means living the rest of my life as nothing.

Early evening brings rain and with it a cranky toddler.

I tell myself to breathe as I step out into the soaked streets, Luca perched on my hip.

His little fists twist around the front lapel of my jacket as he whines softly when I pull his jacket hood over his head to keep him dry.

He missed his nap earlier today when I missed my break at the bookstore, and now I’m paying for it by having a cranky toddler who refuses to eat anything I put in front of him.

A delivery arrived late, and one chaotic moment stretched into a complete downfall that pushed back the rest of the day entirely.

Normally, I would have asked my landlord for the rest of the weekend off to get Luca back on track, but the overtime pay has been good and I refuse to risk my goodwill with the person currently housing and employing me.

It’s been humid all day and the rain hasn’t helped one bit. It’s just turned the air thick, and my hair is frizzy.

I can feel sweat cooling under my jacket as we walk.

The uncomfortable mix of warm and cold makes me want to crawl out of my own skin.

I’m already rehearsing dinner plans in my head while we walk to the corner store a few blocks up when Luca’s face crumples and he starts to fuss once again. “Mama, hungry.”

“Shh, Amore,” I murmur, kissing him gently as I adjust my grip around him. “I know. Just a few minutes, okay? You didn’t want to eat your noodles, so now we have to go and get something else.”

Soothing him is part of the reason I don’t notice the black SUV at first.

To me, it’s just another vehicle idling a little too close to the curb as it slowly rolls down the street next to us.

Brooklyn is full of them—delivery drivers for private companies, ride-shares… all of them are cars that blend into the background without notice.

I focus on Luca like I always do, wiping his cheeks when a few droplets from a passing awning catch him when we pass under another store front.

But when I hear tires behind me slow, I turn just enough to keep track of it out of the corner of my eye.

The sound doesn’t fade when we turn down the next corner. Instead, it follows me another half block.

My first instinct is denial.

You’re imagining it, I tell myself.

Four years of looking over my shoulder have trained my fear too well.

The past can’t find me here, not after taking such painstaking measures to disappear like I did before Luca was born.

Still, I quicken my pace anyway.

Rain slicks my hair to my cheeks as I abandon the plan to go to the corner store and turn back toward my building, cutting back the way we’d come to walk along the main drag again.

I don’t look over my shoulder when I pass the vehicle. If it is actually following me, I’ll soon know for sure.

My heart starts hammering when wet tires whisper over the asphalt and the sound shifts.

I glance over my shoulder just in time to see the black SUV slow, signal blinking once before it makes a smooth, unhurried U-turn, and then it’s behind me again.

Shit.

I don’t run. Running draws attention. Instead, I force my steps to stay even as Luca clutches at my coat, burying his face into my neck with a dramatic sigh.

Every instinct in me is screaming now, the panic in me no longer subtle.

As soon as the bookstore front comes into view, I shove my hand into my jacket pocket, fingers scrambling to find my keys. Behind me, headlights wash over the glass door and throw my reflection back at me in a bright and blinding glow.

For a split second, I just stare. I barely recognize the woman looking back at me.

She’s pale faced with wide eyes and fear carved deep into her features.

It’s sad to know how changed I’ve become since leaving Sicily. How far I’ve fallen from the once confident and bright-eyed woman I once knew.

My hands are clumsy and tremble as I jam the key into the lock. I shove the door open and practically fall into the narrow entryway at the foot of the stairwell.

The smell is musty from the smudged walls. The scent of it mingling with old paint hits me all at once in an overwhelming stench.

I swing the door shut behind me and twist the lock back into place with a violent snap, my chest heaving.

For half a heartbeat, I feel safe once more.

But then I look through the glass.

Out on the curb, the SUV idles. The back passenger door opens slowly like whoever is inside knows I’m watching.

A man steps out in a black tailored suit and polished shoes.

He’s tall, looking utterly out of place on this rain-soaked Brooklyn street.

I can’t see his face clearly from the way he’s turned from the building to face the car, but I don’t need to.

Not when his hand comes up to rest on the side of the door and a flash of gold on his pinky catches the grey lighting.

I don’t need to see it up close to know what’s engraved there. I know it’s a serpent coiled in on itself, twisting in a figure-8.

My blood turns to ice.

The man reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a phone.

When he lifts it to his ear, I realize I’ve been holding my breath long enough to make me feel dizzy.

His words are lost to the rain and the glass between us, his breath fogging faintly in the cold air in short, clipped bursts.

For a long, suspended moment, I’m certain this is the part where everything goes to shit. But to my surprise, he doesn’t try to approach the door or even attempt to come for me.

Instead, he shakes his head once then folds himself back into the SUV.

The door slams hard enough that the entire vehicle rocks from the impact.

The engine revs, tires screeching on the wet street as it pulls away from the curb and disappears back down the block.

I just stand there in disbelief, blinking a few times to clear my vision.

Had I been wrong? Were they not following me like I thought?

Relief hits me all at once, so sudden and overwhelming that my knees nearly give out.

It forces me to sag back against the wall next to the door before I fall as my body starts to shake.

“Mama?” Luca lifts his head from my shoulder, brow furrowed. “Who was that?”

“No one, Amore,” I say automatically, pressing a kiss to his forehead. My lips linger there longer than usual, soaking in his warmth to ground myself.

The lie tastes bitter on my tongue, but he accepts it easily, settling back against me with a tired sigh.

I turn away from the door when I finally can move my legs and start up the stairs, each step heavier than the last.

The years of hiding, the lies I’ve had to tell myself and other people over and over, all nearly collapsed into one horrifying moment down there.

I really thought that the past had finally found me.

Clearly, my paranoia has finally reached its peak.

They had probably been lost and were simply looking for directions.

And who better to ask than a mother with her toddler who looked completely certain of the direction they were traveling in?

By the time I reach our apartment, my legs feel like lead.

Maybe the ring was just a trick of the light, a coincidence…

Plenty of men wear gold pinky rings in a signet style these days.

It must have simply been a cruel projection of my memories onto the hand of a stranger who otherwise didn’t seem at all interested in harming me or my child.

Inside, I set Luca down and immediately lock the door, then the deadbolt, and finally, the chain.

My hands won’t stop shaking even as I check them all again and again until I’m nearly cross-eyed.

Luca toddles into the living room, plopping down on the rug with his toys like nothing in the world is wrong.

A part of me is glad for that while another, uglier side of me is jealous of his ignorance.

I drift into my bedroom on autopilot and sink down beside the bed onto the floor.

My fingers slide underneath the frame until they find the lockbox hidden there.

The code is simple.

Muscle memory takes over as I unlock it and flip the lid open.

Inside, a gun lies nestled in a thick velvet cloth.

It’s cold and solid in my hand when I lift it out and weigh it.

I check the safety and the magazine and then raise it, sighting the blank wall behind my bed, steadying my breath until my finger finally stops trembling over the trigger.

I want… need to believe my paranoia got the better of me tonight.

That all of this hadn’t almost come crashing down around me.

But if it didn’t…

If my past really is coming back to haunt me, then this time, I won’t be unprepared.

I refuse to be.