Chapter 6 - THE FATHER’S CHAOS
Before I could face the underworld of Chicago, I had to survive something far more terrifying: breakfast with four four-year-olds.
By eight o’clock the following morning, the master suite of Moretti Manor looked like a disaster zone. Pillows were scattered across the floor, transformed into an imaginary fortress. A box of honey cereal had been tipped over onto the Persian rug, and Nico was sitting on top of an antique mahogany desk, wearing my black silk tie around his forehead like a pirate bandana.
“Arrgh!” Nico shouted, pointing a silver butter knife at me as I walked into the room wearing a freshly pressed charcoal suit. “Surrender your ship, bad guy!”
I froze in the doorway.
Carlo, who had followed me up the stairs carrying a leather briefcase full of syndicate intelligence reports, stopped dead in his tracks. Carlo was six-foot-four, scarred from a dozen street brawls, and had once strangled an assassin with his bare hands.
Right now, he looked terrified.
“Boss,” Carlo whispered out of the corner of his mouth. “Should I... should I call security?”
“It’s a butter knife, Carlo,” I said, deadpan.
“I know, Boss. But he’s got your eyes. It’s unnerving.”
I took a breath, adjusted my cuffs, and walked into the center of the chaos.
Mateo and Dante were engaged in a fierce tug-of-war over a plush velvet bolster, while Leo was sitting quietly in the corner, holding my grandfather’s gold watch up to his ear, listening to the ticking with an expression of intense concentration.
“Nico,” I said, using the voice that had made federal prosecutors turn pale in courtroom hallways. “Down from the desk.”
Nico blinked. He looked at the butter knife, looked at my dark suit, and then looked down at the six-foot drop to the floor.
“Catch me, Papa,” he said cheerfully.
Before I could react, the boy leaped off the mahogany desk.
My heart vaulted into my throat. Pure adrenaline—faster than any reflex I had ever used in a gunfight—surged through my veins. I lunged forward, catching him mid-air against my chest just before his head could strike the marble edge of the hearth.
Nico broke into wild, bubbling laughter, wrapping his arms tightly around my neck. “You caught me! You’re fast, Papa! Like a tiger!”
I stood there, frozen, holding this tiny bundle of pure chaos against my lapel. My heart was pounding harder than it had during the entire siege of the manor.
“Never do that again,” I choked out, my voice thick with an unfamiliar emotion.
“Okay!” Nico beamed, immediately reaching up to tug on my ear. “Where are we going today?”
Elena walked into the room carrying a large tray filled with scrambled eggs, toast, and four glasses of orange juice. When she saw the overturned cereal and the tie around Nico’s head, she shook her head in fond exasperation.
“I leave them alone with you for fifteen minutes, Alejandro, and you have already surrendered the mansion,” she said with a faint smile.
“They do not follow the rules of engagement, Elena,” I said, carefully setting Nico down onto the bed, though he refused to let go of my finger.
“They are boys,” she said softly, setting the tray on the dining table. “They are *your* boys. They don't know rules yet. They only know love.”
The word hung in the air, heavy and unfamiliar. *Love.* In my world, love was a vulnerability. It was the crack in the armor that enemies used to slip a blade between your ribs. Sofia’s love had gotten her killed.
Or had it?
Sofia’s love had kept these four boys breathing for five years when every gun in Chicago had been pointed at my back. Her love had preserved the only pure thing I had ever created.
Mateo abandoned the pillow fight, walked over to me, and tugged on the hem of my trousers. When I looked down, he held up a slightly crumpled piece of drawing paper.
“I drew this for you,” he said shyly.
I knelt down on one knee, taking the paper from his small, sticky hand.
The drawing was crude, made with red and blue crayons. It showed a massive black house with an oversized chimney puffing gray smoke. Standing in front of the house were five stick figures. Four small ones with smiling faces, and one enormous figure wearing a black hat, holding the hands of the two on either side.
Across the top, in wobbly letters that Elena had clearly helped him trace, it said:
*OUR HOUSE.*
Something hot stung the corners of my eyes. I pressed my thumb against the paper, memorizing every crooked line, every clumsy stroke of wax.
“It’s beautiful, Mateo,” I murmured. “I will put it on my desk.”
Mateo smiled, his little chest puffing out with pride. “Forever?”
“Forever,” I promised.
Carlo cleared his throat softly by the door. “Boss. The motorcade is ready downstairs. The capos are assembling at the Palmer House. We have to move.”
I stood up, handing the drawing to Elena with strict instructions to place it under glass in my private study. I looked down at the four boys, who were now devouring their eggs like a pack of hungry wolves.
“Elena,” I said. “Dress them in the suits we had delivered this morning.”
Elena stopped, her eyes wide with sudden alarm. “Alejandro... you are not bringing them to the Palmer House. That is a den of vipers! Every boss in the Midwest will be there!”
“Exactly,” I said, pulling on my heavy leather overcoat. “They think Dominic’s death creates a vacuum. They think I am weakened, bleeding, distracted by the ghosts of my past.”
I leaned down and kissed each of my four sons on the forehead—a gesture that felt foreign, yet as natural as breathing.
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“It is time they learn that a man with nothing to lose is dangerous,” I said, turning toward the doorway. “But a father with everything to protect is invincible.”
***
