CHAPTER 2: THE GHOSTS OF WINTER
The moment Sarah Carter reached her daughter, she pulled Lily into her arms.
"Lily!"
Her voice shook with panic.
She had spent the last five minutes searching the mansion after discovering her daughter had left their servant quarters in the middle of the night.
Now she found Lily kneeling beside the most powerful man in New York.
And somehow...
Lucas Moretti was alive.
The billionaire slowly sat up.
His breathing remained uneven, but it was improving.
Doctors and security guards flooded the hallway.
Everyone talked at once.
Everyone except Lucas.
His eyes never left Lily.
"She saved me."
The hallway fell silent.
One of the doctors frowned.
"Sir?"
Lucas pointed toward the inhaler still resting in Lily's tiny hand.
"That little girl saved my life."
Across the hallway, Vincent Russo forced a smile.
But inside, rage burned.
Three years.
Three years of planning.
Three years of poisoning Lucas little by little.
Careful doses.
Small enough to avoid suspicion.
Large enough to slowly destroy his lungs and heart.
Tonight should have been the final step.
Lucas was supposed to die before sunrise.
Instead...
A six-year-old girl ruined everything.
Vincent watched Lily closely.
For the first time, he realized she might become a problem.
A very dangerous problem.
Because children noticed things adults ignored.
And Vincent couldn't afford witnesses.
Later that morning, Lucas requested something unusual.
He wanted breakfast with Lily.
Alone.
When Sarah arrived with her daughter, Lucas was sitting beside the mansion's enormous glass windows.
Sunlight poured across the room.
For years, nobody had entered that room without fear.
Yet Lily simply climbed into a chair.
"You look less dead today," she said.
Lucas laughed.
A real laugh.
The first one anyone had heard from him in years.
And suddenly, memories flooded back.
Daniel.
His son.
The little boy he lost three years earlier.
The little boy who died beside Isabella during a mysterious car accident on a snowy road.
The accident that destroyed his family.
The accident Vincent himself had investigated.
The accident Lucas never stopped blaming himself for.
Looking at Lily felt strangely familiar.
The same honesty.
The same kindness.
The same fearless heart.
For the first time since their deaths, Lucas felt something inside his chest begin to heal.