Chapter 2 - The Stolen Prince
The doctor’s declaration echoed off the high marble walls like a gunshot.
"What do you mean he's not an infant?" Rocco demanded, striding across the room with power vibrating through every step.
Dr. Marcellus carefully held up the tiny child's hand. "Look at the nail beds, Don Rocco. Look at the development of the facial bones. This child is severely malnourished, intensely stunted, and has been kept under continuous, heavy sedation and intravenous feeding. Physically, his body is the size of a newborn, but biologically... his cell structure, his dental bone formation under the gums... this child is at least six or seven years old."
A collective gasp went around the room. Elena squeezed her daughter Sophia tightly against her chest, covering the little girl's eyes.
Rocco looked down at the tiny, fragile creature. The dark hair, the shape of the jaw, the faint cleft in the chin—it was a carbon copy of his own face, trapped in a nightmare of stunted growth.
"A living ghost," Rocco whispered.
He turned his head slowly toward Valentina. She was standing near the fireplace, her breath ragged, her hands trembling so violently that the silk sleeves of her gown rustled.
"Why?" Rocco asked. His voice was terrifyingly calm now—the absolute zero temperature of a man who had already decided how his enemies would die. "Why keep him alive in a secret lab or a cellar for seven years, only to throw him in my trash tonight?"
Valentina swallowed hard, stepping backward until her spine hit the stone mantelpiece. "I... I don't know what he's talking about! Marcellus is lying! Or someone is setting me up!"
"Search her rooms," Rocco commanded softly.
"Rocco, no!" Valentina shrieked as four armed guards instantly moved past her, heading toward the grand staircase. "You can't invade my privacy! I am the mistress of this house! I am a Moretti!"
"You are a guest who has overstayed her welcome," Rocco said cold as ice. He turned to Thomas Russo. "Lock down the perimeter. Call our head of security, Mateo. Tell him to track every incoming call to Valentina’s satellite phone for the last forty-eight hours."
Within ten minutes, the head of security descended the stairs, holding a small silver lockbox and a velvet-bound ledger found hidden behind the wall safe in Valentina’s dressing room.
Mateo placed the box on the dining table. "Don Rocco. We found this. Along with three offshore bank accounts in the Cayman Islands registered under her maiden name—and monthly payments sent to a private medical facility on the outskirts of the state."
Rocco walked over to the box. With a single blow from his heavy gold ring, he broke the delicate brass latch and flipped the lid open. Inside lay medical records, syringes of growth-inhibitors, and a contract signed six years ago.
The contract was between Valentina Moretti... and the rival Syndicate, the Castiglione family.
"You sold your own stepson's life to our enemies," Rocco said, reading the crisp black ink on the papers. "No... even worse. You kept him alive as a bargaining chip. If I ever died, you could produce the true heir, claim the entire estate as his legal guardian, and hand control of the Moretti empire over to the Castigliones."
"He isn't my son!" Valentina suddenly screamed, shedding her calm facade completely, her eyes wide with unhinged fury. "He is the child of that weak, pathetic woman you loved before me! Your precious first wife! Why should her blood control the Moretti fortune while I sit here playing the dutiful hostess?!"
"So you starved him," Rocco said, his chest heaving with cold rage. "You had him locked in a secret clinic, dosed with drugs to prevent his body from growing, waiting for the day you could use him to steal everything I built."
"I was going to dispose of him tonight because the Castigliones terminated the agreement!" Valentina spat, realization dawning on her that she was completely trapped. "They made peace with your captains! They didn't need the boy anymore! He was a loose end! I had my driver drop him in the trash before the morning collection!"
The room was so quiet that the patter of rain against the window felt like thunder.
Sophia, still sitting on the sofa near her mother, looked up at Rocco with wide, brave eyes. "Is the baby... your little boy, Sir?"
Rocco looked from the trembling child on the sofa to the little girl who had carried him inside out of the storm.
"Yes, little one," Rocco said, his voice cracking for the first time in twenty years. "He is my son. My lost prince."
Rocco pointed a finger at Valentina. "Take her down to the holding cells beneath the wine cellar. Stripped of everything. No shoes, no silk, no light. Thomas, get a full medical team in here. We are turning the master suite into an ICU."
"Rocco, please!" Valentina screamed as guards dragged her kicking and screaming down the dark hallway. "You can't do this to me! I'm your wife!"
Her cries faded into the depths of the mansion. Rocco turned back to the sofa. He walked over and slowly sank to his knees in front of Elena and Sophia.
He reached out and gently laid his hand on his son's tiny forehead. The small boy stirred, his faint, tired eyes fluttering open. For a split second, dark brown eyes met dark brown eyes.
"You're safe now, my son," Rocco whispered. Then he looked up at Sophia. "What is your name again, little brave girl?"
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"Sophia, sir," she answered softly.
Rocco took her small, cold hand in his massive, scarred palm. "Sophia Bellini... from this night forward, you and your mother are under my personal protection. No one in this world will ever harm you again."
