part 3
PART 3 — The Court Order in the Devil’s Hand
The moment the doctor said “Jake is not the father,” the room changed.
Not slowly. Not gently.
It snapped.
Jake’s smile disappeared so fast it was like watching a mask fall off a corpse.
I clutched my daughter against my chest, feeling her tiny heartbeat flutter against mine. She was warm. Real. Alive. Mine. And every person in that room seemed to want something from her.
Jake lifted the court order higher. “That doesn’t matter.”
My stomach twisted.
Dante’s voice dropped. “It matters to me.”
Jake’s eyes flicked toward him, full of hatred. “You always were dramatic, Moretti.”
So they knew each other.
My pulse thundered.
Dante stepped closer, his broad body shielding me and my baby from the man I once loved. Or thought I loved. “You have ten seconds to explain why you’re here with a fraudulent order.”
Jake laughed softly. “Fraudulent? This is signed by a judge.”
Dante glanced at the doctor. “Call the judge.”
The doctor froze.
Dante didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to. “Now.”
Jake’s face hardened. “You think a last name on a hospital bracelet makes her yours?”
“No.” Dante’s gaze slid to my daughter. “Blood does.”
I looked up at him, breath shaking. “Tell me what is happening.”
Jake answered first.
“She was never supposed to live long enough to ask questions.”
The words entered me like ice.
Dante moved so quickly I barely saw it. One second Jake was standing near the foot of my bed; the next, Dante had him pinned to the wall by the throat. The two bodyguards at the door shifted, silent as shadows.
My daughter whimpered.
“Don’t,” I cried. “Please. Not in front of her.”
Dante released him, but his eyes had gone flat and terrifying.
Jake coughed, straightening his coat. But now I could see it. The difference. The man I loved had laughed with his eyes. This man smiled with his teeth. The man who kissed my stomach used to rub his thumb over my wrist when I was anxious. This man looked at me like I was furniture he intended to move.
“You’re not Jake,” I whispered.
His gaze slid back to me.
For the first time, fear crossed his face.
Dante noticed.
“What did you call him?” he asked me.
“Jake,” I said, voice breaking. “Jake Sullivan.”
Dante’s jaw tightened. “That was my brother’s name while he was hiding.”
The room tilted.
“No,” I breathed.
Dante reached into the folder and pulled out another photograph.
This one stole all the air from my lungs.
The man in the picture had dark hair, softer eyes, a crooked smile, and a tiny scar beneath his bottom lip from when he’d fallen off a bike as a child—he told me that one rainy night while we ate takeout on my apartment floor.
This was my Jake.
Not the man by the wall.
The doctor’s phone buzzed. He answered, listened, then went pale. “The judge says he never signed this order.”
Jake lunged for the door.
Dante’s men caught him before he reached the hallway.
Jake spat one sentence over his shoulder, and every word was aimed at me.
“You think you saved her? You just put her in the middle of a war.”
Then he was dragged out.
My daughter began to cry.
So did I.
Dante turned back to me, and for the first time, the feared man looked almost human.
“Emma,” he said quietly, “the man you loved was not Jake Sullivan.”
I stared at the photo, tears falling onto my baby’s blanket.
“Then who was he?”
Dante looked at my daughter.
May you like
Then at me.
“My brother,” he said. “Matteo Moretti.”
