Chapter 2 - A Ghost in Silk
The word felt like a physical blow against Vincent Moretti’s chest.
*“Mommy!”*
The little boy, dressed in an impeccably tailored miniature tuxedo, had raven-black curls and eyes that were an arresting, familiar shade of storm-gray—Vincent’s own eyes. The child threw his arms around the woman’s legs, burying his face in the folds of her midnight-blue silk gown.
The woman knelt with effortless grace. She smoothed the boy’s curls with a tender smile that Vincent had not seen in over a thousand agonizing days.
“Leo, sweetheart,” she whispered, her voice like velvet, smooth and steady. “What did I say about running inside the gallery?”
“Anna…” Vincent’s voice broke. The entire Grand Ballroom of the Plaza Hotel seemed to dissolve into background noise. The clinking crystal flutes, the soft murmur of New York’s elite, the string quartet—all of it faded behind a deafening roar in his ears.
He took three staggering steps forward. His hands trembled. He wanted to touch her, to verify she was flesh and bone and not another cruel hallucination born from Scotch and sleepless nights.
“Anna, it’s you. You’re alive,” he breathed, reaching his hand toward her shoulder.
Before his fingers could graze the fabric, a tall man stepped smoothly into Vincent’s path. Broad-shouldered, with sharp aristocratic features and an air of lethal calm, Julian Vance—the reclusive venture capitalist who had recently bought out half of Manhattan’s tech sector—looked down at Vincent with eyes like glacial ice.
“I’d suggest you take a step back, Mr. Moretti,” Julian said, his baritone chillingly polite. “You’re crowding my partner.”
Beside Vincent, Sophia finally caught up, her painted face drained of all color. Her manicured fingers clamped around Vincent’s bicep, digging in with sharp desperation. “Vincent… no. It’s impossible. We buried her. We held the funeral…”
The woman rose slowly to her full height. She didn't flinch. She didn't look startled. Slowly, deliberate as a queen mounting an executioner’s scaffold, she turned her gaze upon Vincent and Sophia.
May you like
Her beauty was no longer the soft, vulnerable warmth Vincent had fallen in love with five years ago. It had hardened into something diamond-sharp, brilliant, and terrifyingly untouchable. Her face bore faint, nearly imperceptible micro-scars along the left side of her jawline—hidden beneath exquisite makeup, but unmistakable to a man who had traced every millimeter of her skin.
“Excuse me?” she asked coolly, looking straight through Vincent. “Do I know you?”
