Chapter 2 - The Boy in the StormEthan’s sneakers were two sizes too big. They were hand-me-downs from Jerry’s nephew, held together at the toes with black electrical tape, and as he ran across the wet cobblestones of 8th Street, the freezing water poured inside them instantly, turning his feet into numb blocks of ice.
He didn't care about his feet. He didn't care about his math homework, which had slipped out of his folder and was now plastered against the wet pavement like a ruined white leaf.
All he could hear was the sound of his mother’s body hitting the bar floor. All he could see was the blood on the floor and the gun in the tall man’s hand.
Go to Mrs. Gable's, she had yelled.
Mrs. Gable lived six blocks away, above a bakery on 14th Street. But Ethan knew Mrs. Gable was seventy-two years old and walked with a silver cane. Mrs. Gable couldn't fight men with guns. Mrs. Gable would hide behind her screen door and call the police, and Ethan had heard Jerry say a hundred times that the police in this neighborhood took twenty minutes to answer a call if it was after midnight, and longer if it was raining.
His mother didn't have twenty minutes.
He sprinted around the corner of Grand Avenue, his chest burning, his lungs gasping for air that tasted like exhaust and sea salt.
At the end of Grand Avenue sat Il Restauro, a three-story brick building with dark windows, a copper roof, and no sign on the door except for a brass plaque that read Moretti Imports.
Ethan had seen the building a hundred times from the window of the bus. He knew that big, black cars with blacked-out windows parked outside it every night. He had heard the older boys at school whisper about the men who lived there—men who didn't go to work at seven in the morning, men who wore suits on Tuesdays, men who made people disappear if they parked in their spots.
He knew one name. Everyone in South Brooklyn knew one name.
Dante Moretti.
Ethan didn't know what a "mafia boss" was. He thought it meant the man who owned the neighborhood, the way Jerry owned the bar or Mr. Henderson owned the grocery store. And if the men who hurt his mother belonged to Mr. Moretti, then Mr. Moretti was the only one who could tell them to stop.
He reached the heavy wrought-iron gates in front of Il Restauro.
Two massive men in dark coats were standing beneath the stone portico, smoking cigarettes under a black umbrella. They were talking quietly when they heard the wet, slapping sound of small sneakers hitting the pavement.
One of them turned, dropping his cigarette. "What the..."
Ethan didn't slow down. He threw his tiny body against the iron bars of the gate. The collision rattled the latch, making a loud metallic sound in the quiet street.
"Hey! Kid! Get out of here!" the guard barked, walking down the stone steps. "This ain't a playground!"
"Help!" Ethan shrieked, his voice breaking, tears cutting clean paths through the grime and rain on his cheeks. He grabbed the iron bars with his tiny, red hands, his knuckles turning white. "Help my mom! Please!"
"Kid, it’s two in the morning and it’s twenty degrees out," the second guard said, frowning as he approached the gate. He looked down at Ethan’s soaked hoodie, his bare ankles, and his taped sneakers. "Where are your parents?"
"The men took her!" Ethan sobbed, his body shaking violently from the cold and the fear. He reached through the bars, grabbing the front of the guard’s wool coat. "The men in the black suits! They shot Frank and they tied her arms! They said Mr. Moretti wanted her!"
The two guards exchanged a quick, sharp look. The annoyance on their faces vanished, replaced by a sudden, rigid stillness.
"What did you say?" the first guard asked, leaning down.
"Your men hurt my mom!" Ethan screamed at the top of his lungs, looking up at the high, lit windows of the second floor. "Your men are hurting my mom right now! Tell them to stop!"
The heavy oak doors at the top of the stone steps opened.
A man stepped out into the rain.
He wasn't wearing a coat yet. He wore a crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, dark trousers, and a silver watch that caught the dim light of the streetlamps. He was tall—broader than the guards, with dark hair silvering at the temples and eyes that looked like dark grey ice.
A tall, elegant woman in an emerald-green dress stood in the doorway behind him, holding a glass of wine, her face filled with mild curiosity.
"What is that noise, Marco?" the man asked. His voice was low, deep, and carried over the sound of the falling rain without any effort.
"It’s a kid, Mr. Moretti," the guard said, backing away from the gate slightly. "He’s talking crazy. Saying our people took his mother."
Dante Moretti didn't move for three seconds. He looked down at the tiny, wet boy pressed against his iron gates, shivering so hard his teeth were clicking together like marbles in a jar.
He walked down the steps.
He didn't hurry. He didn't run. But as he crossed the wet stone courtyard, the two guards stepped aside instantly, their heads lowered in total submission.
Dante stopped on his side of the gate, looking down through the bars at Ethan.
"Who is your mother, son?" Dante asked quietly.
"Haley!" Ethan sobbed, wiping his nose with his wet sleeve. "Haley Grant! She works at the bar on 4th! Two men with a big book came in! One had glasses and the other had a mark on his cheek!"
Dante’s eyes narrowed slightly. "Glasses and a scar?"
"Yes! They shot Frank in the leg! They pushed my mom on the floor and tied her hands!" Ethan reached through the bars again, his tiny, frozen hand catching the cuff of Dante’s white shirt. "Please mister! She didn't do anything wrong! She just washes the glasses! Please don't let them kill her!"
Dante looked down at the small hand holding his cuff.
He saw the water dripping from the boy’s elbow. He saw the red marks on his ankles where the frozen air had cracked his skin. He saw the pure, unadulterated terror in the nine-year-old’s eyes—not of Dante, not of the guards, but of a world that was trying to steal his mother away from him.
Dante reached out, unlatched the iron gate with a sharp click, and pulled it open.
He didn't care about his white shirt. He didn't care about the mud. He knelt on one knee in the freezing puddle, took off his heavy wool jacket—which Marco had just rushed over to hand him—and wrapped it completely around Ethan’s shoulders, swallowing the small boy in expensive black cashmeres.
"What's your name, kid?" Dante asked, his hands resting on Ethan’s shoulders.
"E-Ethan," the boy stammered, swallowed by the warmth of the coat.
Dante stood up, picking Ethan up with one arm as easily as if he were a bag of groceries, resting the boy against his hip.
He turned to Marco.
"Call Paulie," Dante said. His voice was no longer just low; it had turned into something dark, heavy, and absolute—the sound of an iron door slamming shut forever. "Tell him if anyone touches a single hair on Haley Grant’s head before I get to the docks, I will skin him alive in front of his mother."
"Mr. Moretti," Marco stammered, "Paulie was acting under orders from the Commission regarding the Yokohama—"
May you like
Dante didn't let him finish. He didn't raise his voice. He simply looked at Marco until the guard's words died in his throat.
"Show me who touched her," Dante said softly to Ethan. "And I will make sure they never touch anyone again."
