GUARDED BY MY POSSESSIVE MAFIA BROTHERS

Chapter 2: The Boy Who Came Back

Dante’s outstretched hand remained between us.

I held my phone against my chest, aware that one careless movement could expose the message still glowing behind the locked screen. The photograph had already disappeared, but its details remained painfully clear in my mind: my mother outside a hospital, my brothers beside her, and a newborn wrapped in white.

The date was impossible.

October 17, 2004.

Seven months after the birthday written on every document I owned.

Dante watched me with the patience of a man accustomed to getting whatever he demanded. His dark suit and controlled expression made him appear calm, but fear had briefly shown in his eyes when he saw my phone. That frightened me more than his anger.

I told him the message had come from Noah Carter.

The name changed something in the room. Dante slowly lowered his hand, although the tension in his shoulders remained. Noah had left Chicago ten years ago, yet my brother remembered him immediately.

Before Dante could question me further, Luca entered the bedroom. He explained that someone had attached a small device to the eastern security panel. It had disabled the cameras for forty-seven seconds, which was long enough to enter the property, send the photograph, or leave something behind.

Luca tried to sound casual, but his usual humor could not hide his concern. He studied my face as carefully as Dante did, searching for evidence of a threat I refused to reveal.

I continued insisting that Noah had only sent a birthday greeting.

The lie felt heavier each time I repeated it.

My brothers had raised me after our parents died. They had protected me through childhood fevers, nightmares, and every danger created by the De Santis name. Lying to them should have made me feel guilty.

Instead, I felt betrayed.

If the photograph was real, they had hidden something about my birth for twenty-one years.

Dante eventually left after ordering two guards to remain outside my room. Luca stayed behind. The hard expression he wore downstairs had disappeared, leaving only exhaustion and something that looked like regret.

He reminded me that I touched my necklace whenever I lied.

My hand immediately fell away from the chain.

For one dangerous moment, I almost showed him the message. I wanted Luca to laugh and explain that the date was a printing error or that the baby belonged to someone else. I wanted an ordinary answer that would return my life to what it had been before the lights went out.

But I remembered the guilt in his eyes when I had asked what he was hiding.

He already knew.

After Luca left, I locked the bedroom door and opened my phone again. The anonymous conversation had vanished. The photograph was missing from my gallery, deleted folder, and cloud storage. Whoever had contacted me possessed enough technical skill to enter both our security system and my private device without leaving evidence.

Only Noah’s birthday message remained.

I replied that I would meet him Monday and warned him not to tell anyone.

His answer came almost immediately.

He asked whether he should be worried.

I glanced at the shadows beneath my bedroom door, where two armed guards stood on the other side.

I told him that depended on how much he valued his nose.

For the rest of the night, sleep remained impossible. Rain tapped against the windows while questions filled the darkness. I searched through old photographs on my phone, examining every picture of my mother.

There were photographs from family dinners, charity events, and holidays before I was supposedly born. In each one, her dresses were loose or her body was partially hidden behind furniture.

There was not a single clear photograph of her pregnant with me.

By morning, the mansion had become quieter and more heavily guarded. Men inspected the gates while Dante reviewed security recordings in his office. No one mentioned the photograph because no one knew I had seen it.

I carried the secret alone until Monday.

That morning, I dressed for my interview at the Bellmore Gallery. The cream blouse and black trousers were modest enough to avoid Dante’s criticism, but the moment I entered the dining room, he understood my intention.

His refusal came before I said anything.

Instead of arguing immediately, I looked around the room. Extra guards stood beyond the windows, and a new camera had been installed above the terrace door. The anonymous sender had invaded our home for less than a minute, yet the effects were everywhere.

I offered a compromise. Two guards could accompany me, inspect the gallery, and wait nearby during the interview.

Dante accepted reluctantly. He warned me to return immediately afterward and keep my phone active. I agreed because the café where Noah planned to meet me was only two streets from the gallery.

The drive downtown felt like crossing the border between two different worlds. The mansion disappeared behind iron gates, replaced by busy sidewalks, cafés, and ordinary people moving without permission from anyone. I watched them with quiet envy.

The Bellmore Gallery occupied a renovated brick building with tall windows and pale walls. Sunlight rested across the wooden floor, illuminating paintings filled with violent colors. Nothing matched, yet everything belonged.

For the first time since my birthday, I could breathe freely.

Mrs. Bellmore interviewed me in a small office overlooking the exhibition hall. She asked about my degree, restoration techniques, and the internship I had completed in Florence. Her questions treated me as a person rather than the youngest member of a dangerous family.

Thirty-five minutes later, she offered me the assistant curator position.

The happiness that rushed through me was startling. The job was not important to anyone else, but it represented something I had never possessed—an identity outside the De Santis name.

My guards were waiting beside the car when I left. I told them I needed coffee before returning home. They resisted until I reminded them that Dante had ordered them to protect me, not deny me caffeine.

Café Marlowe was warm and crowded. The scent of roasted coffee mixed with cinnamon, and conversations blended beneath soft music. I searched the tables until I noticed a man seated near the back.

For several seconds, I did not recognize him.

The Noah I remembered had been thin and constantly covered in grass stains. This man was tall and broad-shouldered, with brown hair that fell carelessly across his forehead. A faint scar crossed one eyebrow, but his blue eyes had not changed.

They were still warm, familiar, and fixed entirely on me.

When he stood, ten years disappeared.

He called me Ellie.

No one had used that name since he left.

I crossed the remaining distance and embraced him before remembering the armed men behind me. Noah’s arms closed around me, strong and hesitant at first, then tighter. The familiarity of him made something inside me ache.

The guards positioned themselves at a nearby table, close enough to observe us but far enough to pretend we had privacy.

Noah had already ordered my favorite vanilla latte. The small gesture affected me more than it should have. My brothers knew every threat connected to my name, but Noah remembered how much sugar I liked in my coffee.

Time had changed his face and voice, yet traces of the boy I knew remained in his smile. He told me about London, his father’s company, and the office that had brought them back to Chicago. His explanations sounded reasonable, but they also felt rehearsed.

I asked why he had truly returned.

His expression became serious.

He said ten years had been long enough to let my brothers decide whether he was allowed to remain in my life.

The words warmed me, but before I could answer, Dante’s name appeared on my phone. My interview had ended twenty minutes earlier, and he wanted to know why I had not started the journey home.

I locked the screen without replying.

Noah noticed my discomfort. The warmth in his face faded when I admitted that Dante and Luca were hiding something from me.

For an instant, Noah became completely still.

The reaction was brief, but unmistakable.

He knew something too.

Before I could question him, one of the guards approached and announced that we needed to leave. Both of my brothers had called, which meant my small escape had already been discovered.

Noah asked to see me again.

I agreed.

As I stood, he took my hand. His touch lingered while he pressed something small and cold into my palm. I slipped it into my purse before the guards could notice.

During the drive home, rain began falling across Chicago. Water blurred the buildings outside, turning the city into a gray painting. The guards spoke quietly in the front seat while I opened my purse.

Noah had given me an old silver key.

A paper label was tied around it.

De Santis Central Station—Locker 214.

My heartbeat quickened as I turned the label over.

A short message had been written on the back.

Your mother asked my father to protect this. Do not let Dante find it.

I read the sentence three times.

Noah had not returned merely because he missed me. His father had kept something that belonged to my mother, and Noah knew enough to hide it from my brothers.

The car passed through the mansion gates.

Dante and Luca were already waiting beneath the front entrance. Dante stood motionless in the rain-darkened afternoon, while Luca held a phone in one hand.

The moment I stepped from the car, Luca turned the screen toward me.

A photograph showed Noah’s arms around my body inside the café.

Dante’s gaze moved from the photograph to my purse. I tightened my fingers around its strap, feeling the outline of the key hidden inside.

He asked who I had met after the interview.

The truth pressed against my throat, but the warning on the paper felt heavier.

“No one,” I answered.

Dante stepped closer. His voice was quiet when he gave me a chance to reconsider.

Behind him stood the home where I had been loved, protected, and perhaps deceived for my entire life. Inside my purse was the first key to discovering who I truly was.

I looked directly into my brother’s eyes.

“It was only coffee.”

Dante knew I was lying.

This time, I did not look away.