Chapter 1 - The Children at My Gate
I found my nephew crawling toward my gate just before sunset.
At first, I thought Leo had fallen.
Then I saw his leg.
He was dragging it through the mud while his three-year-old sister, Maya, stumbled behind him, both tiny hands twisted into the back of his filthy shirt.
“Uncle Thomas…”
I was running before he finished saying my name.
Leo was six years old.
He should have been worrying about cartoons and missing teeth.
Instead, when I reached him, he tried to push Maya toward me first.
“Take her.”
That nearly destroyed me.
I lifted Maya with one arm and carefully gathered Leo with the other.
“What happened?”
He buried his face against my chest.
“Rebecca locked us downstairs again.”
Again.
One word.
One word changed everything.
My brother Ethan had been dead for three months.
Heart attack.
Forty-one years old.
No warning.
No goodbye.
Rebecca had stood beside his coffin holding Maya and promised me she would protect the children.
I believed her.
My name is Thomas Moretti.
To Leo and Maya, I was Uncle Thomas.
In Austin, that wasn't the name most people used.
Men who controlled clubs, warehouses, construction contracts, and things never discussed in polite company answered when I called.
My brother hated that world.
Before he died, he made me promise his children would never enter it.
So I kept my distance when Rebecca requested space.
Now I understood what my distance had cost.
Inside my kitchen, Maya saw bread.
She lunged for it.
Not asked.
Lunged.
She tore pieces from the loaf and shoved them into her mouth so quickly she started coughing.
Leo, pale from pain, still reached toward her.
“Slow down, Maya.”
I stared at him.
My six-year-old nephew had learned to parent his sister while adults failed them.
I called 911.
Leo panicked.
“Rebecca said nobody would believe us.”
I crouched beside him.
“I believe you.”
His eyes filled.
“Even if she says we're lying?”
“Especially then.”
At the hospital, Maya was treated for dehydration.
Leo went for X-rays.
I stood outside imagining a fall down basement stairs.
The doctor eventually entered carrying the scans.
“This fracture didn't happen today.”
I looked at him.
“How old?”
“Several weeks.”
Then he pointed to two more areas.
“He has older healing injuries.”
My phone rang.
One of my men was outside Rebecca’s mansion with police.
“Talk.”
“Boss…”
His voice sounded wrong.
“The police opened the basement.”
“What did they find?”
A long silence.
Then:
“You need to see this yourself.”
“What did they find?”
His voice dropped.
May you like
“Leo and Maya weren't the only children down here.”
Everything inside me went cold.
