Chapter 8
I stood in the doorway, watching my little girl. I remembered the night she was born, abandoned behind a yellow curtain while her father walked away. I remembered promising her that I would never let them break her.
If I pulled her out now, I was teaching her to run. I was teaching her that evil had the power to make her shrink.
**But Emily had earned that stage.** She had worked endlessly for this moment.
I closed my eyes, took a deep, steadying breath, and made my decision. **I refused to teach her to hide.**
Three days later, the evening of the ceremony arrived. The grand auditorium in downtown Chicago was packed to absolute capacity—over eight hundred people dressed in formal attire, including city officials, academic leaders, prominent donors, and high-society journalists.
Emily was seated backstage with the other young award recipients, while I took a seat in the middle section of the auditorium, my heart hammer-crafting a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
Suddenly, the house lights dimmed, and the heavy red velvet curtains parted.
A tall man stepped into the bright, blinding center spotlight.
Seven years had hardened his face. His dark hair was now silvered slightly at the temples, adding a menacing sophistication to his sharp jawline. Deep lines were carved around his mouth, and his posture was even more imposing than I remembered. But I recognized every movement, every predatory line of his frame.
Vincent Moretti.
In the front row, directly beneath the stage, sat Sophia. She looked pristine, covered in diamonds, wearing an emerald silk dress. Sitting right beside her was a boy about seven years old—Lucas—who sat stiffly, looking bored as he played with a handheld video game device.
Vincent stepped up to the podium, adjusting the microphone. His voice echoed through the massive surround-sound speakers of the auditorium, deep, resonant, and dripping with charismatic authority.
**“Every child deserves the chance to build a remarkable future,”** Vincent announced to the crowd, spreading his hands wide in a gesture of grand, philanthropic benevolence.
I sat in the middle of the dark crowd, clutching my handbag so tightly my knuckles turned white. **I nearly laughed.**
*Every child.*
The utter, sickening hypocrisy of the man made my throat burn with bile. The man who had stepped over his own newborn daughter behind a hospital curtain to celebrate an heir was standing on a stage preaching about the sanctity of children's futures.