PART 2: THE MAFIA BOSS DONATED BLOOD TO SAVE A GIRL… THEN DISCOVERED THE SECRET THAT COULD DESTROY HIS EMPIRE 💔🩸

“Who is the girl?” I repeated.

Marco glanced toward the operating room. “We don’t know yet. But the men who attacked Enzo specifically asked whether a girl named Elena Vasquez had been brought here.”

My stomach тιԍнтened.

“They attacked my men, followed me to a hospital, and now they’re asking about a seventeen-year-old girl?”

“Yes, Luca. And there’s something else.”

He hesitated.

That alone frightened me more than anything he could have said.

“Her mother is here.”

I turned sharply. “Where?”

“Downstairs. She arrived twenty minutes ago. When she heard your name, she started screaming.”

For seventeen years, I had imagined what I would say if I ever saw Sofia Bennett again.

I had imagined anger. Questions. Maybe even forgiveness.

But I had never imagined meeting her in a hospital corridor while our daughter fought for her life behind a locked door.

Our daughter.

The thought was too enormous to accept, yet too powerful to dismiss.

“Bring her to me.”

Marco disappeared down the corridor.

I looked through the operating-room window again. Elena lay motionless beneath the surgical lights, surrounded by people working desperately to keep her alive.

I had ordered men to their deaths without losing a night’s sleep. I had built an empire on fear, and I had convinced myself that nothing in this world could make me hesitate.

But one girl I had never met was changing everything.

And I didn’t even know whether she would survive long enough to call me a monster.

Then I heard footsteps.

I turned.

Sofia stood at the end of the corridor.

Seventeen years had changed her. There were faint lines around her eyes, and her dark hair was streaked with silver. But when she looked at me, I saw the same woman who had once made me believe I could be something other than Luca Mancini.

Her lips parted.

“Luca…”

I took one step toward her.

“Is Elena my daughter?”

Tears filled her eyes.

For several seconds, she said nothing.

Then she looked toward the operating room, pressed a trembling hand against her mouth, and whispered, “I never wanted you to find out this way.”

The words struck harder than any bullet.

“You let me believe you were gone. You let me believe you never wanted to see me again.”

“I had no choice.”

“No choice?” My voice rose despite my efforts to control it. “You disappeared without telling me why. You took seventeen years from me!”

“And you would have destroyed us both if I’d stayed!”

The corridor fell silent.

Sofia immediately covered her mouth, as though she wished she could take the words back.

I stared at her.

“What does that mean?”

Before she could answer, the operating-room doors opened.

A surgeon stepped out, removing his gloves.

“Her bleeding is under control for now,” he said. “The transfusion helped us stabilize her, but the next several hours are critical.”

Sofia nearly collapsed with relief.

I caught her arm before she hit the floor.

For one brief moment, she leaned against me exactly as she had seventeen years ago.

Then she pulled away.

The surgeon continued, “There’s something else. During the initial examination, we found an old medical record in her emergency file. It suggests she may have an inherited blood disorder. We need to review her family history.”

I looked at Sofia.

She had gone completely pale.

“What disorder?” I asked.

The surgeon explained that further testing would be needed before they could draw any conclusions.

But Sofia was no longer listening.

She was staring at me with an expression I couldn’t understand.

Then she whispered, “Luca, there’s something about Elena you need to know.”

I waited.

“She wasn’t the only reason I left.”

A phone vibrated in Marco’s hand.

He checked the screen, and the color drained from his face.

“Boss,” he murmured, showing me the message.

It contained a pH๏τograph of Elena as a little girl, standing beside Sofia outside a school.

Beneath it were seven words:

WE KNOW WHO HER FATHER IS. COME ALONE.

A second message arrived.

ASK SOFIA WHAT HAPPENED SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO.

I slowly raised my eyes to the woman standing before me.

“Who sent this?”

Sofia began to cry.

Then she gripped my wrist and spoke so quietly that only I could hear her.

“Because the man who ordered the attack tonight isn’t trying to kill Elena.”

She swallowed hard.

“He’s trying to make sure you never discover who her real father is.”

I froze.

Because if Elena wasn’t my daughter…

Then whose blood had I just given to save her?

And why had someone been willing to start a war in Chicago to keep that answer buried?

To be continued in Part 3… 💔🩸