Thirteen Years After His Brother Vanished

CHAPTER 1 - THE WOLF

"Mom, he has the same wolf as you!"

The little girl's voice was bright, almost delighted.

It did not belong in that moment.

Adrian Vale had just stepped out of the revolving doors of the Halbrecht Building, already half-listening to a man on his earpiece and nodding at the two security men behind him. Then the child pointed at his right forearm, where the cuff of his black suit had shifted just enough to reveal the edge of black and gray ink.

He stopped so suddenly one of the guards nearly walked into him.

The woman facing him went pale.

She was Latina, maybe mid-thirties, wearing a cream trench coat over a champagne blouse. One hand held the little girl's. The other rose slowly to her own sleeve as if she were moving through water.

Adrian heard his own voice before he understood what was happening.

"What did you just say?"

The child looked up at him, suddenly unsure.

Her mother pulled back her left sleeve.

There it was.

The same wolf. Same angled jaw. Same shadow around the eye. Same curved line under the throat that Luca had insisted on adding because, in his words, "A wolf should look like it survived something."

The woman was crying now.

"Luca gave me this design thirteen years ago."

Adrian felt the air leave his body. Luca. His younger brother. Missing for thirteen years. No body. No goodbye. Just a motorcycle found near the river and a family buried under not knowing.

"Luca..." Adrian whispered. "My brother?"

The woman's face crumpled.

The little girl pressed against her side, her white bow slipping crooked in her hair.

Adrian took a step closer, fear and hope hitting him with equal force.

"Was Luca her father?"

The woman nodded once, then harder, as if she hated the truth but could not hold it back.

"Yes."

Behind Adrian, the revolving door turned again.

A silver-haired woman in a navy coat came out of the building, saw the child, and went dead still.

Then she said, in a voice Adrian had not heard tremble since his father's funeral, "That girl's face... she has Luca's mother's eyes."

His mother had just arrived.