Chapter 3
Luca moved toward the stairs.
Marco grabbed his arm.
“No.”
“My mother is up there.”
“That’s exactly why you don’t rush.”
Vanessa smiled from the second-floor landing.
She had changed clothes.
No engagement dress.
No diamond earrings.
Black pants. Dark sweater. Hair tied back.
Prepared.
That told Luca the party had never mattered to her.
At least not as a celebration.
It had been cover.
A room full of important people, music, champagne, staff moving everywhere.
Perfect noise for a kidnapping.
Perfect witnesses to confuse.
“Let her go,” Luca said.
Vanessa leaned on the railing.
“I tried to warn you not to open that drawer.”
“You grabbed me because you knew the letter named you.”
“I grabbed you because once you read it, there was no way back.”
“There was no way back when you hurt Anna.”
Vanessa’s face hardened.
“So that’s what this is about now?”
Anna stood behind Luca.
“Yes.”
Vanessa looked at her.
The contempt was immediate.
“You always wanted to matter.”
Anna’s hands curled into fists.
Luca stepped sideways, blocking Vanessa’s view.
“She matters.”
Vanessa laughed.
“To you?”
“To the truth.”
That hit harder.
Her smile disappeared.
Marco whispered, “Two shooters left side. One behind the office door.”
Luca’s eyes did not move.
“How do you know?”
“Reflection.”
Of course.
Marco saw danger in polished surfaces.
Luca heard his father’s voice in memory.
Never trust a quiet room.
Richard Hale appeared beside Vanessa.
He looked almost bored.
Gray suit.
No tie.
No visible weapon.
“Put your gun down, Luca.”
“No.”
“Then your mother pays for your pride.”
Luca’s breathing slowed.
“Show me she’s alive.”
Hale nodded.
A guard dragged Mrs. Moretti into view.
She was conscious.
Her hands were bound.
A strip of blood marked her forehead.
But she stood.
Barely.
“Luca,” she said.
He almost broke.
His mother looked at him with the same eyes she had used when he was seven and feverish.
Worried about him.
Even now.
“Mom.”
“Don’t give them anything.”
Hale grabbed her arm.
Luca raised the gun.
“Touch her again.”
“And what?”
Hale smiled.
“You’ll shoot me? In front of Vanessa? In front of Anna? In front of men who work for both sides of this family?”
“Both sides?”
Hale nodded toward the darkness.
One of Luca’s security guards stepped into the light.
Tommy Russo.
Fifteen years with the Moretti family.
Luca stared.
Tommy avoided his eyes.
Marco’s voice became ice.
“You.”
Tommy lifted a gun.
“I’m sorry.”
Luca almost laughed.
Everyone was sorry tonight.
Everyone after the betrayal.
Never before.
“Why?” Luca asked.
Tommy swallowed.
“Your father made promises.”
“My father is dead.”
“Exactly.”
Luca’s stomach tightened.
Hale smiled.
“Now we’re getting somewhere.”
He gestured toward the second floor.
“Come up.”
Marco shook his head again.
Luca looked at him.
“Cover Anna.”
“Boss—”
“That’s an order.”
Luca climbed.
One stair.
Then another.
He could feel weapons tracking him.
Vanessa watched with something that looked almost like sadness.
That made him angrier than hatred would have.
When Luca reached the landing, Hale motioned toward an office.
Inside sat an old steel desk.
On top was a leather ledger.
Luca recognized it from his mother’s letter.
His father’s records.
Hale closed the door behind them.
Vanessa entered too.
Mrs. Moretti remained outside with Tommy.
Luca looked at the ledger.
“What is it?”
“Insurance,” Hale said.
“Against what?”
“Men like your father.”
Luca opened it.
Columns of dates.
Names.
Payments.
His father’s handwriting.
Some pages listed city contracts.
Others listed judges.
Police captains.
Union officials.
Developers.
Then Luca saw a name.
RICHARD HALE.
Payments for twenty years.
But beside several entries was a second notation.
REFUSED.
Luca looked up.
Hale nodded.
“Your father paid me for years.”
“For what?”
“To keep certain federal investigations away from Moretti properties.”
Luca’s face hardened.
“You were a prosecutor.”
“Yes.”
“A corrupt one.”
“An effective one.”
Vanessa looked away.
Luca turned pages.
Then he found the date his father died.
Beside it:
Hale - final settlement.
Underneath:
V refused.
Then:
Doctor M. Confirmed.
Luca’s stomach dropped.
“Doctor M?”
Hale said nothing.
“Who is Doctor M?”
Mrs. Moretti screamed from the hall.
Luca reached for the door.
Hale blocked him.
“Read.”
Luca turned the page.
A medical report.
His father’s.
Heart failure.
But attached was a handwritten note.
Dose administered at 9:10 p.m.
Expected arrest by 9:35.
No autopsy requested.
Family physician signed.
Luca stared.
His father had not died naturally.
He had been poisoned.
Vanessa whispered, “Luca.”
He looked at her.
“You knew.”
She shook her head.
“When?”
“I found out last year.”
“And you still agreed to marry me.”
“I loved you.”
He laughed.
The sound was ugly.
“You loved me while your father hid evidence that he helped murder mine?”
“My father didn’t order it.”
Hale spoke.
“No.”
Luca turned.
“Who did?”
Hale smiled slightly.
“Your mother.”
The world stopped.
Vanessa closed her eyes.
Luca stared.
“You’re lying.”
Hale said nothing.
“You’re lying.”
The office door opened.
Mrs. Moretti stood there.
Tommy behind her.
Her face was broken with grief.
“Luca.”
He looked at her.
“Tell me he’s lying.”
She could not.
Luca stepped backward.
“No.”
“Your father was sick,” she said.
“He had heart disease?”
“Not his heart.”
“What?”
Her voice shook.
“He was becoming dangerous.”
Luca’s face changed.
“To who?”
“To everyone.”
Hale leaned against the desk.
Mrs. Moretti continued.
“He had started talking about killing witnesses. Families. Children.”
Luca shook his head.
“No.”
“You were trying to clean the company even then. He hated it.”
“I was twenty-nine.”
“He was afraid you would take control.”
Luca looked at the medical note.
“You killed him.”
Tears filled his mother’s eyes.
“I stopped him.”
“No.”
“I stopped him before he killed you.”
Silence.
Luca could hear his own heartbeat.
Vanessa whispered, “That’s why my father kept the ledger. Insurance against your mother.”
Mrs. Moretti looked at Hale.
“You promised me you would destroy it.”
Hale smiled.
“I promised many things.”
Luca’s mind raced.
Everything was wrong.
His father murdered.
His mother involved.
Vanessa knew.
Hale profited.
Tommy betrayed him.
Anna abused.
The engagement a cover.
“What do you want?” Luca asked.
Hale’s eyes sharpened.
“Control of Moretti Waterfront Holdings.”
There it was.
Not revenge.
Not truth.
Property.
Power always became paperwork eventually.
“Why?”
“Because your father buried something beneath Pier Nine.”
Luca frowned.
“What?”
Hale’s smile disappeared.
“Twenty-two million dollars.”
Luca almost laughed.
“Cash?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Gold.”
Luca stared.
His father used to control shipping contracts through the docks.
Rumors existed about smuggling during the early years.
He never believed them.
“Gold from where?”
Hale said, “A shipment that vanished after a Balkan arms deal twenty-three years ago.”
Mrs. Moretti whispered, “Victor said it was gone.”
“It wasn’t.”
Hale tapped the ledger.
“The ledger contains the location.”
“Then why do you need me?”
“The access codes changed when you took control of the waterfront.”
Luca understood.
Biometric vault systems.
Two-person authorization for restricted underground storage.
His signature.
His hand.
His presence.
“Open the vault,” Hale said, “and your mother walks out.”
Luca looked at Vanessa.
“And Anna?”
Vanessa laughed.
“Still thinking about the maid?”
Luca’s expression changed.
He stepped close to her.
“She has a name.”
Vanessa’s smile faded.
Luca turned to Hale.
“My mother first.”
“No.”
“Then we’re done.”
Hale drew a gun.
Outside, another weapon clicked.
Mrs. Moretti shouted.
Then everything happened at once.
Anna screamed from downstairs.
Marco fired.
Tommy turned.
Mrs. Moretti drove her shoulder into him.
A gunshot exploded.
Glass shattered.
Luca grabbed Vanessa and pulled her down as bullets tore through the office wall.
Hale fired toward the door.
Marco shouted from below.
Luca kicked the desk over.
The ledger fell.
Vanessa crawled for it.
Luca caught her wrist.
“No.”
She clawed at him.
“Give it to me!”
“Why?”
“Because you still don’t understand!”
“What?”
Her eyes filled with panic.
“My father isn’t the one you should be afraid of.”
Another gunshot.
Tommy fell into the office doorway.
Dead.
Mrs. Moretti crawled behind him.
Luca pulled her inside.
Hale disappeared through a rear door.
Marco reached the landing.
Anna behind him.
Luca grabbed the ledger.
“Where did Hale go?”
Marco checked the rear hall.
“Roof access.”
Vanessa was breathing hard.
Luca looked at her.
“What did you mean?”
She stared at the ledger.
“My father didn’t plan tonight.”
“Who did?”
Vanessa looked past him.
At his mother.
Mrs. Moretti’s face went white.
Luca slowly turned.
His mother whispered one name.
“Father Daniel.”
Luca froze.
Father Daniel had baptized him.
Buried his father.
Counseled his mother.
And he was downstairs at the engagement party.
At least—
he had been.
Marco checked his radio.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“Father Daniel is gone.”
Then Anna spoke.
“I saw him near the service elevator.”
Luca looked at her.
“When?”
“Right before your mother disappeared.”
And suddenly the priest Luca had trusted his entire life was no longer a priest in his memory.
He was a man who knew every Moretti confession.
Every secret.
May you like
Every weakness.
And maybe every body.
