Chapter 6 - The Enemy Inside Luca’s House
Luca increased security after Richard’s arrest.
Two men remained at the townhouse entrance.
Another monitored the garden.
My guest-suite window received a temporary alarm.
I agreed to every measure after reviewing it with Sofia.
That distinction mattered.
Agreement.
Not assumption.
For three days, nothing happened.
Then Elena collapsed in the kitchen.
She had poured tea for both of us.
I had not yet drunk mine.
Elena took one sip and fell against the counter.
Dr. Russo reached her within minutes.
The tea contained a sedative.
A different drug from the one Richard used, but powerful enough to cause respiratory failure in an older woman.
Elena survived.
Barely.
The kitchen cameras showed no outsider entering.
Only household staff and Luca’s security team had access.
Someone inside his house had targeted the wrong cup.
My cup.
The ceramic pattern Elena used for guests.
Luca shut down the property immediately.
Every employee remained for questioning.
He wanted phones seized.
Sofia stopped him.
“You are not running an interrogation basement,” she said. “Police handle this.”
His eyes flashed.
“One of my people tried to poison her.”
“Then evidence matters more than fear.”
I watched him struggle against every instinct that made him powerful.
Control.
Speed.
Certainty.
Then he nodded.
Police collected cups, tea containers, fingerprints, and camera footage.
The sedative came from Dr. Russo’s medical supplies.
Her locked cabinet had been opened using Marco’s access code.
Marco denied entering it.
The security system showed his code at 2:14 a.m.
He had been asleep in the rear residence.
Video confirmed it.
The code was duplicated.
Only the security administrator could create duplicates.
A man named Anthony Sarto.
Anthony had worked for Luca for fourteen years.
He attended my birthday dinners when Luca and I were together. He once taught me how to change a tire after my car broke down outside Chicago.
He had also opposed our relationship.
He called me a vulnerability.
Anthony disappeared before police reached his apartment.
His office contained payments from Trent Holdings.
Richard had recruited someone inside Luca’s organization.
The connection began four years earlier.
Before I married Richard.
Before Luca invested in the hospital project.
Anthony had been selling information about Moretti properties, travel, and business negotiations.
Richard did not discover Luca because of me.
He had already been studying him.
My relationship made me useful.
My marriage made me accessible.
Luca stood in the empty security office while detectives removed files.
“I trusted him,” he said.
I understood the humiliation inside the words.
“Trust is not stupidity.”
“It is when the person sits beside you for fourteen years.”
“No. Betrayal belongs to the person who uses access.”
He looked at me.
“You learned that from Richard?”
“I learned it from surviving him.”
Anthony contacted Luca that evening.
The call was traced through multiple devices.
“You should have left her outside the country club,” Anthony said.
Luca’s expression became stone.
“Where are you?”
“You know better than to ask.”
“What did Trent promise you?”
“A future not built around your weakness.”
Luca’s gaze moved toward me.
Anthony continued.
“She left you once. She will destroy you now.”
“No,” Luca said. “You did that.”
“Your father would have understood.”
Luca’s father had led the organization before him. Vittorio Moretti believed loyalty required fear. He died believing Luca’s love for me made him soft.
Anthony had remained loyal to that older idea.
“What do you want?” Luca asked.
“The hospital audit files.”
Richard needed evidence destroyed before federal charges expanded.
“Where?”
“Bring the original drive to the east freight yard at midnight.”
“And Nebula?”
“She comes too.”
Luca’s hand tightened around the phone.
“No.”
“Then the architect’s seal becomes the government’s easiest target. Richard’s lawyers already prepared the case. Without the original accounting drive, every revision appears to come from her.”
The line disconnected.
Sofia insisted nobody attend the exchange.
Detective Hayes wanted to use a duplicate drive and surveillance team.
I wanted to go.
Luca refused.
The refusal triggered something violent inside me.
“You promised not to decide for me.”
“I promised not to control your ordinary life. This is not ordinary.”
“My professional license, freedom, and reputation are on that drive.”
“And Anthony wants you physically present.”
“Because I am leverage.”
“Yes.”
“I have been leverage for men my entire marriage. I will not become leverage by being hidden either.”
Luca turned away.
“That sentence does not make the freight yard safe.”
“No. It means I understand the danger and still deserve a voice.”
Sofia looked between us.
“She goes only if law enforcement approves a controlled operation.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
Detective Hayes agreed under strict conditions.
Tracking device.
Protective vest beneath my coat.
Armed officers positioned around the yard.
No independent Moretti action.
Luca accepted the restrictions because the alternative was exclusion.
At eleven fifty, we entered the freight yard in one vehicle.
Rusting tracks crossed beneath broken industrial lights. Empty containers formed dark corridors.
Anthony stood near a warehouse door.
Two men waited behind him.
He looked older than I remembered.
More tired.
Still dangerous.
“You brought police,” he said.
“I brought witnesses,” I replied.
He smiled.
“You always made Luca sentimental.”
“No. Men keep blaming women when loyalty fails between men.”
His expression hardened.
“Give me the drive.”
Luca held up the duplicate.
“First, the original files proving Nebula did not authorize the steel changes.”
Anthony pointed toward the warehouse.
“Inside.”
Detective Hayes’s voice sounded through my earpiece.
Do not enter.
Anthony saw the hesitation.
“Richard was right about you,” he said. “You always need another person to choose.”
I looked at the warehouse.
Then at the security camera above the door.
A red light blinked.
“Why record the exchange?” I asked.
Anthony’s eyes moved upward.
There.
A mistake.
The warehouse was a stage.
Richard wanted footage of Luca delivering a drive in exchange for exculpatory evidence. It would look like evidence tampering by an organized-crime figure.
The files inside might not exist.
“This is another confession video,” I said.
Anthony reached inside his coat.
Luca moved in front of me.
Police shouted from the darkness.
Anthony drew a weapon but did not fire.
Officers surrounded him.
One of his men surrendered.
The other ran and was caught near the tracks.
Inside the warehouse, investigators found cameras, prepared statements, and a chair positioned beneath bright lights.
Richard’s system repeated itself.
Control the body.
Control the recording.
Control the story.
But they also found the original accounting drive.
Anthony kept it as insurance.
The records proved Richard personally approved the fraudulent materials and digitally copied my professional seal.
My license was protected.
The hospital project was saved from opening unsafely.
Anthony was arrested for attempted poisoning, conspiracy, extortion, and evidence tampering.
As officers led him away, he looked at Luca.
“She will leave again.”
Luca answered quietly.
“That will be her right.”
The words reached me more deeply than any declaration of love.
He had changed.
Or perhaps he had learned what love without freedom cost.
At dawn, we returned to the townhouse.
Elena was home from the hospital, furious that anyone had touched her tea cabinet.
I stood in the garden while the sky lightened.
Luca joined me.
“I am sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“For deciding your fear meant I should decide for you.”
“I was terrified.”
“I know.”
“I might still leave.”
“I know.”
“Does that make helping me harder?”
“Yes.”
The honesty mattered.
“Will you help anyway?”
“Yes.”
Before I could answer, my phone rang.
Chloe.
She was crying.
“Mom went to see Richard,” she said.
“When?”
“This morning. She took his attorney’s call.”
“Why?”
“He told her he had proof you were planning to kill yourself.”
My body went cold.
May you like
Richard had found the final person still willing to believe that saving me required helping him.
And my mother had just walked into his trap.
