Chapter 10 - THE TRUTH ABOUT LUCA
I did not go alone.
I also did not send an army.
I went with Dante, two plainclothes investigators working with the federal task force, and a recording device authorized by people whose procedures I would once have mocked.
Everything in me hated the restraint.
Everything in me knew Elena would have understood it.
The warehouse sat beside the East River.
Empty loading docks.
Dark windows.
Luca’s car waited outside.
Driver door open.
Blood on the seat.
Not much.
Enough.
Enzo called again.
“Inside.”
I entered.
He stood on the upper platform.
Luca was tied to a chair beneath him.
A bruise spread across my brother’s face.
“You brought friends,” Enzo said.
I stopped.
“You brought my brother.”
“He brought himself.”
Luca looked at me.
“He called me.”
Enzo smiled.
“Tell him why.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
Enzo continued.
“Your precious little brother has one final secret.”
“Shut up.”
Luca struggled against the restraints.
Enzo laughed.
“Still protecting him?”
I looked at Luca.
“Tell me.”
He closed his eyes.
Then spoke.
“I knew Elena was in danger before the ambush.”
The warehouse became silent.
“How long before?”
“Twenty minutes.”
My chest tightened.
“I got a call.”
“From who?”
“Matteo.”
Sophia’s dead husband.
“He had intercepted a message,” Luca continued. “He knew the Morettis were moving.”
“Why didn’t you call Elena?”
“I did.”
My breath stopped.
“She didn’t answer.”
“Me?”
“I called you.”
“I never got a call.”
“Enzo had already compromised internal communications.”
Enzo smiled.
“Convenient.”
Luca looked at me.
“I drove toward Queens myself.”
“You arrived?”
“After you.”
“I never saw you.”
“I saw the car.”
His voice cracked.
“I saw you holding Elena.”
I remembered shapes behind police lights.
Men.
Guards.
Faces blurred by rain.
Luca had been there.
“I couldn’t walk toward you.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew I had changed the schedule.”
His eyes filled.
“I thought you would kill me.”
Maybe I would have.
That realization hurt.
“So you ran.”
“Yes.”
Enzo clapped slowly.
“Beautiful.”
I looked up at him.
“You used him.”
“I used everyone.”
“Why?”
“Because your father chose you.”
There it was.
Not money.
Not business.
Something older.
Enzo descended two steps.
“I built half the Rossi empire with your father. I protected him. I went to prison for him. Then he died and left everything to his twenty-six-year-old son.”
“You wanted my chair.”
“I earned your chair.”
“So you tried to murder me.”
“I tried to correct an insult.”
“And Elena?”
“A mistake.”
“Isabella?”
“Collateral.”
Luca lunged against the restraints.
Enzo ignored him.
“Do you know what your greatest weakness is, Marco?”
I waited.
“You think loving people makes you different from men like me.”
He smiled.
“It only gives us targets.”
For years, I believed the same thing.
After Elena, I locked my heart behind walls thicker than the estate.
I kept Isabella protected but isolated.
Then Sophia came.
Emma came.
And suddenly love stopped looking like a weakness.
It looked like the only reason not to become Enzo.
“You’re wrong.”
He laughed.
“About?”
“Love gives me something you don’t have.”
“What?”
“A reason to stop.”
His expression changed.
Outside, engines approached.
Law enforcement.
Enzo heard them.
His face twisted.
“You betrayed the family.”
“No.”
I looked at Luca.
“You did that years ago.”
Enzo reached inside his coat.
Every weapon in the warehouse pointed toward him.
He froze.
Slowly raised his hands.
For one terrible second, I thought he might force someone to shoot him.
Instead, he smiled.
“You think this ends with an arrest?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t understand the trust.”
“What about it?”
His smile widened.
“I filed the challenge before Elena died.”
My blood chilled.
“That’s impossible.”
“I began laying the groundwork.”
“What groundwork?”
“Medical incapacity.”
I stared at him.
“My medical incapacity?”
“Yours.”
Luca stopped struggling.
Enzo laughed.
“Three years of documented violent episodes. Retaliatory killings. Impulsive business decisions. Psychiatric evaluations.”
“I never had psychiatric evaluations.”
“You have paperwork saying otherwise.”
Forgery.
Again.
“Tomorrow morning,” Enzo said, “my attorneys petition the court to freeze Rossi family assets pending competency review.”
“You’ll be in custody.”
“My lawyers won’t.”
The federal agents moved in.
They pulled Enzo away.
He kept smiling.
“Your empire will tear itself apart before lunch.”
I walked to Luca.
Dante cut him free.
My brother rubbed his wrists.
“I’m sorry.”
I looked at him.
“For what?”
“Pick a year.”
Despite everything, I almost laughed.
Then I hugged him.
It lasted perhaps two seconds.
For us, it was practically a speech.
When I returned home, Sophia was waiting.
“So?”
“Enzo’s in custody.”
Relief washed over her.
“Luca?”
“Alive.”
“And the trust?”
I told her.
She became still.
“Can Enzo take everything?”
“I don’t know.”
“Would that include the house?”
“Possibly.”
She looked upstairs toward the children.
“Isabella has finally started healing.”
“I know.”
“You can’t let them turn her life into another war.”
“I won’t.”
The next morning, Enzo’s lawyers filed exactly what he promised.
Accounts froze.
Corporate boards panicked.
Old allies called.
Some demanded I fight.
Others quietly moved toward Enzo.
Then Margaret Sloan arrived at the estate carrying a sealed envelope.
“I found something,” she said.
“What?”
“Samuel Price mailed it to me two days before he died.”
She placed the envelope on my desk.
“His office marked it undeliverable. A retired clerk found it in archived correspondence after I called yesterday.”
I opened it.
Inside was a notarized statement from Elena.
A second trust amendment.
And a handwritten note.
Marco,
If Enzo ever uses your grief against you, remember this:
The empire was never the inheritance I cared about.
Isabella was.
I read further.
Then stopped.
Sophia touched my arm.
“What?”
I looked at her.
The amendment did not merely remove Enzo as trustee.
It transferred emergency guardianship authority to someone else if I was declared incapacitated.
Elena’s chosen guardian.
Her sister.
Sophia Rossi.
Sophia stepped backward.
“No.”
I handed her the page.
Her hands shook.
Elena had entrusted Isabella to her years before Sophia ever entered my house.
Then the front gate alarm sounded.
Dante appeared.
“Marco.”
“What now?”
“Court officers.”
“How many?”
“Six.”
He looked upstairs.
“They have an emergency order.”
“For what?”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“To remove Isabella from the estate pending the competency hearing.”
Sophia went white.
“No.”
From upstairs, Isabella called for me.
May you like
And for the first time, Enzo’s attack wasn’t coming with guns.
It was coming with paperwork.
