Chương 6 - THE PHOTOGRAPH THAT TURNED ON LUCA“BACK!”
Luca grabbed Elena as fire raced across the concrete.
Marco fired twice at the lock.
Nothing.
Smoke climbed the walls.
“There has to be another exit!” Elena shouted.
“There is.”
Luca kicked aside an old desk.
Beneath it was a rusted drainage hatch.
Marco stared.
“You knew about that?”
“I grew up here.”
“Useful childhood.”
They tore the hatch open.
Luca dropped through first.
Elena passed the red coat and envelope down to him.
Then Marco.
Then herself.
They crawled through a storm drain as flames consumed Warehouse Fourteen behind them.
By the time they climbed out beside the seawall, Elena’s hands were bleeding.
Luca’s suit was torn.
Marco looked half-dead.
But the evidence was still with them.
Elena rounded on Luca immediately.
“Now explain the photograph.”
He leaned against the seawall.
“That meeting was mine.”
“I gathered that.”
“I was buying the route.”
She laughed once, bitterly.
“That is not helping.”
“To close it.”
She stopped.
Luca looked toward the burning warehouse.
“My father built our power through shipping, protection, gambling, extortion. Things I’m not proud of.”
“Keep going.”
“When I took control, narcotics were becoming more profitable than everything else combined. I watched families in neighborhoods we controlled lose children.”
“So you became a kinder criminal?”
“No.”
His voice was tired.
“I became a man who finally understood there are things money cannot excuse.”
He pointed toward the photograph.
“That Calabrian crew controlled three weapons and drug routes through western Sicily. I bought their Palermo access so I could shut it down quietly.”
“Why quietly?”
“Because if I announced I was dismantling half the business, men inside my own organization would revolt.”
“Men like Vittorio.”
“Yes.”
The answer came without hesitation.
Marco looked at Luca.
“You never told me this.”
“I told Sofia.”
Elena held up the photograph.
“Then why did she write that she didn’t trust you?”
“Because I lied about one part.”
“What part?”
Luca looked ashamed.
“I told her the meeting had never happened.”
Elena stared.
“Why?”
“She was already afraid. She wanted us out. Completely.”
“And you weren’t ready.”
“No.”
“So she caught you lying.”
“Yes.”
He didn’t defend himself.
That mattered.
“She thought I had joined the traffickers instead of buying them out.”
“You let your wife believe you were becoming worse.”
“I thought I could explain after I finished.”
Elena shook her head.
“People always think truth will wait.”
Luca looked toward the burning building.
“It didn’t.”
Marco searched the saved documents.
One manifest carried an authorization stamp from Santoro Security.
His expression changed.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“This ammunition shipment.”
Luca took it.
The same SM-9 code.
The private ammunition used by the sniper.
Authorization had been signed three weeks earlier.
Not by Vittorio.
By Bianca Santoro.
Luca went silent.
“No.”
Marco pointed.
“That’s her code.”
Elena felt another piece shift beneath them.
“Your sister controls the armory?”
“Financial authorization only.”
“She could release ammunition?”
“If security requested it.”
“Who normally requested?”
Luca already knew.
“Vittorio.”
Elena looked at the saved photographs again.
One showed Sofia leaving a restaurant.
Another showed a hospital administrator meeting Vittorio.
Then she noticed something in the reflection of a car window.
A woman.
Elegant coat.
Dark hair.
A bright blue stone at her wrist.
A bracelet.
At the same moment Luca’s phone vibrated.
He looked at the screen and rejected the call without answering.
Elena noticed.
“You said no calls.”
“I did.”
“Who was it?”
“Bianca.”
Marco frowned.
“She should be with Matteo.”
Luca immediately called the villa guard directly.
This time someone answered.
Luca’s face changed.
“What?”
Elena’s stomach tightened.
“What happened?”
He ended the call.
“Bianca and Matteo are safe.”
Marco exhaled.
“But?”
Luca stared at the manifest.
“She told the guards she was taking Matteo to the family chapel.”
“Why?”
“She said he asked to see his mother’s memorial.”
Elena looked at him.
“Did he?”
“I don’t know.”
They drove back at dangerous speed.
When they reached the villa, Bianca’s car was there.
So was Matteo.
The child sat on the library floor drawing.
Bianca stood by the window.
“What is wrong with you?” she demanded when Luca entered. “Your men frightened Matteo half to death.”
Luca threw the ammunition manifest onto the table.
Her face lost color.
“You authorized it.”
Bianca looked down.
“I authorize hundreds of security orders.”
“Vittorio requested this one.”
She said nothing.
Luca’s voice hardened.
“What have you done?”
Bianca looked toward Matteo.
“Not in front of him.”
Elena crouched beside the child.
He was drawing with a blue crayon.
A woman.
A red car.
A sparkling bracelet.
Elena’s heart began pounding.
“Matteo.”
He looked up.
“Who is she?”
The boy glanced at Bianca.
Bianca’s face went white.
“Matteo,” she whispered.
The boy touched the blue bracelet in his drawing.
“She was there too.”
Luca slowly turned toward his sister.
“Who?”
Matteo looked confused by the adults’ faces.
Then he gave the simple answer only a child could give.
“Aunt Bianca.”
Silence swallowed the room.
May you like
Matteo added quietly,
“She had Mama’s blood on her hands.”
