Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN LUCA THOUGHT HE NEEDED TO PROTECT
Elena’s plan offended every instinct Luca possessed.
That was probably why it worked.
“You want me to do nothing.”
“No.”
“You want me to stay here.”
“Yes.”
“That is doing nothing.”
Elena crossed her arms.
“You have an impressive ability to confuse movement with intelligence.”
Marco turned away to hide a smile.
Luca glared at him.
“Enjoying yourself?”
“Immensely.”
They had relocated Sophia before sunrise.
Not to a Verano property.
Elena refused.
Instead, Sophia stayed with Elena’s sister Isabel in a federal-style secure residence belonging to an attorney Marco trusted outside the family network.
Two guards Luca had personally chosen remained nearby but out of sight.
Sophia had objected.
“I just found you.”
Luca had crouched in front of her.
“I know.”
“And now you’re sending me away.”
The words stabbed.
“No.”
“That is what this is.”
Five-year-old logic had no mercy.
Luca chose honesty.
“There are people who may want to scare me by frightening you.”
Sophia’s gray eyes widened.
“Bad people?”
“Yes.”
“Because you’re bad?”
Silence.
Elena looked at him.
Marco looked at the floor.
Luca could have lied.
He did not.
“I have done bad things.”
Sophia thought about that.
“Did you say sorry?”
Marco coughed violently.
Elena covered her mouth.
Luca almost laughed.
“Not enough.”
“You should.”
“Yes.”
She touched his cheek.
“Then come get me later.”
“I will.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
He watched her leave.
Then turned toward Elena.
“If anything happens—”
“Nothing will happen because for once she is somewhere Vittorio does not associate with you.”
That was the brilliance of Elena’s plan.
Vittorio knew Luca’s properties.
His safe houses.
His bodyguards.
His habits.
Elena had survived five years because she learned to live outside Luca’s patterns.
Now she intended to use that against his uncle.
Valentina’s kidnapping was bait.
Marco was the requested exchange.
But Luca had something Vittorio did not know.
The trust documents.
Marco’s key could not release Antonio’s reserve alone.
Neither could Sophia’s beneficiary status.
A third condition required authorization by the trust protector.
Samuel Bellini.
Dr. Bellini.
The old physician.
Antonio had chosen a man nobody would suspect because everyone believed Bellini cared only about medicine and opera.
Vittorio did not know.
That gave them leverage.
At noon, Luca called his uncle.
Vittorio answered immediately.
“You took your time.”
“I was deciding whether Valentina was worth Marco.”
Across the room, Elena’s expression hardened.
Luca ignored it.
Vittorio laughed.
“Cold.”
“You taught me.”
“I taught you nothing. Antonio kept you soft.”
Marco mouthed something obscene.
Luca almost smiled.
“Where?”
“Pier Seventeen. Eleven tonight.”
“Valentina alive.”
“For now.”
“I speak to her.”
A pause.
Then rustling.
Valentina’s voice came through.
“Luca?”
“Are you hurt?”
“My pride.”
Good.
Still Valentina.
“Anything else?”
“Someone hit me.”
Vittorio took the phone back.
“Eleven.”
The call ended.
Elena said, “She sounds stronger than she looks.”
“You dislike her.”
“I met her for fourteen seconds.”
“That has never stopped you.”
Elena rolled her eyes.
For half a second, they were twenty-eight again.
Then reality returned.
“Why were you with her?”
“Dinner.”
“Why?”
“I occasionally eat.”
“With women?”
“Sometimes.”
Elena looked away.
Luca studied her.
“You have no right to be jealous.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I disappeared because your father threatened my unborn child, Luca. Forgive me if my emotional responses are not currently organized.”
His anger softened.
“I wasn’t serious with her.”
Elena laughed.
“That is not comforting.”
“Why?”
“Because it means you bring women into dangerous family situations casually.”
“That is fair.”
She stared.
“You admitted I was right.”
“Do not become accustomed.”
Her mouth twitched.
Then she became serious.
“What happens after tonight?”
“With Vittorio?”
“With Sophia.”
Luca did not answer immediately.
“I want to know her.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“I want to be her father.”
“She has a life.”
“I know.”
“School.”
“I know.”
“Friends.”
“Yes.”
“She does not suddenly become Luca Verano’s daughter and move into a guarded mansion.”
His instinct rebelled.
His mouth opened.
Elena raised one finger.
“No.”
He almost smiled.
“You anticipated me.”
“I lived with you for three years.”
“I want her protected.”
“She can be protected without becoming imprisoned.”
That word.
Imprisoned.
He thought of his childhood.
Armed men at school gates.
Drivers.
Rules.
Rooms he could not enter.
Friends his father investigated.
Protection had often felt like walls.
“What do you want?”
“For tonight? Survival.”
“And afterward?”
Elena looked toward the window.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you still hate me?”
She turned.
“I never hated you.”
That hurt more.
“Then why stay gone after my father died?”
“Because someone kept threatening Sophia.”
“And if Vittorio is gone?”
She understood the question beneath.
What happens to us?
“I don’t know.”
Luca nodded.
For once, he accepted uncertainty.
At ten-thirty, Marco prepared to leave for Pier Seventeen.
Luca adjusted his jacket.
Elena blocked the door.
“You agreed to the plan.”
“I am following it.”
“You are wearing a shoulder holster.”
“I wear one to breakfast.”
“Luca.”
He looked at her.
“We are not sending Marco alone.”
Marco said, “I feel touched.”
Elena ignored him.
“The police?”
Luca and Marco both stared at her.
She sighed.
“Of course not.”
“Vittorio has men inside law enforcement,” Luca said.
“So do you?”
“No.”
That surprised her.
“I used to.”
Used to.
Change again.
Instead, Luca had contacted one federal investigator he had quietly been cooperating with for the past year.
Agent Daniel Reeves.
Elena almost dropped her coffee.
“You are working with the FBI?”
“Working is generous.”
Marco said, “Mutually threatening each other toward legitimacy.”
Luca glared.
“It is productive.”
Reeves’s team would remain outside the pier.
Not because Luca suddenly trusted federal law enforcement.
Because Vittorio needed to end in a courtroom or a prison cell.
Not a grave Luca created.
That was the only future in which Sophia did not inherit another blood feud.
At eleven, Marco entered the warehouse.
Alone visibly.
Luca and Elena watched through a live camera hidden in Marco’s tie pin.
Vittorio stood beside Valentina.
Six armed men around him.
He looked older than Luca remembered.
Not weaker.
Just more consumed.
“Marco,” Vittorio said.
“You look well.”
“You look like Antonio’s uglier brother.”
Elena whispered, “I like him.”
Luca murmured, “Unfortunately.”
Vittorio smiled.
“Where is Luca?”
“Busy.”
“With his new daughter?”
Marco’s face remained still.
Vittorio continued.
“She looks exactly like him.”
Luca’s blood chilled.
Elena grabbed his arm.
“How has he seen her?”
No one knew.
Vittorio answered his own mystery.
He held up a photograph.
Sophia leaving school three weeks earlier.
Before the restaurant.
Before Luca knew.
Elena went pale.
“He knew where we were.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“You said nobody followed you.”
“Nobody did.”
Then Elena realized.
“Isabel.”
Her sister.
She grabbed her phone.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
Luca called the secure residence.
One of his guards answered immediately.
“Sophia is safe.”
“Elena’s sister?”
“She left forty minutes ago.”
“Why?”
“Said she needed medication.”
Elena stared.
“She doesn’t take medication.”
Luca felt the trap closing.
Vittorio’s voice came through the camera.
“You brought the key?”
Marco said, “Yes.”
“Give it to me.”
“Valentina first.”
Vittorio smiled.
Then another figure emerged from behind the warehouse partition.
Elena stopped breathing.
Isabel.
Her wrists were tied.
Bruise on her cheek.
Alive.
Elena moved toward the door.
Luca caught her.
“No.”
“That’s my sister.”
“And that is exactly why Vittorio took her.”
On screen, Marco’s composure cracked.
Vittorio saw it.
“Family,” he said. “Always the easiest currency.”
Luca’s face went cold.
He looked at Elena.
“No.”
She understood.
He was refusing the old rule.
People were not currency.
Not anymore.
Luca called Reeves.
“Move.”
Federal agents closed in.
Inside, Marco dropped to the floor as the warehouse lights died.
Gunfire erupted.
Valentina screamed.
Isabel shouted.
Luca was already moving.
Elena grabbed him.
“You said—”
“I promised Sophia I would come back.”
“And?”
He looked at her.
May you like
“I intend to.”
Then he ran into the rain.
