Chapter 11 – The Final Choice

The bunker air grew freezing cold.

A decoy.

“No,” Arthur gasped, grabbing the edge of the metal table to keep from collapsing. “No, that’s impossible. You saw her, Matteo! You brought back the emerald!”

Matteo stared at the phone in his hand, his chest heaving. “Vanessa said Beatrice paid a woman to wear her coat, her wig, her necklace. She knew we were coming. She knew her own men would turn on her.”

“Then where is she?” I panicked, pulling Caleb tightly against my legs. “If she’s alive, where is she?”

Matteo’s phone buzzed in his hand. A text message.

He opened it. It was a photograph.

Matteo showed me the screen, and my heart completely stopped.

It was a picture of my small, dingy apartment across town. The apartment I hadn’t slept in for six months, but still kept the lease on. But the photo wasn’t taken from the outside.

It was taken from inside Caleb’s bedroom.

Sitting on Caleb’s little bed was Beatrice, smiling into the camera, holding a lighter next to the curtains.

Below the photo was a text: Come alone, Matteo. Or I burn the memories of the boy’s father to ash.

“She’s at my apartment,” I breathed, terror seizing my lungs. “All of David’s things are in that room. The only photos Caleb has of his father…”

“I’m going,” Matteo said immediately, racking the slide of his pistol.

“I’m going with you,” I demanded, stepping forward.

“Absolutely not,” Matteo barked, turning to his men. “Keep them locked in here. Shoot anyone who comes through that door who isn’t me.”

“She’s my husband’s murderer, Matteo!” I yelled, grabbing his arm. “She’s in my home! You are not doing this alone!”

Matteo looked at me, seeing the fierce, unyielding fire in my eyes. The waitress who used to serve his dinner was gone. I was a mother defending her child’s history.

He gritted his teeth and nodded. “Stay behind me. Do exactly what I say.”

Ten minutes later, Matteo’s SUV screeched to a halt outside my apartment building. The street was quiet, bathed in the orange glow of streetlights.

Matteo kicked open the front door of the building, weapon drawn, moving with lethal precision up the stairs. I followed closely behind, my heart pounding so hard it hurt my ribs.

When we reached the third floor, my apartment door was wide open.

The smell of gasoline hit us immediately.

Matteo stepped inside, sweeping the living room with his gun. “Clear.”

We moved down the narrow hallway toward Caleb’s bedroom.

Beatrice was sitting in the rocking chair in the corner of the room. She looked terrible. Her hair was matted, her expensive clothes filthy. She held a silver Zippo lighter in one hand and a soaked rag in the other.

“Ah,” Beatrice smiled a cracked, insane smile. “The happy couple.”

“Put the lighter down, Mother,” Matteo said, keeping his gun aimed directly at her head.

“You took everything from me!” Beatrice shrieked, her facade of aristocratic control completely shattered. “My money, my empire, my life! You gave it all to this… this servant!”

“I gave it to a family that actually loves each other,” Matteo said coldly. “Something you know nothing about. It’s over, Beatrice. The police have the building surrounded. My men are on the stairs. You have nowhere left to run.”

Beatrice let out a high-pitched, hysterical laugh. “I’m not running, Matteo. I’m taking her with me.”

She flicked the lighter. The flame sparked to life.

She threw it toward the gasoline-soaked curtains.

“No!” I screamed.

Matteo didn’t shoot her. He threw his massive body forward, tackling Beatrice out of the rocking chair just as the flames erupted up the wall.

The fire alarm blared. Smoke instantly filled the small room.

I didn’t run. I dropped to my knees, coughing, crawling under the thick black smoke toward the closet. I pulled open the door and grabbed the small, fireproof lockbox I kept hidden under the floorboards. David’s photos. His wedding ring. His letters.

“Clara, get out!” Matteo roared over the sound of the crackling fire.

He was dragging a thrashing, screaming Beatrice by the collar of her coat toward the hallway.

I grabbed the box and scrambled out of the room. The heat was blistering, the flames licking at the ceiling.

We burst out into the hallway, Matteo shoving Beatrice into the arms of waiting police officers who tackled her to the ground, cuffing her wrists as she screamed curses into the night.

Matteo collapsed against the hallway wall, coughing violently, his face covered in soot.

I crawled over to him, dropping the lockbox, and threw my arms around his neck. We sat there on the filthy carpet of the hallway, holding each other as the fire sprinklers finally kicked on, raining cold water down on us.

“You saved it,” Matteo coughed, looking at the lockbox. “You saved his memory.”

I cupped his face in my hands, crying freely as the water washed the soot from his cheeks. “You saved us, Matteo. You saved me.”

He leaned his forehead against mine, his dark eyes finally, truly at peace.

“I love you, Clara,” Matteo whispered over the sound of sirens approaching in the distance.

“I love you too,” I answered, pressing my lips to his in the cold rain of the sprinklers.

Two days later, we stood in the gardens of the Moretti estate. The sun was shining.

Caleb was sitting on a blanket, showing his newly saved photos of David to Leo, pointing out how much his daddy looked like a superhero. Arthur sat on a bench nearby, whittling a piece of wood, a soft, content smile on his face.

Matteo walked up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist, resting his chin on my shoulder just like he had that morning in the kitchen.

“It’s quiet today,” Matteo murmured.

I leaned back against his solid chest, twisting the silver bracelet on my wrist. The nightmare was truly over. Beatrice was in federal custody, facing life in a supermax prison. The Cartel was gone. The ghosts were laid to rest.

“It is,” I smiled, watching my son laugh with his new family. “I think I could get used to this.”

Matteo turned me around, pulling me flush against him. He smiled, a bright, beautiful expression that made him look like the man he was always meant to be.

“Good,” Matteo whispered, kissing me softly. “Because there are no more empty plates at our table.”