Chapter 11 – The Fire and the Future

“Michael!” Luca screamed, surging forward as the flames roared toward the ceiling.

The heat was instantaneous and suffocating, peeling the ancient paint off the walls and filling the chapel with thick, acrid black smoke.

Julian didn’t run. He stood behind the wall of fire, watching us with a calm, psychotic satisfaction, as if he were ready to burn with his revenge.

“Get back, Emily!” Luca shoved me toward the heavy oak doors, stripping off his heavy leather jacket in one fluid motion.

“I’m not leaving you!” I choked out, coughing as the smoke burned my lungs.

Luca ignored me. He wrapped his leather jacket tightly around his head and arms and sprinted directly into the flames.

“Luca, no!” I screamed.

He breached the fire wall, tackling the burning pews out of his way with the sheer brute force of a runaway train. He reached the front pew where Michael was tied up, coughing violently.

Through the roaring flames, I saw Julian pull a gun from his jacket, aiming it directly at Luca’s back as he tried to cut Michael’s zip-ties with his combat knife.

“Luca, behind you!” I shrieked.

I didn’t think. I didn’t hesitate. I grabbed a heavy, broken piece of a stone from a shattered statue near the doorway and hurled it through the flames with everything I had.

The stone struck Julian squarely in the shoulder just as he pulled the trigger.

The gunshot deafened the room, the bullet sparking harmlessly against the stone altar, missing Luca by inches.

Julian stumbled backward, dropping the gun. He looked at me through the flames, fury contorting his aristocratic face.

Before he could recover, Luca sliced through the plastic bindings on Michael’s wrists.

“Go!” Luca roared, grabbing his brother by the collar and shoving him toward the gap in the fire he had cleared.

Michael stumbled through the smoke, collapsing onto the floor near me.

Julian, realizing he had lost his hostages, lunged for the dropped gun.

But Luca was faster.

“Luca, stop!” I screamed over the roar of the fire. “The roof is collapsing! We have to go!”

Above us, the ancient wooden beams of the chapel ceiling groaned dangerously, consumed by fire.

Luca looked up, realizing I was right. He looked down at the man who had orchestrated his family’s nightmares for decades.

He didn’t hit him. He grabbed Julian by the collar and dragged the half-conscious man to his feet.

“You don’t get to die a martyr, Julian,” Luca snarled over the noise. “You get to rot in a cell like a coward.”

Luca shoved Julian through the flames toward us.

“Mike, grab him!” Luca ordered.

Michael, despite his injuries, hauled Julian up by his jacket.

Together, the four of us burst out of the heavy oak doors just as the main roof beam of the chapel collapsed behind us in an explosion of sparks and ash.

We stumbled out of the orphanage and collapsed onto the wet grass in the cold night air, coughing violently.

Sirens wailed in the distance. Luca’s security team had finally tracked his car’s GPS.

I lay on my back on the damp earth, staring up at the smoke billowing into the night sky. My chest heaved, my throat burned, but I was alive.

Luca rolled over and sat up, wiping soot from his face. He looked at Michael, who was bruised and battered but breathing steadily.

Then, Luca looked at me.

He reached out and pulled me into a crushing, soot-stained hug.

“You threw a rock at a guy with a gun,” Luca laughed, the sound rough and exhausted. “You really are a Moretti.”

I hugged him back, tears cutting clean lines through the soot on my cheeks. “I guess I am.”

SIX MONTHS LATER

The summer sun shone brightly over the manicured lawns of the Moretti estate.

There were no fifty-guest banquets. There were no armed guards patrolling the dining room.

Instead, there was a massive barbecue in the backyard.

Michael was flipping burgers on the grill, laughing as little Leo and Mia sprayed each other with a garden hose. Anna was setting the picnic table, smiling brighter than I had ever seen her.

My mother sat in a lounge chair under a large umbrella, sipping iced tea and looking healthier and happier than she had in years. She wasn’t struggling to pay bills anymore. She was exactly where she belonged—with her family.

I walked out onto the patio, carrying a tray of fresh lemonade. I wasn’t wearing a maid’s uniform. I was wearing a sundress, and resting against my collarbone was the Moretti Emerald.

Luca walked over, wearing a casual polo shirt, looking entirely unlike the terrifying mafia boss I had met a year ago.

“Here you go,” I smiled, handing him a glass.

“Thanks, kid,” Luca said, taking a sip. He looked out over the yard at his family. “Julian pled guilty today. Life without parole. He and Silvio are going to share the same cell block.”

I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. “It’s really over.”

“It’s really over,” Luca agreed. He turned to look at me, a soft, proud smile on his face. “You start classes at the university on Monday. Are you ready?”

I looked down at the necklace, tracing the intricate silver filigree. I thought about my grandmother, who had baked bread and hid from the world so that I could one day stand here in the sunlight, safe and loved.

“I’m ready,” I said, looking back up at my uncle.

Luca slung a heavy arm over my shoulder, pulling me into a side hug as we watched the kids chase Michael around the yard.

“Good,” Luca said warmly. “Because the Moretti family has a lot of lost time to make up for. And we’re just getting started.”