Chapter 10 – The Debt of Blood

The radio slipped from Luca’s fingers, clattering against the marble floor of the kitchen.

The silence that followed was a physical blow, heavy and suffocating.

My mother. They had my mother.

“Who?” I gasped, my vision tunneling, the edges of the room turning black. “Who took her? The Bellinis are dead! The Russians are gone!”

Luca didn’t answer me. His face had gone completely rigid, the blood draining from his cheeks, leaving him looking like a marble statue of a god preparing for war.

He didn’t look at me. He looked at Marco.

“Lock the house down. Put Hannah and my mother in the panic room,” Luca ordered, his voice devoid of all humanity. It was the voice of a monster waking up from a long, restless sleep.

“No!” I screamed, grabbing his arm. “You are not locking me in a box while my mother is out there! Who took her, Luca?!”

Luca finally looked down at me, and the sorrow in his eyes broke my heart all over again.

“Matteo,” Luca whispered.

“Your brother?” I breathed in horror. Matteo Moretti, the exiled, violent wild card of the family. He had vanished after the siege, retreating into the shadows while the Bellinis took the fall.

“He wants the money,” Teresa choked out, collapsing into her armchair. “He wants the Swiss trust. He must have found out about Clara and tracked the courier who delivered the envelope.”

The radio crackled again. This time, it wasn’t the guards.

“Hello, little brother.”

Matteo’s voice oozed through the static, thick with arrogant amusement.

Luca snatched the radio off the floor, his knuckles turning white. “If you hurt one hair on her head, Matteo, I will spend the rest of my life peeling the skin off your bones.”

Matteo laughed, a cold, empty sound. “Always so dramatic, Luca. I don’t want to hurt the old lady. I just want what’s mine. The old man left fifty million in a trust for her daughter. I want it transferred to my offshore accounts. You have one hour to make the wire transfer, or I’ll send Clara back to you in pieces.”

“I’ll do it,” I screamed toward the radio, tears streaming down my face. “I’ll sign whatever you want! Just don’t hurt her!”

“Ah, Hannah. The little maid who hit the jackpot,” Matteo sneered. “Bring her and the paperwork to the old shipping yard on Pier 44. Just you and her, Luca. No guards, no cops, or I put a bullet in Clara’s head before you even get out of the car.”

The radio went dead.

“I’m going,” I said immediately, wiping my tears, my voice turning to steel.

“You’re not stepping foot on that pier,” Luca snarled, turning to his security chief. “Marco, get the tactical team ready. We’re going to breach the warehouse.”

“If you breach, he kills her!” I shouted, shoving Luca’s chest hard. “He’s a psychopath! He has nothing to lose! I am not letting my mother die for money I didn’t even know I had an hour ago!”

Luca grabbed my wrists, pulling me flush against his chest. He looked down into my eyes, his breathing heavy, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against my own.

“I promised I would keep you safe,” Luca said, his voice cracking with the unbearable weight of his vow. “If I take you to that pier, he will kill us all the second the money clears.”

“Then we don’t give him the money,” I said, the plan forming in my mind with terrifying clarity. “We give him something else.”

Forty-five minutes later, Luca’s black, armored SUV pulled into the desolate, rain-slicked shipping yard of Pier 44.

The area was abandoned, filled with rusted shipping containers and the smell of dead fish and diesel fuel.

Luca parked the car in the center of the open concrete lot. We stepped out into the freezing wind. Luca leaned heavily on his cane, his shattered thigh still not fully healed, but he stood tall, his dark coat blowing in the wind.

Matteo stepped out from behind a stack of shipping crates.

He was holding a gun to my mother’s head.

Clara looked terrified, her hospital gown soaked from the rain, shivering violently, but she looked at me and mouthed, I love you.

“Mom!” I cried, taking a step forward.

“Hold it right there, Cinderella,” Matteo warned, cocking the hammer of the gun. “Where are the transfer papers?”

“Right here,” Luca said, pulling a thick manila folder from his coat. “Let her go, Matteo.”

“Throw the folder on the ground and kick it over,” Matteo ordered, grinning triumphantly.

Luca did exactly as he was told. He dropped the folder and kicked it across the wet concrete. It stopped right at Matteo’s feet.

Matteo kept the gun pressed to my mother’s head as he crouched down and picked up the folder. He opened it eagerly, his eyes scanning the documents.

But his smile vanished instantly.

“What is this?” Matteo roared, his face turning purple with rage. “These aren’t bank transfers! These are confession statements!”

“They are,” Luca said, his voice ringing out across the empty pier. “They are detailed confessions from Carlo Bellini and his lieutenants. They outline every illegal cartel route, every extortion racket, and every murder you orchestrated in Europe for the last six years. And they are signed by a federal judge.”

Matteo’s hand shook, the gun trembling against my mother’s temple. “You sold me out to the feds?”

“I bought my way out of the mob, Matteo,” Luca said coldly. “I traded all the remaining syndicate territories to the FBI in exchange for total immunity for me, my mother, and Hannah. But I left you completely exposed. There are fifty federal agents waiting a mile down this road. If you pull that trigger, you will spend the rest of your life in a supermax prison.”

“You’re bluffing!” Matteo screamed, losing control.

“Look up,” Luca said softly.

Matteo glanced up at the massive shipyard crane towering above us.

Sitting in the sniper nest, invisible in the darkness, a red laser sight clicked on. The little red dot rested directly in the center of Matteo’s forehead.

“Marco has a hollow-point bullet loaded in that rifle, Matteo,” Luca said, taking a slow step forward. “Drop the gun. Let Clara go. And you can walk away to spend the rest of your life running from the cartel you owe money to.”

Matteo stared at the red dot on his chest, his bravado shattering. He was a coward at heart.

He shoved my mother forward, dropping the gun onto the wet concrete.

“You’re dead to me, Luca!” Matteo screamed, turning and sprinting into the maze of shipping containers, fleeing into the darkness.

I didn’t care. I ran forward and caught my mother in my arms, sobbing into her wet hair. “I got you, Mom. I got you.”

We were safe. The debt was paid. The past was finally buried.

But as Luca walked over to us, wrapping his strong arms around both of us to shield us from the freezing rain, a single gunshot cracked through the night.

Not from Marco’s rifle.

From the shadows.

Luca gasped, his body jerking violently, and he collapsed onto the wet concrete.