Chapter 4 – THE WAREHOUSE ON PIER 9

The silence in the apartment was deafening.

I stared at the text message on Luca’s phone. The image of my mother—fragile, pale, and terrified—burned into my retinas.

“They know,” I whispered, dropping the birth certificate onto the floor. “Marco and Vanessa. They know who I am.”

Luca slipped his phone back into his jacket. The shock of my identity vanished, replaced instantly by the cold, calculating mind of a mafia boss.

“They don’t just want you dead, Rebecca,” Luca said, stepping toward the door. “As Carlo Bellini’s true blood daughter, you have a legitimate claim to his old territory. The territory my father stole. If Vanessa kills you, she eliminates her only rival.”

“I don’t want territory!” I cried, grabbing my coat. “I just want my mother!”

Luca looked at me, his dark eyes unreadable.

“I know.”

He reached into his holster, pulled a sleek black pistol, and checked the magazine.

“Are you taking me to Pier 9?” I asked, my voice trembling.

“Yes,” Luca said. “But you are not going to surrender.”

The drive to the docks took twenty minutes. The storm had worsened, rain battering the windshield in violent sheets.

I clutched the gold pocket watch in my hands, rubbing my thumb over the Bellini crest. The crest of a father I never knew. A father my mother had loved so much she kept his child a secret for twenty-seven years to protect me.

“Why are you helping me?” I asked quietly, staring out the window at the dark river. “If I have a claim to your territory, aren’t I your enemy?”

Luca gripped the steering wheel.

“My father built his empire on blood and lies,” Luca said softly. “He spent his whole life trying to buy forgiveness for the things he broke. I won’t be like him. You are innocent in this. And Arthur was right.”

He glanced at me.

“When you helped an old, broken man out of the rain tonight, while everyone else mocked him… I saw your heart, Rebecca. I protect what is good in my house.”

The SUV slowed to a halt a block away from Pier 9.

The massive corrugated steel warehouse loomed in the darkness. Two black sedans were parked outside. Four armed men stood by the doors, smoking in the rain.

Luca turned off the headlights.

He reached into the center console and pulled out a small, heavy object.

It was a bulletproof vest.

“Put this on under your coat,” Luca ordered.

“What are you going to do?” I asked, my hands shaking as I strapped the heavy Kevlar over my chest.

“I’m going to walk through the front door and give Marco exactly what he wants,” Luca said, his eyes hard. “Me.”

Before I could argue, Luca opened the door and stepped into the storm.

I watched in horror as he walked directly toward the four armed guards. He didn’t draw his weapon. He simply raised his hands.

The guards immediately raised their rifles, shouting orders. They stripped him of his gun, patted him down, and shoved him violently into the warehouse.

My heart screamed.

He had just surrendered himself to the men trying to usurp him.

I was completely alone in the SUV.

Wait.

I looked down at the center console. Luca had left his keys.

But there was something else sitting in the cup holder.

A heavy, iron skeleton key.

The key to the estate’s wine cellar.

If Vanessa was at the pier with Marco, why did Luca bring the cellar key?

Then, a sudden, terrifying thought struck me.

Vanessa wasn’t at the pier.

Marco had sent the text. Marco had kidnapped my mother.

Vanessa had never left the mansion.

Suddenly, my cell phone buzzed in my pocket.

An unknown number.

I answered it.

“Hello?” I whispered.

“Rebecca,” Arthur’s trembling voice came through the speaker. “Thank God.”

“Arthur? What’s wrong?”

“Miss Bellini,” the old man gasped, out of breath. “She broke out of the cellar. She didn’t leave the estate. She went into Mr. Luca’s private office. She’s pouring gasoline.”

My blood froze.

“Get out of the house, Arthur!”

“She has the master ledger, Rebecca,” Arthur cried. “The book that proves everything. If she burns it, Mr. Luca loses the entire syndicate!”

A loud smash echoed through the phone, followed by Arthur crying out in pain.

“Arthur!” I screamed.

The phone crackled, and then Vanessa’s cold, triumphant voice spoke.

“If you want to save the old man, sister,” Vanessa hissed, “you better come home.”

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