Chapter 7 – THE SCAR ON HER ARM

I stopped on the concrete stairs.

The basement air suddenly felt suffocating.

“Emma?” Luca stopped beside me. “What is it?”

I showed him the text message.

Check your sister’s right arm.

Luca’s eyes narrowed. “Who sent this?”

“I don’t know,” I said, panic rising in my throat. “Vanessa is gone. The Bellinis are done. Who else is out there?”

Luca pulled out his own phone and dialed Daniel. “Do not let anyone inside that guest suite. I’m on my way up.”

We ran up the stairs. My heart hammered violently against my ribs.

When we reached the top floor, Daniel was still standing at the door. He looked confused by our rush. “Everything quiet, Boss.”

I pushed past him and threw open the door.

The room was exactly as we left it. Noah was sleeping on the sofa. Chloe was sleeping on the bed, wrapped in the thick blanket.

I walked over to the bed. My hands were shaking.

I gently pulled the blanket down from Chloe’s shoulders.

She was wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt. I lifted her right arm.

Just below her shoulder, barely visible under the dim lamplight, was a thin, white scar. About two inches long. It looked like an old surgical mark.

I stared at it. “She’s had this since she was a baby,” I whispered. “My mother told me Chloe fell on a piece of glass when she was two.”

Luca stepped closer. He looked at the scar.

“That isn’t from glass, Emma,” Luca said softly. His voice carried the weight of a man who had seen too much violence. “That’s a tracker insertion scar. It’s a very old, very precise surgical technique used to bury GPS microchips under the skin.”

The room spun. I had to grab the edge of the bed to steady myself.

“A tracker?” I gasped. “Who would put a tracker inside a two-year-old child?”

“Someone who wanted to make sure they could always find her,” Luca said. “Someone who knew she was valuable.”

Chloe stirred in her sleep, pulling her arm back under the blanket.

I looked at Luca. “Valuable why? We were poor. We had nothing.”

Luca’s phone rang.

He answered it immediately. “Yes?”

It was Salvatore. His father’s voice came through the speaker, loud enough for me to hear.

“Luca,” Salvatore said. “I found out why the Bellinis wanted Vanessa to marry you. I found out why they cared so much about the nurse.”

“Tell me,” Luca said.

“Emma and Chloe are not just Mary Anne’s daughters,” Salvatore said. “Mary Anne was married before. To a man named Vincent. Vincent was an accountant for the Bellini family thirty years ago.”

I covered my mouth. My father? My mother had always told us our father died in a car crash before Chloe was born.

“Vincent didn’t die in a crash,” Salvatore continued. “He stole thirty million dollars from the Bellinis and vanished. He hid the money. They killed him for it, but they never found the cash. They believed Mary Anne knew where it was.”

“And the tracker?” Luca asked.

“They put it in the youngest daughter,” Salvatore said. “They figured Mary Anne would eventually go for the money to take care of her kids. They were tracking the child to find the cash.”

It all made terrible, horrifying sense.

Vanessa wasn’t just jealous of us. She was a tool. The Bellinis used her to get close to the Morettis, but they were also using her to watch my family, waiting for us to lead them to a fortune we didn’t even know existed.

“Where is Vanessa now?” Luca asked his father.

“My men have her secured at the docks,” Salvatore said. “She’s waiting for transport to the police. We are handing her over with enough evidence to lock her up for life.”

“Hold her,” Luca said. “Don’t hand her over yet.”

Luca hung up the phone.

He looked at me.

“Emma, we need to remove that chip from your sister’s arm. Right now. If anyone else has that frequency, they can track her anywhere in the world.”

“How?” I asked, terrified. “I’m not a doctor.”

“I have a medic on staff,” Luca said. “I’ll call him.”

Within twenty minutes, Luca’s private doctor arrived. He was a quiet, older man with a black medical bag.

He woke Chloe gently, explained what he needed to do, and gave her a local anesthetic. Chloe was frightened, but she held my hand tightly. She trusted me.

In less than ten minutes, the doctor made a tiny incision and pulled out a microscopic, glass-encased tracking chip.

He dropped it into a metal tray. It made a tiny clink.

“It’s active,” the doctor said, studying it. “It’s still pinging.”

Luca picked up the tray. “Good. Let it ping.”

He turned to Daniel. “Take this chip. Put it in the trunk of one of the Bellini cars we seized tonight. Drive that car into the bottom of Lake Michigan.”

Daniel nodded. “Yes, Boss.” He took the tray and left.

Chloe sat up, holding a bandage against her arm. “Emma, what does this mean? Are we free?”

I looked at Luca. The mafia boss who had torn his own life apart tonight to protect his son and his staff.

Luca walked over to us. He looked at me, then at Chloe.

“You’re free,” Luca said. “The Bellinis are destroyed. The people who hurt your mother are dead or going to prison. And the tracker is gone. They can never find you again.”

I burst into tears. I hugged Chloe so hard she squeaked.

The nightmare was finally over. The invisible chains that had dragged my family down for decades were broken.

Then, a soft voice spoke from the corner of the room.

“Dad?”

Noah was awake. He was sitting up on the sofa, rubbing his eyes.

Luca walked over and knelt in front of his son. “Hey, buddy. Did we wake you?”

Noah shook his head. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, folded piece of paper.

“I found something,” Noah whispered. “When I was hiding in the closet downstairs before the dinner started. I found it in Vanessa’s coat.”

He handed the paper to his father.

Luca unfolded it.

I walked over to look over his shoulder.

It was a printed airline ticket.

First class. O’Hare to Switzerland.

The departure time was 6:00 AM. Tomorrow morning.

But it wasn’t the destination that made Luca’s blood run cold.

It was the name on the passenger ticket.

It didn’t say Vanessa Bellini.

It said Noah Moretti.

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