Chapter 7 - THE GIRL LUCA NEVER KNEW
Luca’s phone was found beside the Chicago River.
His body wasn’t.
Twelve years earlier, that would have convinced me he was dead.
Not anymore.
I brought my mother to Beatrice’s apartment.
Dominic arrived thirty minutes later.
Their reunion was not romantic.
It was not beautiful.
Isabella stared at my father for nearly a full minute.
Then she said, “You look terrible.”
Dominic laughed once.
Then cried.
She did not hug him.
He didn’t ask her to.
There are betrayals love can survive only after respect is rebuilt.
We had no time for either.
Beatrice placed Luca’s phone on the kitchen table.
“He left ten minutes after you did.”
“Who sent the message?”
“Your number.”
Of course.
I checked the text.
Lorenzo moved Mom. I need you at 31st Street immediately. Come alone. Don’t call.
Luca had followed instructions because he believed the message came from me.
The irony was almost unbearable.
My father studied the phone.
“He’ll keep Luca alive.”
I looked at him.
“How do you know?”
“Because dead people don’t negotiate.”
My mother said, “Unless Lorenzo needs him dead for something else.”
Dominic flinched when she spoke.
He had not heard her voice in two decades.
I understood.
Every sentence was probably a miracle and an accusation at once.
Beatrice suddenly stood.
“There’s something you don’t know.”
We all looked at her.
She went to her bedroom.
When she returned, she held a photograph.
A girl stood in front of a public school.
About thirteen.
Dark hair.
Serious eyes.
Luca’s eyes.
I stared.
“Who is she?”
Beatrice looked at my mother.
Then my father.
Finally me.
“Her name is Rose Gallagher.”
Something tightened inside me.
“Gallagher?”
“My granddaughter.”
I already knew before she said it.
“Her father?”
Beatrice’s lips trembled.
“Luca.”
The room became silent.
Dominic sat down.
My mother covered her mouth.
I stared at the photograph.
“My brother has a daughter?”
“Yes.”
“Does he know?”
“No.”
Beatrice began crying.
“Patrick and I decided not to tell him until we knew he was safe.”
“Who was her mother?”
“My daughter. Erin.”
I remembered Erin Gallagher.
Barely.
She had worked at one of our hotels years ago.
Red hair.
Bright smile.
“Luca dated her?”
“They loved each other.”
Beatrice smiled through grief.
“Quietly. Luca thought your father would disapprove.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
“I would have.”
Isabella glared at him.
Dominic added, “I was an idiot.”
“At least we agree on something.”
Beatrice continued.
“Erin discovered she was pregnant two weeks after the warehouse explosion.”
“What happened to her?”
“Car accident.”
My mother whispered, “No.”
Beatrice nodded.
“When Rose was nine months old.”
I understood.
Another accident.
Another convenient death.
“Lorenzo?”
“I can’t prove it.”
She looked at Rose’s photograph.
“But Patrick believed Erin was killed because she started asking questions about Luca.”
My father whispered, “Dear God.”
Beatrice’s grief hardened.
“You don’t get to ask God for help now.”
Dominic accepted it.
“Where is Rose?”
“Safe.”
“Where?”
Beatrice hesitated.
I understood her suspicion.
“Don’t tell me.”
She blinked.
“If Lorenzo can imitate my voice and access my systems, the fewer people who know, the better.”
She nodded gratefully.
Then my mother reached for the photograph.
“She looks like Luca at that age.”
For the first time since I had found him alive, something good existed inside the nightmare.
Luca had lost twelve years.
But he had a daughter.
A future.
If we could get him back.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
Lorenzo.
“Did Beatrice tell you about Rose yet?”
Every face in the room changed.
I stared at Beatrice.
She looked terrified.
“How do you know?”
“I know everything, remember?”
My hand tightened.
“Where is Luca?”
“Alive.”
“Proof.”
A video arrived.
Luca sat in a chair inside what looked like an empty banquet hall.
His wrists were bound.
His face was bruised.
But he looked directly into the camera.
“Matteo, don’t give him anything.”
Someone struck him from outside frame.
The video ended.
Beatrice sobbed.
I closed my eyes.
Lorenzo said, “He still talks too much.”
“What do you want?”
“The ledgers.”
“I don’t have them.”
“Your mother knows where they are.”
I looked at Isabella.
She shook her head.
Lorenzo continued.
“Tonight. Midnight.”
“Where?”
“The old Vale Social Club.”
That building had belonged to my grandfather.
Closed fifteen years earlier.
“What happens if I don’t come?”
“Luca disappears a second time.”
My voice lowered.
“If you touch him—”
“Matteo.”
Lorenzo sounded almost bored.
“Threats only work when the person listening still respects your power.”
He hung up.
My mother stood.
“I know where the ledgers are.”
I looked at her.
“Where?”
“The mansion.”
I laughed because the answer was absurd.
Lorenzo had spent decades living beneath the same roof as the thing he wanted.
“Where inside?”
“The chapel.”
Our mansion had a tiny private chapel built by my grandmother.
Nobody used it after her death.
“There’s a stone beneath the altar.”
Dominic stared.
“You hid them there?”
“Carlo searched everywhere except the one room he thought I prayed in.”
A faint smile.
“I never prayed there.”
Despite everything, my father smiled.
Then Isabella’s expression became serious.
“The ledgers can destroy Lorenzo.”
“Then we use them.”
“No.”
She grabbed my wrist.
“They can destroy you too.”
I stared.
“Me?”
“Not because of what you’ve done.”
Her eyes moved toward Dominic.
“Because of what your father did.”
Dominic looked away.
I faced him.
“What is she talking about?”
He remained silent.
“Father.”
My mother answered.
“Carlo didn’t build the system alone.”
I slowly turned back toward her.
“Who helped him?”
She looked at my father with twenty years of pain.
“Dominic did.”
My father finally spoke.
“At the beginning.”
“How much?”
“Enough.”
“Enough for what?”
“To put people in prison.”
His voice broke.
“To destroy companies. Families.”
I stared at him.
“And Lorenzo inherited it.”
“Yes.”
“So if those ledgers become public—”
“Everything collapses,” Dominic said.
My legitimate businesses.
The family name.
Perhaps hundreds of people who had never known what built the foundation beneath them.
Lorenzo understood the trap.
If I used the ledgers against him, I risked destroying myself.
If I didn’t, Luca died.
Dominic stood.
“There may be another way.”
I looked at him.
“No more plans.”
“Matteo—”
“No.”
I had spent my whole life surrounded by men who believed cleverness excused dishonesty.
I was done.
“We get the ledgers.”
“And then?”
I looked at my mother.
“We tell Luca the truth.”
Dominic frowned.
“What truth?”
“All of it.”
“Before the exchange?”
“Yes.”
“That could destabilize him.”
I laughed.
“There you go again.”
He went quiet.
“You’re deciding what someone else should know because you think controlling the truth protects them.”
I looked around the table.
“That ends tonight.”
My mother’s expression softened.
For the first time, she looked proud of me.
Then Beatrice’s phone rang.
A child’s voice came through when she answered.
“Grandma?”
Beatrice went pale.
“Rose?”
“Grandma, a man is outside.”
Everyone froze.
“What man?”
“He says Uncle Matteo sent him.”
My blood stopped.
Beatrice shouted into the phone.
“Rose, do not open that door!”
A loud knock echoed through the speaker.
Then a man’s voice.
“Rose Gallagher?”
She screamed.
The call disconnected.
Beatrice stared at me in horror.
Lorenzo wasn’t just holding my brother.
May you like
He had found Luca’s daughter.
And Luca still didn’t even know she existed.
