Chapter 8 - Luca Came Through the Fire
The first explosion killed the lights.
The second opened the ceiling.
Dust rained across the room.
Vale grabbed me.
I bit his hand.
He shouted.
I ran toward Isabella.
Another explosion shook the building.
Alarms screamed.
“Bellandi!” Vale roared.
Gunfire answered from the corridor.
Luca had arrived.
Vale dragged me backward by the hair.
I kicked his knee.
He hit me across the face.
Stars burst in my vision.
Then Isabella reached from the floor and grabbed his ankle.
“Run,” she whispered.
Vale turned his gun toward her.
I threw myself at him.
The shot hit the wall.
We crashed into a table.
His gun skidded away.
I reached.
He caught my wrist.
“You really are Celia’s daughter.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
I drove my knee upward.
He folded.
I grabbed the gun.
I had never held one.
It was heavier than movies made them look.
Vale smiled despite the pain.
“You won’t shoot.”
“I’m currently having a very unusual week.”
He moved.
I fired.
The bullet hit the floor beside his foot.
He stopped.
“I missed.”
“You did.”
“I wasn’t aiming at you.”
For the first time, his confidence slipped.
A door exploded inward.
Luca entered through smoke.
He looked murderous.
Then he saw me.
Everything else disappeared from his face.
“Mara.”
“I’m okay.”
His eyes dropped to the blood on my cheek.
He was definitely not okay.
Vale lunged for the fallen gun.
Luca shot him in the shoulder.
Vale screamed.
Marco entered with two men.
“Alive,” Luca ordered.
“You always ruin the fun,” Marco muttered.
They restrained Vale.
Luca crossed the room.
I tried to say something sarcastic.
Instead, I hugged him.
Hard.
He froze.
Then his arms came around me.
One hand pressed against the back of my head.
“You’re okay.”
It sounded like he was convincing himself.
“I told you I could handle it.”
“You were kidnapped.”
“Small complication.”
“You were shot at.”
“I shot back.”
He pulled away.
“You fired a gun?”
“Once.”
“Where?”
“Floor.”
Marco called from behind us, “She has terrible aim.”
“I heard that.”
Luca’s mouth actually smiled.
Not almost.
Smiled.
It changed his entire face.
Then Isabella groaned.
Reality returned.
“Grandmother.”
Luca looked at her.
His expression hardened.
“Isabella.”
She smiled weakly.
“You grew up.”
“You were alive.”
“So I hear.”
“Alessia thought you were alive.”
Pain filled her face.
“She found me.”
Luca froze.
“When?”
“Six weeks before she died.”
“You spoke to her?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
“That she was afraid.”
Luca’s face broke for one heartbeat.
“Of me?”
“No.”
Isabella reached for him.
He hesitated.
Then took her hand.
“She loved you.”
His jaw tightened.
“She was afraid someone would use Nico against you.”
“Who?”
“Vale. Gabriel. Augusto.”
“Where is Augusto?”
Vale laughed from across the room.
Everyone turned.
“You still don’t understand.”
Luca walked toward him.
Vale’s smile remained.
“My father is not hiding.”
“Then where?”
Vale looked at Mara.
“At Bellagio.”
My stomach dropped.
“The restaurant?”
“He owns it.”
Luca looked at Marco.
Marco immediately called his team.
Vale continued.
“Bellagio was never just a restaurant.”
My mind raced.
The photograph.
Alessia and Celia.
The night everything changed.
“October 1998,” I whispered.
Vale smiled.
“The night Daniel Hart proposed to Celia.”
Mom had never told me.
“And Bellagio belonged to Augusto?”
“Yes.”
“It still does?”
“Through shell companies.”
Luca’s expression darkened.
“Why hang the photograph?”
“Augusto likes trophies.”
I felt sick.
“How long has he known I worked there?”
“Since your first shift.”
Fourteen months.
I had been working inside the enemy’s building.
“Why didn’t he kill me?”
Vale gave me a strange look.
“Because he needs you.”
“For what?”
“To inherit.”
I laughed.
“I own nothing.”
“You own everything.”
Silence.
Vale leaned back against the wall.
“Daniel Hart’s father Salvatore controlled half the Conti holdings. Celia’s inheritance controls a portion of Bellandi legitimate assets.”
He smiled.
“You are the legal bridge.”
Luca understood.
“If Mara signs control to someone—”
“They can merge the assets without war.”
“And if I refuse?” I asked.
Vale smiled.
“Then you die without heirs.”
I looked toward Luca.
Then Nico entered my mind.
Vale noticed.
“That is why the boy matters.”
Cold spread through me.
“Nico is next.”
“Yes.”
Luca hit him.
One punch.
Vale’s chair toppled.
Marco made no attempt to stop him.
“Luca.”
He turned toward me.
“He wants you to lose control.”
“I am in complete control.”
Vale groaned from the floor.
I looked at the blood on his mouth.
“Debatable.”
Luca exhaled.
Then took out his phone.
“Bellagio.”
Marco nodded.
“We have teams moving.”
“Augusto will run.”
“Unless he thinks he still controls us.”
I looked at Vale.
An idea formed.
“He doesn’t know Vale failed.”
Vale’s smile vanished.
Luca looked at me.
“No.”
“You don’t know what I’m suggesting.”
“I recognize that expression.”
“What expression?”
“The one you had before getting into the ambulance.”
“I survived.”
“Barely.”
“Still counts.”
Isabella laughed weakly.
“I like her.”
Luca closed his eyes briefly.
“Apparently everyone does.”
The plan required Vale to call his father.
He would say I had agreed to cooperate.
He would say Luca was dead.
That last part was my idea.
Luca disliked it.
Marco loved it.
Vale refused until Salvatore arrived with Celia and calmly explained that if he did not cooperate, both Bellandi and Conti organizations would release decades of evidence against him to federal authorities.
Vale made the call.
Augusto answered.
“Done?”
Vale looked at Luca.
“Yes.”
“And Luca?”
Vale swallowed.
“Dead.”
Silence.
Then Augusto laughed.
“Finally.”
Something terrifying passed through Luca’s eyes.
Vale continued.
“Mara is cooperating.”
“Bring her to Bellagio.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
The line clicked dead.
Every person in the room looked at me.
Luca spoke first.
“No.”
“Luca.”
“No.”
Salvatore folded his arms.
“The girl has a point.”
Luca glared at him.
“You faked your death for sixteen years. Your judgment is questionable.”
Salvatore shrugged.
“Effective, though.”
Mom touched my face.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why?”
“Because Dad told me to choose the life everyone said I couldn’t have.”
I looked at Vittorio.
At Salvatore.
At Isabella being loaded onto a stretcher.
At Luca.
At the ruins created by decades of people deciding other people’s lives for them.
“I choose one where nobody gets to use me anymore.”
Luca stared at me for several seconds.
Then he stepped close.
“So we do it together.”
“Thought you’d say no.”
“I did.”
“What changed?”
He leaned down.
His forehead touched mine.
“You never listen.”
“Correct.”
“So I adapted.”
My heart did something inconvenient.
Behind us, Bianca cleared her throat loudly.
We separated.
Marco smirked.
I ignored everybody.
At eleven forty-five that night, I walked through the front doors of Ristorante Bellagio.
Alone.
Customers had been cleared out.
Lights burned low.
A man sat at table seven.
The same table where Luca’s baby had reached for me.
Augusto Bellandi was eighty years old.
Elegant.
Thin.
Completely ordinary-looking.
No dragon tattoo.
No crown.
He smiled when he saw me.
“My great-niece.”
“I’m told family reunions are supposed to have food.”
He laughed.
“You do have Celia’s mouth.”
I sat across from him.
“Why did you kill my father?”
He poured wine.
“Because Daniel Hart would have ended a very profitable war.”
“Why Alessia?”
“She discovered too much.”
“Why Nico?”
“He carries Bellandi inheritance.”
“Why me?”
“You carry both.”
He pushed a contract across the table.
“Sign.”
I looked at it.
“And then?”
“You disappear.”
“Like my mother?”
“More permanently.”
I smiled.
“You should really stop explaining crimes while microphones are nearby.”
His face changed.
Then every light went out.
Augusto stood.
The kitchen doors opened.
Luca stepped through.
Alive.
Augusto stared.
“No.”
Luca’s voice was calm.
“You killed my wife.”
May you like
For the first time in my life—
I saw an old man realize the monsters he had created were no longer afraid of him.
