Chapter 4 - THE LAST FERRY
The harbor wind carried Isabella’s scream across the empty terminal.
“Do not touch him!”
She lunged toward Matteo.
Domenico struck her across the face with the back of his hand.
Isabella fell against the railing.
Vittorio moved forward.
Domenico aimed at the child.
“One more step and your son dies before you reach him.”
Vittorio stopped.
Matteo was crying silently now.
His fingers twisted inside the blue blanket. His eyes remained fixed on his father.
Vittorio had faced armed men before.
He had negotiated with kidnappers, rivals and officials who smiled while threatening his freedom.
None of those moments had prepared him to see fear in his son’s face.
“I brought the code,” Vittorio said.
Domenico’s smile widened.
“No, you brought your brother.”
Alessio stepped into view.
Domenico studied him as though examining an old wound.
“You were always difficult to kill.”
“You should have done it yourself.”
“I tried. Your father stopped me the first time.”
Alessio’s expression hardened.
Vittorio looked toward Domenico.
“What first time?”
Domenico laughed quietly.
“You still believe your family began breaking when Isabella entered it?”
He moved Matteo closer to the yacht.
“Your father discovered I was stealing from the docks fifteen years ago. Alessio found the records. I convinced the old man that his younger son planned to use them to challenge you.”
Vittorio turned toward his brother.
Alessio did not deny it.
“I was going to show you,” he said. “Before the accident.”
Domenico continued.
“Your father protected me because too many officials were tied to my accounts. Exposing me would have exposed him.”
“Then you arranged Alessio’s crash.”
“With Isabella’s help.”
Isabella pulled herself upright.
“You told me Vittorio ordered it.”
“I told you what you needed to hear.”
Her face changed.
All the certainty she had carried that morning disappeared.
She looked toward Alessio.
“You said Vittorio wanted his brother gone.”
“And you wanted the Morelli family destroyed. We both received something useful.”
Luca emerged from the yacht carrying a black case.
“The ledger isn’t here,” he said. “We searched the boat.”
Domenico looked at Vittorio.
“The code.”
“Release Matteo first.”
“I release him after I open the files.”
“You release him now, or there is no code.”
Domenico pressed the weapon closer to the boy.
“Do you believe you are negotiating from strength?”
“No.”
Vittorio’s voice remained steady.
“I am negotiating as a father. That makes me more dangerous than you remember.”
Behind the terminal, Renzo and Sophia watched from inside an abandoned control booth.
Carlo had ordered them to stay away from the dock, but Sophia could see the entire yacht through a cracked window.
She watched Domenico.
Then Luca.
Then the two men standing near the fuel truck on the far side of the terminal.
“Papa,” she whispered. “They aren’t watching Mr. Vittorio.”
Renzo followed her gaze.
The men beside the truck were staring at the railway tunnel.
“What are they waiting for?”
Sophia looked at the yacht.
Its engine vibrated softly.
White smoke drifted from the exhaust.
But the thick mooring rope remained tied around the dock cleat.
“That boat isn’t leaving,” she said.
Renzo reached for Carlo’s radio.
On the dock, Vittorio removed a small metal card from his pocket.
Domenico’s eyes sharpened.
“The access key.”
“One part of it.”
“And the rest?”
“In my head.”
Domenico ordered Luca forward.
Luca approached Vittorio with the black case.
Alessio shifted slightly.
Luca noticed.
“Do not try it.”
Alessio looked at him.
“You kissed my brother’s wife beside a bomb and believed you would survive the morning. I don’t need to try anything. Men like you eventually destroy themselves.”
Luca’s face tightened.
Isabella stared at him.
“You told me the explosion would happen after the car reached the road.”
Luca avoided her eyes.
Domenico answered for him.
“The car was supposed to explode at the gate. Vittorio, Alessio and anyone standing nearby would have died together.”
Isabella looked at Luca in horror.
“You knew?”
“I was following instructions.”
“You said we would leave with Matteo.”
Luca’s silence answered her.
Isabella had betrayed her husband for a man who had already agreed to kill her child.
She moved without warning.
Her heel struck Luca’s knee.
As he stumbled, Isabella grabbed his arm and pulled it away from Matteo.
Domenico fired.
The shot struck the railing.
Vittorio ran forward.
Alessio tackled Luca.
Isabella wrapped both arms around Matteo and turned her body between him and Domenico.
Domenico reached for the child.
Vittorio hit him from the side.
The three adults crashed onto the wooden dock.
Matteo escaped Isabella’s arms and ran.
“Papa!”
Vittorio pushed himself up and caught his son.
Matteo buried his face against Vittorio’s chest.
“I knew you would come.”
Vittorio held him so tightly the child’s blanket became trapped between them.
“I’m sorry it took me so long.”
A shout came from the terminal.
The two men beside the fuel truck had entered the cab.
The engine roared.
Domenico rolled away from Vittorio and sprinted toward the vehicle.
The yacht had been a decoy.
The truck crashed through a chain barrier and accelerated toward the railway tunnel.
Carlo’s voice came through the radio.
“He is escaping through the service road!”
Vittorio carried Matteo toward Renzo.
“Take him.”
Matteo clung to his father.
“No!”
Vittorio pressed his forehead against the boy’s.
“I need you to be brave for three minutes.”
“That’s too long.”
“Then be brave for one minute three times.”
Matteo looked at Sophia.
She held out her hand.
“I’ll count with you.”
Slowly, Matteo released his father.
Vittorio and Alessio entered the second vehicle.
They pursued the fuel truck along the narrow road beside the freight tracks.
Domenico’s men threw the black case from the window.
It burst open on the pavement.
Empty folders scattered through the air.
“There is no ledger,” Alessio said.
“There never was.”
Vittorio accelerated.
“What?”
“Renzo told us your father kept records. He never said you kept them.”
Vittorio understood.
Domenico had built the entire plan around something he assumed Vittorio possessed.
The fuel truck reached the railway crossing.
Warning bells rang.
Red lights flashed.
The barrier began to lower.
Domenico tried to drive around it.
The truck’s front tire struck the concrete divider.
The vehicle spun sideways and stopped across the service road.
Vittorio braked twenty feet behind it.
Domenico climbed from the passenger side and ran toward the tracks.
Alessio followed.
A freight train approached in the distance.
Domenico turned and raised his weapon.
“You should both have died years ago.”
Vittorio stepped between the weapon and his brother.
Domenico laughed.
“There. That is why Isabella nearly destroyed you. You protect people who would gladly take your place.”
Alessio moved beside Vittorio.
“He buried me because he believed I was dead.”
“He never looked inside the coffin.”
“No,” Alessio said. “But neither did I look closely enough at the man who taught us to call betrayal loyalty.”
The crossing bells rang louder.
Domenico’s hand shook.
Vittorio saw it.
Sophia had been right.
Watch the hands before the eyes.
Domenico was not preparing to fire.
He was preparing to turn the weapon on himself.
Vittorio stepped forward and knocked it away.
Alessio forced Domenico to the ground as the freight train thundered past.
Moments later, financial police vehicles entered the service road.
The officer Vittorio had contacted emerged with a recording device clipped to his jacket.
“We heard everything,” he said.
Domenico looked at Vittorio with disbelief.
“You brought the police.”
“I brought witnesses.”
“You will destroy your own family.”
May you like
Vittorio looked toward the terminal where his son waited beside a gardener and two frightened children.
“No,” he said. “I am trying to save what is left of it.”
