Chapter 6 - The Deal
I didn’t remember grabbing the car keys.
I only remembered Luca’s hand closing around my wrist.
“You’re not going alone.”
“He has my daughter.”
“And if you walk into his trap, he’ll have both of you.”
“He told me to come alone.”
“Men like Richard don’t mean what they say. They mean what gives them power.”
I pulled free. “You don’t understand.”
Luca stepped closer, his voice low and controlled.
“I understand exactly what it is to fear for your child.”
That stopped me.
Dante traced the photo metadata. The image had been taken less than ten minutes earlier near an abandoned warehouse district outside Rome.
Luca’s security team wanted to call the police.
I did too.
But Richard had sent another message.
Police come, Maya disappears.
So Luca created a plan.
I hated every second of it.
We drove in separate cars. Dante and his team stayed out of sight. Luca wore an earpiece. I wore one too, hidden beneath my hair.
When I entered the warehouse, Richard was waiting.
Maya sat on a chair beside him, frightened but unharmed. Her hands were tied loosely with a scarf.
“Mommy!” she cried.
I rushed forward, but Richard raised a gun.
Not at me.
At Luca, who stepped from the shadows behind me.
“You brought him,” Richard said.
“I brought her father,” Luca replied.
Richard smiled. “No. You brought the man who can pay.”
It became clear quickly.
Richard didn’t just want Maya.
He wanted money.
He had learned about Luca’s family, Luca’s companies, and the investigation surrounding Theodore’s mother’s death. Richard believed Luca had secrets worth millions.
“Your wife died because she knew something,” Richard said to Luca. “And now you’re protecting this woman and her little girl. You never learn.”
Luca went still.
I looked at him.
Richard laughed. “Oh, she doesn’t know? That’s adorable.”
“What is he talking about?” I asked.
Luca’s jaw tightened.
Richard held up a small flash drive. “Evidence. Financial records. Names. A shipping route used to move weapons through one of Moretti’s companies.”
“That company was sold years ago,” Luca said.
“But the old records still exist.”
“You’re lying,” I said.
Richard smiled at me. “Am I? Ask him why his wife was in a car accident two weeks after she found those records.”
Luca’s silence terrified me.
Then Maya began crying harder.
Something inside me changed.
I stopped being afraid.
I saw a metal pipe on the floor near Richard’s foot. I saw the distance between him and Maya. I saw the way his attention stayed fixed on Luca.
And I moved.
I grabbed the pipe and swung it as hard as I could.
Richard turned too late.
The pipe struck his wrist.
The gun fell.
Dante’s team stormed in.
Everything became shouting, running, flashing lights, and Maya screaming my name.
Then she was in my arms.
She was shaking so hard I could barely breathe.
“I’m sorry,” I sobbed. “I’m so sorry, baby.”
She clung to my neck.
And behind me, police dragged Richard away in handcuffs.
As he passed, he looked at Luca and smiled.
“This isn’t over.”
But I saw something in Luca’s face.
Not fear.
A decision.
May you like
And I knew whatever secret Richard had uncovered was about to tear open every door Luca Moretti had spent years keeping closed.
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