Chapter 7 - The Truth Luca Couldn’t Buy Away
The police found enough evidence to hold Richard for kidnapping, illegal weapons possession, and extortion.
But Luca’s problems were only beginning.
The flash drive was real.
So were the records.
They showed that one of Luca’s former business partners had used a Moretti shipping subsidiary to move illegal weapons through Europe. Luca had shut down the division years ago, but someone had buried the evidence.
Someone close to him.
The next morning, international news outlets were already running stories.
Billionaire Luca Moretti Linked to Smuggling Investigation.
Reporters appeared outside the villa gates. Lawyers filled the study. Luca barely slept.
Neither did I.
Theodore fussed through the night, sensing the stress around him. I helped Luca settle him, walking the nursery floor while Maya slept beside me on a mattress.
“You should leave,” Luca said around dawn.
I looked at him. “What?”
“This will become ugly. Richard has attorneys. The press will follow you. Maya deserves peace.”
“You think leaving would give us peace?”
“I can arrange somewhere safe.”
I laughed bitterly. “You keep trying to solve people with money.”
His face hardened. “Money solves many problems.”
“Not the ones that matter.”
For a long moment, neither of us spoke.
Then he said, “You’re right.”
It was becoming a dangerous habit—Luca Moretti admitting I was right.
“I didn’t know about the weapons,” he continued. “But I knew my former partner, Victor Salerno, was dangerous. I suspected he was using my company for something. I chose not to look closely enough.”
“Why?”
“Because I was building an empire. Because I thought success made me untouchable.”
He looked toward Theodore’s crib.
“And because I believed I could protect everyone by controlling everything.”
I sat beside him.
“You can’t control everything.”
“No,” he said. “But I can tell the truth.”
That afternoon, Luca held a press conference.
His attorneys advised against it. His board begged him to wait. But Luca walked into a room filled with cameras and admitted that he had ignored warnings.
He announced his resignation as CEO pending the investigation.
He offered company records to prosecutors.
And he promised to fund an independent victims’ compensation program.
The headlines changed.
Not all of them kindly.
But people listened.
That night, an envelope arrived at the villa.
No return address.
Inside was a photograph of me and Maya at the airport.
Under it were three words.
YOU SHOULD HAVE RUN.
Dante found a tracking device beneath one of the cars.
Victor Salerno was watching us.
And he wasn’t interested in courtrooms.
May you like
He wanted Luca destroyed.
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