Chapter 7 - THE NIGHT SILANA BROKE HIS OWN RULES
Silana heard every word through Bella’s wire.
Leo was asleep against his chest when Carlo threatened to kill her.
Silana handed the baby to Beatatrice.
His entire body went cold.
Dominic stood by the surveillance equipment.
“Boss, tactical team is already surrounding the block.”
Silana loaded his weapon.
“I’m going.”
“That’s what Carlo wants.”
“Yes.”
“He’ll kill you.”
“Possibly.”
Dominic stared at him.
“You have never walked voluntarily into a hostage situation.”
“I have never had Bella inside one.”
The room went silent.
Silana realized what he had admitted.
He did not take it back.
Beatatrice looked down at Leo.
“Go.”
Silana looked at her.
“He’ll be safe.”
That was all he needed.
Twenty minutes later, Silana entered the old apartment building alone.
At least, that was what Carlo believed.
Dominic’s men were on the fire escape, rooftops and lower floors.
Silana climbed the stairs.
He could hear voices before reaching the apartment.
Carlo opened the door.
“Gun.”
Silana placed it on the floor.
“Kick it.”
He obeyed.
Bella stood beside the broken window.
One man held her.
David was on his knees near the kitchen.
Blood ran from his eyebrow.
Carlo smiled.
“Cousin.”
Silana stared at Bella.
“You hurt?”
“No.”
Her voice was steady.
Silana looked at Carlo.
“Let her go.”
“Not yet.”
“What do you want?”
“The ledger.”
“You escaped custody for an accounting book?”
“Vittorio’s records can put half our organization in federal prison.”
“Our organization?”
Silana’s voice became colder.
“You stopped being Moretti when you murdered my wife.”
Carlo’s face twisted.
“I didn’t plant the bomb.”
“You arranged it.”
“Your father arranged it.”
“You obeyed.”
Carlo laughed bitterly.
“Like you obeyed him every day of your life.”
Silana said nothing.
Carlo continued.
“Vittorio knew Isabella was making you weak. He knew you planned to leave. Everything he built was going to disappear because you fell in love with some woman who wanted a normal house and Sunday dinners.”
Silana’s expression did not change.
“You killed a baby for an empire.”
“Don’t pretend you’re morally offended.”
Carlo pointed the weapon toward him.
“How many fathers have you buried?”
Bella watched Silana.
The question landed.
Silana did not deny his past.
Instead he said, “Enough to know I should have stopped sooner.”
Carlo frowned.
Bella saw something change.
Silana Moretti had spent years believing power meant never changing.
But Leo had crawled into an office and altered the architecture of his world.
Carlo waved the weapon.
“The ledger.”
“It’s been copied.”
Carlo froze.
“Thirty copies,” Silana said. “Different locations.”
“You’re lying.”
“No.”
Carlo’s breathing quickened.
“If I don’t leave this building, every file goes to federal prosecutors before sunrise.”
Dominic had suggested that strategy.
Carlo didn’t know whether it was true.
That made it useful.
“You’d destroy your own family?”
Silana looked around.
“My family is not an organization.”
His eyes met Bella’s.
“Not anymore.”
Bella’s throat tightened.
Carlo became unstable.
“You always thought you were better than us.”
“No.”
Silana shook his head.
“For too long, I thought I was exactly like you.”
David shifted.
Carlo’s guard struck him.
Bella flinched.
Silana saw.
“Let Bella walk out.”
“No.”
“You want me. You have me.”
Carlo laughed.
“I want the drive David stole.”
David spoke through swollen lips.
“You’ll never get it.”
Carlo turned.
That was the mistake.
Bella slammed her heel down on the guard’s foot, twisted, and dropped.
David threw himself sideways.
Silana lunged.
Everything happened at once.
A gun fired.
The window shattered.
Dominic’s team poured through the door.
Bella hit the floor.
Someone screamed.
Then silence.
Carlo lay against the wall, his weapon several feet away.
Dominic had him pinned.
Silana stood in the middle of the room.
Blood spread across his white shirt.
Bella’s heart stopped.
“Silana!”
She ran toward him.
He looked down as though surprised.
A bullet had grazed his side.
Not fatal.
But enough blood to terrify her.
“I’m fine.”
“You are bleeding.”
“I’ve been informed.”
Bella pressed both hands against the wound.
Silana looked at her.
For one impossible second, the apartment and armed men disappeared.
Only the two of them existed.
Bella whispered, “You came.”
“I said I would.”
“No. You didn’t.”
“Then apparently I’m becoming unreliable.”
She laughed despite everything.
Carlo was arrested by a federal task force Dominic had quietly contacted earlier that evening.
Silana surprised everyone by handing over evidence.
Carlo began shouting as officers dragged him away.
“You think prosecutors will forgive you?”
Silana watched.
“No.”
The answer silenced the room.
David looked over.
Neither Bella nor Dominic understood.
Silana continued.
“I’m not asking them to.”
Hours later, back at the estate, a doctor stitched Silana’s wound in the library.
Bella sat nearby holding Leo.
David had been brought with them under guard.
Not as a prisoner.
Not exactly as a guest either.
Leo stared at him.
David’s eyes filled.
“Can I?”
Bella hesitated.
Every part of her wanted to punish him.
But this was not only about her.
She slowly placed Leo into his father’s arms.
David broke.
A sob escaped him as he buried his face against Leo’s curls.
“I’m sorry.”
Leo patted his cheek.
Bella turned away.
Silana watched from across the room.
There was pain in his expression.
But not jealousy.
Something gentler.
David looked at Bella.
“I never stopped loving you.”
Bella closed her eyes.
There it was.
The sentence she had once begged the universe to hear.
Now it only made her tired.
“I loved you too.”
David’s hope rose.
Bella continued.
“But you made every decision for me.”
His face fell.
“You decided I was safer without the truth. You decided Leo was safer without his father. You decided disappearing was love.”
“I was trying—”
“I know.”
She swallowed.
“And maybe you saved us.”
Tears slipped down her cheeks.
“But you also broke something I don’t know how to rebuild.”
David nodded slowly.
He understood.
Silana looked away.
Before anyone could say more, Dominic entered.
His face was grim.
“Boss.”
Silana stood.
“What?”
“We decrypted David’s final drive.”
David immediately looked over.
“There was one file I couldn’t open.”
Dominic nodded.
“We opened it.”
Silana’s expression tightened.
“And?”
Dominic placed a photograph on the table.
It showed Vittorio Moretti shaking hands with Anthony Castellano.
But between them stood a third man.
Silana stared.
Bella asked, “Who is he?”
Dominic answered.
“Assistant United States Attorney Michael Shaw.”
Silana’s face darkened.
David stood.
“That’s impossible.”
“No,” Dominic said. “It gets worse.”
He placed a federal memorandum on the table.
The Moretti investigation.
Every confidential source.
Every witness.
Every planned raid.
All of it had been secretly shared with Vittorio and Castellano.
Bella whispered, “A federal prosecutor was protecting them?”
Dominic nodded.
“And according to the date on the last file…”
He looked at Silana.
“He still is.”
Silana stared at the document.
“Then Carlo wasn’t the end.”
Dominic shook his head.
“No.”
Silana looked toward Leo.
Then toward Bella.
For the first time, there was no fear in his expression.
Only purpose.
“Good.”
Bella frowned.
“Good?”
Silana picked up the evidence.
“For three years, I’ve been fighting ghosts.”
May you like
His voice lowered.
“Now the last one has a name.”
