Chapter 5 - The Brother’s Debt
Alessandro woke with blood at his temple and Marco’s voice calling his name.
“Boss. Boss, stay with me.”
The emergency lights flickered red inside the archive.
Luca was on the floor near the shelves, unconscious but breathing. The door remained locked from the outside.
“Who hit you?” Marco asked.
“I didn’t see.”
“Can you stand?”
Alessandro pushed himself upright.
The room spun once, then steadied.
“Bianca?”
“Guards found her in the library. Tied up. She’s alive.”
“Who locked us in?”
“We don’t know.”
Alessandro stared at the heavy archive door.
Someone had planned this perfectly.
They had left evidence pointing to Marco.
They had lured Luca into the archive.
They had created a blackout and trapped them together.
The purpose was obvious.
Distrust.
The attacker wanted Alessandro to turn against the people closest to him.
And for a few minutes, it had worked.
Marco pried open a metal vent near the floor while Alessandro checked Luca.
His younger brother groaned and opened his eyes.
“What happened?” Luca asked.
“Someone hit us,” Alessandro said.
Luca sat up slowly, rubbing the back of his head.
“You still think I did it?”
“I think someone is trying to make me think you did.”
Luca laughed bitterly.
“That’s progress.”
Marco finally forced the vent cover free. One of the guards on the other side heard them and released the lock.
The moment the door opened, Alessandro stepped into the hallway.
“Get every security officer into the main hall,” he ordered. “No exceptions.”
Within fifteen minutes, all active guards stood lined up beneath the massive staircase.
Blue uniforms.
Black boots.
Hands clasped in front of them.
Alessandro walked slowly down the line.
He searched faces.
Eyes.
Posture.
Fear.
One man was missing.
Rafael Ortiz.
A newer guard hired only six months earlier.
“Where is Ortiz?” Alessandro asked.
No one answered.
Marco checked the roster.
“His patrol badge is active near the greenhouse.”
Alessandro’s gaze sharpened.
The greenhouse stood at the edge of the estate gardens, isolated behind tall hedges. It was where his mother had grown orchids before she died. Almost no one went there now.
“Bring him in.”
Two guards rushed outside.
A moment later, a scream came through Marco’s radio.
“Shots fired! Greenhouse!”
Alessandro ran.
Rain lashed across the gardens as he reached the greenhouse. One guard was down near the entrance, wounded in the leg. The glass walls were cracked. Inside, plants lay overturned across the tiled floor.
Rafael Ortiz stood in the center holding a gun.
But he was not aiming it at Alessandro.
He was aiming it at Sophia.
She stood against the far wall with Emma in front of her.
Alessandro’s blood turned to ice.
“How did he get them out of the safe room?” Marco whispered.
Rafael’s voice shook.
“Don’t come closer.”
Sophia was crying silently.
Emma clutched the rabbit.
“Mr. Duca,” Sophia said, “he said he’ll hurt her.”
Alessandro lowered his weapon slowly.
“Rafael, let them go.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain.”
Rafael laughed, but it sounded broken.
“They have my son.”
“Who?”
“Vescari’s people. They have him. They said if I didn’t do what they told me, they would send me pieces.”
Marco’s face hardened.
“What did they make you do?”
“The coffee. The cameras. The archive.” Rafael’s eyes flicked toward Emma. “But I didn’t kill Mateo. I swear I didn’t.”
“Who did?”
Rafael swallowed.
“Captain Bellini.”
Everything stopped.
Marco moved as if he had been struck.
“What did you say?”
Rafael looked at him.
“Your father.”
Marco’s father had been a police captain twenty years ago. He died when Marco was seventeen, remembered by the city as an honest officer killed during a raid.
Rafael continued, voice trembling.
“He ran the blue-uniform men. Security guards, cops, drivers—anyone who could move through Duca property without suspicion. Mateo saw a shipment. Captain Bellini ordered the cleanup.”
Marco’s face had gone white.
“My father was dead when Mateo died.”
“No,” Rafael said. “That’s what they told you. He disappeared. Vescari kept him hidden. He’s alive.”
Alessandro’s eyes narrowed.
The dead captain.
The blue-uniform man.
The black ring.
It was all connected.
Rafael tightened his grip on the gun.
“They told me to bring the girl outside. They said she remembers something. They said she saw Bellini once, when she was a baby.”
Emma began to whimper.
Then, in a tiny voice, she said, “He has the ring.”
Rafael froze.
“What?”
Emma pointed behind him.
At the greenhouse door.
A man stood there in a dark raincoat.
Silver hair.
A square black ring on his right hand.
Captain Enzo Bellini.
Alive.
Marco made a sound Alessandro had never heard from him before.
Not anger.
Not fear.
Grief.
“Papa?”
Bellini smiled.
“Hello, son.”
Then he raised a gun and shot Rafael in the back.
The guard collapsed.
Sophia screamed.
Alessandro fired once, forcing Bellini behind a row of shattered planters. Marco rushed toward Sophia and Emma, dragging them to safety.
Bellini’s voice echoed through the greenhouse.
“You always were too trusting, Alessandro.”
“You poisoned my coffee to make a point?” Alessandro called back.
“No. I poisoned it because you were supposed to die.”
“Then why am I still here?”
Bellini laughed.
“Because the little girl ruined everything.”
A car engine roared beyond the garden gates.
Bellini fired twice more, then disappeared through the rear exit.
By the time Alessandro reached the driveway, a black SUV had torn through the estate’s back gate and vanished into the rain.
Marco stood behind him, soaked and silent.
His father was alive.
His father was a traitor.
And Emma had seen him before.
Alessandro turned toward the mansion.
“Get Sophia and Emma somewhere no one can reach them.”
Marco looked at him, eyes dark with betrayal.
“Where?”
Alessandro thought of the one place even enemies rarely watched.
“My mother’s old house in the countryside,” he said.
Then he looked at his oldest friend.
“Marco, I need you to decide something.”
Marco’s jaw tightened.
“What?”
“Are you my head of security?”
“Yes.”
“Or are you Enzo Bellini’s son?”
For several seconds, rain fell between them.
Then Marco looked directly at Alessandro.
May you like
“I’m the man who will bring him back.”
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