Chapter 12 - They Came for the Little Girl
Dante saw the shadow too.
He killed the lights.
“Back.”
Margaret whispered, “There’s a cellar.”
Elena grabbed Sophie.
I moved toward the side window.
A dark sedan was parked across the street.
Another vehicle rolled slowly past the house.
“They found us,” Dante said.
“How?”
Silvio looked at Margaret.
“Phone?”
She shook her head.
Nobody had called.
Nobody had posted anything.
Then I remembered.
The letter box.
A bank-style security seal.
“Did you access anything electronically when we called about the foundation?”
Margaret nodded.
“The foundation account.”
Dante swore.
“Notification.”
Someone was monitoring activity.
Sophie whispered, “Are the bad men here?”
Elena knelt.
“Listen to me. Go with Margaret downstairs.”
“No.”
“Sophie.”
“I want you.”
“I’ll be right behind you.”
The front window exploded.
Gunfire.
Dante pulled Elena down.
I fired through the curtain toward the muzzle flash.
Silvio moved like his age disappeared.
“Cellar! Now!”
Margaret opened a hidden door beneath the stairs.
Sophie cried.
“Elena!” I shouted.
“Go!”
She hesitated.
Then obeyed.
I heard Sophie screaming my name as the door closed.
Three men entered through the rear.
Dante fired.
One dropped.
Silvio hit another from the hallway.
The third retreated.
Smoke filled the house.
Not gun smoke.
Something else.
“Fire,” Dante said.
They had thrown an incendiary device through the kitchen.
Flames climbed the wall.
We could not stay.
I opened the cellar door.
“Move!”
Margaret led us through a narrow passage ending beneath the garage.
We emerged behind neighboring houses.
Sophie ran into my arms.
“You said you'd come.”
“I did.”
“You took too long.”
“Sorry.”
She hugged me harder.
Elena grabbed my face.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“You're bleeding.”
“Not mine.”
She released me.
“That's somehow worse.”
Sirens sounded.
We moved toward Dante’s vehicle.
Then a van came from the alley.
Too fast.
The side door opened.
Two masked men jumped out.
One grabbed Elena.
The other reached for Sophie.
I ran.
Dante fired.
The man holding Elena dropped.
The second lifted Sophie.
She screamed.
“Mom!”
I was six feet away.
Too far.
He turned toward the van.
Then Sophie did something nobody expected.
She bit his hand.
Hard.
He screamed.
She dropped.
Rolled beneath the vehicle.
I hit him before he could recover.
Once.
Twice.
Then again.
Dante grabbed my shoulder.
“Enough.”
The man was unconscious.
I dragged Sophie out.
She had scraped both knees.
Nothing worse.
Elena fell beside her.
“Sophie!”
“I’m okay.”
“Let me see.”
“I bit him.”
“I know.”
“He tasted bad.”
Dante laughed despite everything.
Even Silvio smiled.
Elena cried while checking her daughter.
Sophie looked embarrassed.
“Mom.”
“I’m allowed.”
“People are watching.”
“You nearly got kidnapped.”
“I know.”
I turned toward the unconscious attacker.
Removed his mask.
I recognized him.
Nathan Cole.
Security contractor.
Not Mafia.
Former federal tactical officer.
That changed things.
“Who hired you?” Dante asked after waking him.
Nathan smiled through blood.
“You have no idea what you're dealing with.”
I crouched.
“Educate me.”
“You think this is about crime families?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
He laughed.
“Carlo DeMarco was hired help.”
“By whom?”
“You'll never get close.”
I looked toward Sophie.
“My patience is limited today.”
Nathan saw my face.
His smile weakened.
“Foundation.”
“What foundation?”
“Isabella.”
My mother's.
Margaret stared.
“No.”
Nathan looked at her.
“You don't even know who you've been working for.”
Margaret went pale.
“What?”
“The board changed twenty years ago.”
“There is no board.”
“There is.”
Dante took Nathan's phone.
Encrypted.
Silvio examined it.
“Government-grade.”
Dante nodded.
“This isn't street-level.”
Margaret whispered, “I kept receiving instructions.”
“From whom?” I asked.
“Letters. Emails.”
“Signed?”
“Only I.M.F.”
Isabella Moretti Foundation.
But my mother had been dead for twenty-five years.
Someone had continued using her name.
Someone controlling old Moretti legal structures from the shadows.
Nathan laughed.
“Your father created the perfect machine.”
“What machine?”
“A system that survives the people inside it.”
I wanted to hit him again.
Instead I asked, “Who runs it?”
He smiled.
“Ask the person who benefited from your mother dying.”
Silence.
My mother had died from cancer.
I had been twelve.
There had never been suspicion.
Had there?
I looked at Silvio.
He avoided my eyes.
Again.
“Silvio.”
“Not here.”
I grabbed his jacket.
“You keep saying that.”
“Adrian.”
“Did my mother die from cancer?”
“Yes.”
“Then who benefited?”
“Everyone.”
I released him.
“What does that mean?”
“Isabella was trying to dismantle the organization.”
I stared.
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
“She convinced Vittorio to create legitimate structures, the trust, the foundation.”
Margaret nodded.
“She wanted all the children protected.”
“All?”
Elena whispered the word.
Margaret looked at her.
“Isabella knew about you before Vittorio admitted it.”
“How?”
“She found Rose's letters.”
Elena closed her eyes.
“She hated my mother?”
“No.”
Margaret shook her head.
“She wrote to Rose.”
“She never received anything.”
“Because somebody intercepted the letters.”
Silvio looked ashamed.
Me.
That was written all over him.
Margaret continued.
“Isabella wanted Vittorio to acknowledge you.”
I could barely process it.
My mother had been protecting the child created by her husband's affair.
Not because she forgave him.
Because Elena was innocent.
For the first time in years, I remembered my mother's voice clearly.
You never punish children for choices adults made.
She had told me that when I was eight.
I had forgotten.
Nathan laughed softly.
“You all still think the dead are the problem.”
I looked at him.
“Who is alive?”
He smiled.
“Someone who was at Isabella’s funeral.”
Hundreds of people had been there.
Family.
Politicians.
Police.
Businessmen.
Friends.
Then Nathan said:
“He stood beside twelve-year-old Adrian Moretti while Adrian cried.”
My stomach turned.
Only three men had stood beside me at the grave.
My father.
Silvio.
And Dante Russo's father.
Thomas Russo.
A man officially dead for nine years.
Dante whispered:
“My father?”
Nathan smiled.
“You should ask him yourself.”
Then Dante’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
A familiar older voice came through.
“Hello, son.”
May you like
Dante went white.
His father was alive.
