Chapter 16 - The Last Man Santino Feared
“Mom?”
The word barely left Serena’s mouth.
The woman stopped beneath the chapel entrance.
For fourteen years, Serena had believed Elena Bellandi was dead.
An aneurysm.
Sudden.
Tragic.
Closed coffin because of supposed medical complications.
Now Elena stood twenty feet away in the rain.
Older.
Thinner.
Alive.
Serena moved first.
Then stopped.
Pain overtook shock.
“You left me.”
Elena’s face crumpled.
“I had to.”
“No.”
“I did.”
“You were dead.”
“I know.”
“I buried you.”
Elena closed her eyes.
“I know.”
Serena laughed once.
Broken.
“Apparently everyone in my life fakes funerals.”
Santino stepped forward.
“Sera—”
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
Landon understood her anger.
Perhaps better than anyone.
Elena held the ledger tightly.
“Your father discovered Vale’s network.”
“We know.”
“He planned to expose it.”
“We know that too.”
“Vale killed him.”
Serena’s eyes hardened.
“And you?”
“I was supposed to die with him.”
Silence.
Elena continued.
“I escaped.”
“So you abandoned me?”
“To keep you alive.”
Serena shook her head.
“You all say that.”
Landon looked down.
Yes.
They did.
Protection had become a language of absence.
Elena cried quietly.
“I thought if Vale knew I survived, he would use you to find me.”
“He found me anyway.”
“I know.”
“When?”
“Years later.”
“You knew?”
“I watched from a distance.”
Serena stepped backward as if struck.
“You watched?”
“I made sure you were safe.”
“No.”
“Sera—”
“No. You don’t get to call watching me from shadows motherhood.”
Elena accepted the words.
She looked older afterward.
“What is the ledger?” Landon asked gently, giving Serena room.
Elena held it out.
“Original transactions from Vale’s first network.”
“Why hide it for twenty years?”
“Because it includes people more powerful than Vale.”
Dominic took it.
Names filled handwritten pages.
Executives.
Government officials.
Bankers.
Some dead.
Others still active.
Santino looked toward Landon.
“This is why I stayed hidden.”
“You knew Elena was alive?”
“For nine months.”
Serena turned toward him.
“You knew my mother was alive?”
Santino closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
She slapped him.
The sound echoed.
Nobody intervened.
Santino nodded slowly.
“Also deserved.”
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“She begged me not to.”
Serena turned away.
Landon followed her outside.
Rain had softened.
She stood beside a stone wall overlooking the dark lake.
“I’m surrounded by liars.”
“Yes.”
She looked at him, surprised.
“You’re supposed to defend your brother.”
“No.”
“Good.”
“He was wrong.”
She laughed through tears.
“I don’t know what to feel.”
“All of it.”
“My father murdered. My mother alive. Santino alive. Vale arrested.”
“Busy week.”
She laughed again.
Then cried.
Landon stood beside her.
Not touching.
Not fixing.
After a while, Serena leaned against him.
He put an arm around her.
“You’re not going to tell me it was all done to protect me?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I think people who love us sometimes make terrible choices while trying to protect us.”
She looked up.
“That was dangerously thoughtful.”
“Don’t repeat it.”
Back inside, Elena explained.
The original network had been created by Adrian Vale and several partners.
Vale was not even the most powerful member initially.
One name appeared repeatedly.
Richard Calvera.
An American financier who disappeared from public business ten years earlier.
Santino recognized it.
“That’s the man I feared.”
Landon frowned.
“Not Vale?”
“Vale was operational. Calvera designed the structure.”
“Where is he?”
“Unknown.”
Elena looked at them.
“No.”
Everyone turned.
“You know.”
She nodded.
“Monaco.”
Dominic began contacting Cross.
Elena stopped him.
“He knows the ledger exists.”
“How?”
“The message to Santino came through a channel only Calvera would know.”
“So he wanted us here.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Elena’s answer was chilling.
“To gather everyone who can testify in one place.”
Landon looked toward the windows.
Trap.
Again.
Dominic called his team.
No response.
Signal blocked.
Santino checked the rear entrance.
Headlights appeared along the road.
Several vehicles.
Landon swore.
“How many?”
Dominic counted.
“Four.”
“Authorities?”
“Not ours.”
They were isolated.
But unlike two years earlier, Santino was not alone.
The chapel had an old service path behind it.
Elena knew the route.
They left through the rear.
No heroics.
No gun battle.
Just people choosing survival over pride.
They moved through wet trees while vehicles stopped near the chapel.
Dominic’s phone regained signal farther down the hill.
Cross received the location.
Italian police were twenty minutes away.
They reached an old boathouse.
Inside was a small motorboat.
Landon looked at Santino.
“Please tell me you know how to drive that.”
Santino grinned.
“Better than you.”
“You crashed your last boat.”
“That was you.”
Serena stared.
“So Leo was right.”
Santino laughed.
Landon looked offended.
They crossed the lake in rain.
Behind them, lights moved near the chapel.
Ahead, police boats approached.
For the first time, Calvera’s men had failed.
The ledger reached Evelyn Cross the next morning.
International warrants followed.
Banks froze accounts.
Partners turned on one another.
Richard Calvera attempted to leave Monaco aboard a private yacht.
French and Italian authorities intercepted him before sunrise.
No dramatic final confrontation.
No grand speech.
A seventy-year-old man in an expensive coat stepped onto a dock in handcuffs.
Sometimes empires ended quietly.
The greater battle happened afterward.
Courtrooms.
Documents.
Testimony.
Years of hidden crimes dragged into daylight.
But for the Moretti family, another battle remained.
Santino had to go home.
He sat in a quiet hotel suite staring at a photograph of Leo.
“I don’t know how.”
Landon sat across from him.
“You walk through the door.”
“He thinks I’m dead.”
“Yes.”
“What if he doesn’t remember me?”
“He remembers your song.”
Santino looked down.
“What if he hates me?”
“He’s four.”
“Children can hate.”
“Then you earn him back.”
Santino smiled sadly.
“You became wise while I was gone.”
“No.”
“Serena?”
“Mostly.”
From the doorway, Serena said, “Correct.”
Santino laughed.
Then his expression changed.
“You love her.”
Landon froze.
Serena froze.
Dominic immediately left the room.
Coward.
Landon looked at his brother.
“You were more pleasant dead.”
Santino grinned.
“I knew it.”
Serena shook her head and walked away, cheeks flushed.
Later that night, Landon found her outside.
“You heard him.”
“Unfortunately.”
“He talks too much.”
“He always did.”
Silence.
Then Serena asked:
“Was he wrong?”
Landon looked at her.
Rain had stopped.
Lake Como reflected moonlight.
“No.”
One word.
Serena’s breath caught.
Landon continued.
“I don’t know when it happened.”
She smiled faintly.
“Probably between the fake death certificate and kidnapping.”
“Very romantic.”
“My standards became strange.”
He stepped closer.
“I’m not asking you for anything tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because your mother returned from the dead twelve hours ago.”
“Thoughtful.”
“I’m learning.”
She touched his hand.
“No running?”
“Not unless you want to.”
Serena looked toward the moonlit water.
“For the first time in two years…”
She intertwined her fingers with his.
May you like
“I don’t.”
---
