Chapter 6 - The Night They Came Back for Lauren
Bellini took me beneath Manhattan.
Not figuratively.
Literally.
The service elevator descended below the bank into an old maintenance corridor connecting several buildings constructed before modern security codes.
A black SUV waited in an underground loading bay.
Maria was inside.
Alive.
Bruised.
Crying.
When she saw me, she broke.
“Lauren, I'm sorry.”
I sat beside her.
Bellini's men bound my wrists.
“Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head.
“Not much.”
The answer meant yes.
I looked toward Bellini.
“You said my mother was helped.”
He sat opposite me.
“Evelyn had cancer.”
“So?”
“So she might have lived another year. Perhaps two.”
My stomach turned.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing personally.”
I lunged toward him.
The restraints stopped me.
Maria gasped.
Bellini did not flinch.
“One of her medications was altered.”
“You killed her.”
“An associate did.”
“On your orders.”
He said nothing.
That was answer enough.
The grief was old.
Four years old.
But suddenly new.
I had sat beside my mother while she declined.
Held her hand.
Listened to machines.
Wondered why treatment stopped working so suddenly.
I had blamed disease.
Fate.
Money.
Now there was a man sitting six feet away telling me someone had accelerated her death because of a war I had never known existed.
“You're going to prison.”
Bellini smiled faintly.
“So optimistic.”
“No. You're finished.”
His smile faded.
“You sound like Vittorio.”
“I never knew him.”
“He knew you.”
Those words still had power.
The SUV stopped at an abandoned waterfront warehouse.
Bellini wanted the account information hidden in the ledger.
Eight million dollars had grown considerably over twenty-seven years.
The trust now held nearly thirty-one million.
Money my mother intended for victims' families.
Bellini wanted it returned.
I refused.
He threatened Maria.
I still refused.
He threatened me.
I laughed.
Perhaps shock makes people reckless.
“You already beat me. Kidnapped me. Killed my mother. What exactly do you have left?”
Bellini stared.
Then smiled.
“Your brother.”
My blood went cold.
“You think Giovanni won't come?”
“That is exactly what I think.”
He walked toward the warehouse windows.
“Moretti men share one weakness.”
“Bad personalities?”
Maria made a tiny sound that might have been a laugh.
Bellini's eyes hardened.
“They love very few people. But when they do, they become predictable.”
Giovanni would come.
Of course he would.
Not because we had known each other one day as siblings.
Because even before DNA, he had protected me.
He had noticed.
That mattered more than blood.
I looked around.
Three exits.
Four visible guards.
Maria's restraints were plastic.
Mine too.
An old metal shelf sat behind us.
Sharp edge.
I began working the binding against it slowly.
Bellini's phone rang.
He answered.
Smiled.
“Right on time.”
Giovanni.
He had arrived.
Outside, engines approached.
Bellini positioned his men.
I kept cutting.
Plastic weakened.
Maria noticed.
I shook my head slightly.
Don't react.
A door opened downstairs.
Then Giovanni's voice echoed through the warehouse.
“Bellini.”
Calm.
Too calm.
Marco smiled.
“Upstairs.”
Footsteps.
Giovanni appeared alone.
No weapon visible.
His white shirt collar was open.
Rain darkened his shoulders.
He looked exactly as he had outside the townhouse the night he found me bruised.
Only now there was murder in his eyes.
His gaze went to my face.
My wrists.
Maria.
Then Bellini.
“Let them go.”
“Your father said those words once.”
Giovanni's expression did not change.
“How did that work out for you?”
Bellini laughed.
“You truly are Vittorio's son.”
“So is she.”
Bellini looked at me.
“Unfortunately.”
Giovanni took one step.
Three guns raised.
He stopped.
Bellini placed a pistol against my shoulder.
“Account code.”
“No,” I said.
Giovanni's gaze stayed on me.
It was strange.
We barely knew each other.
Yet I understood him.
Wait.
He wanted me to wait.
Bellini grew impatient.
“Code.”
“No.”
The plastic around my wrists finally snapped.
I kept my hands behind my back.
Bellini didn't notice.
Giovanni did.
His eyes flickered once.
That was enough.
I moved.
I slammed my elbow backward into Bellini's ribs and dropped.
Gunfire exploded.
Maria screamed.
Glass shattered.
Giovanni's men stormed from two entrances.
Bellini stumbled.
I crawled toward Maria.
A guard grabbed me.
Then Giovanni hit him.
The fight lasted seconds.
It felt like hours.
When silence returned, Bellini was on the floor.
Wounded.
Alive.
Franco stood over him.
Police sirens approached in the distance.
Not ordinary police.
Federal agents.
The ledger had already been transmitted.
Giovanni had anticipated Bellini forcing me to open the box.
The bank had secretly copied every page.
Bellini's organization was collapsing while he stood inside that warehouse.
He looked at Giovanni with hatred.
“You think this ends because of one ledger?”
“No,” Giovanni said.
He looked toward me.
“It ends because you made her visible.”
Bellini was taken away.
Maria collapsed into my arms.
Giovanni approached.
For several seconds neither of us spoke.
Then he looked at my wrists.
“You're bleeding.”
“So are you.”
A cut ran across his forehead.
“Occupational hazard.”
“That was almost funny.”
“I wasn't joking.”
I laughed.
Then cried.
Both happened at once.
Giovanni hesitated.
I stepped forward first.
He hugged me carefully.
Very carefully because of my rib.
For the first time since my mother died, I had family holding me.
Not imaginary.
Not buried.
Not hidden.
Real.
Three days later, Bellini was charged.
Then came charges for murder conspiracy.
Racketeering.
Kidnapping.
Bribery.
Money laundering.
The ledger destroyed alliances built over decades.
But one question remained.
Maria had told us someone inside Giovanni's house had first approached her.
Not Trent.
Not Bellini.
Someone higher.
Someone she had trusted.
The final traitor.
Franco investigated quietly.
On the fourth morning, he entered Giovanni's study carrying a phone.
“I found the person who recruited Maria.”
Giovanni looked up.
“Who?”
Franco played a recording.
A man's voice.
Familiar.
I had heard it dozens of times in the mansion.
Giving instructions.
Greeting Giovanni.
Laughing at dinner.
Giovanni's face slowly changed.
“No.”
Franco nodded.
The voice belonged to Carlo Moretti.
Giovanni's uncle.
The man who had helped raise him after Vittorio died.
And according to the recovered messages, Carlo had not merely helped Bellini find me.
He had helped Bellini reach my mother four years earlier.
The attack in the alley had exposed an enemy.
May you like
But now we knew the true betrayal had been sitting at Giovanni's family table for decades.
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