Chapter 8 - The Fallout
The garden descended into chaos.
Dozens of armed men in tactical gear poured through the service gates and around the sides of the mansion. Marco Bellini's thugs, realizing they were vastly outnumbered and that their boss was bleeding out in the mud, dropped their weapons and raised their hands.
Luca stood up, his suit ruined, his chest heaving. He kept his gun trained on Marco until his men moved in and kicked Marco's weapon away.
I rushed over to Teresa, helping her sit up in the mud. She was shaking violently, her eyes wide with shock as she stared at the burning crate.
"It didn't explode," she whispered, her voice trembling. "Antonio's bomb didn't go off."
"I found the override switch in the study," I explained quickly, my own hands shaking so badly I could barely help her to her feet. "He had a failsafe."
Luca heard me. He turned around, staring at me with a mixture of disbelief and profound gratitude. He walked over, holstered his weapon, and gently took his mother's arm.
"Let's get you inside, Mom," he said softly.
We walked back into the conservatory. The heat from the house felt like a physical embrace after the freezing rain. Daniel handed us dry towels, his head wrapped in a makeshift bandage.
Outside, Luca’s men dragged Marco and Vanessa Bellini into the back of an unmarked van.
"What happens to them?" I asked softly, watching the taillights fade into the storm.
"They go before the Commission," Luca said grimly, drying his hair with a towel. "With the microfilm as proof that Marco murdered Tessa and extorted my father, the Commission will strip the Bellini family of all their assets. They'll be exiled, or worse."
He looked at me. "You saved our lives today, Hannah. I don't know how to repay you."
"You don't owe me anything," I said, wrapping a towel tightly around my shivering shoulders. "I just wanted to make sure Teresa was okay."
Teresa sat heavily in one of the plush conservatory chairs. She looked exhausted, frail, and older than her seventy-eight years. The adrenaline was fading, leaving behind the heavy toll of the day's revelations.
Luca knelt in front of her. He took her small, dirt-stained hands in his.
"Mom," Luca started, his voice cracking. "Why didn't you ever tell me? Thirty-six years... you let me believe you were my stepmother. You let me treat you like you were secondary to a woman you didn't even like."
Teresa looked down at their joined hands. A single tear escaped, cutting a clean path through the dirt on her cheek.
"Because Antonio demanded it," she whispered. "When Tessa died, I thought... I thought finally, I could tell you. I could be your real mother. But Antonio told me if I ever breathed a word of the truth to you, he would send you away to a boarding school in Europe, and I would never see you again."
She took a shaky breath. "He said you needed to believe your mother was an innocent woman who died a tragedy, not a mistress who was forced to give you up. He wanted you to have a perfect image of a mother."
"So you took the pain," Luca said, his eyes welling with tears. "You tended her garden. You lived in her shadow. Just to stay near me."
"You were my son, Luca," Teresa said fiercely, her voice suddenly strong. "I didn't care what you called me, or who you thought I was, as long as I got to kiss you goodnight and watch you grow into a man."
Luca buried his face in her hands, weeping openly for the first time in his adult life. The ruthless mafia boss was gone, replaced by a son who had finally found the mother he never knew he lost.
I stepped backward, wanting to give them privacy. I quietly walked into the kitchen, intending to pack my things and go home. I had done what I set out to do.
But as I entered the kitchen, my eyes landed on the yellow rose sitting on the island.
It was still in the glass of water. It looked slightly wilted, bruised from being carried around all night.
I walked over and touched the delicate yellow petals.
Antonio forced her to give you to Tessa to raise. He planted that yellow rose to celebrate Tessa becoming a mother with a stolen child.
Teresa had said she hated the roses. She hated what they stood for.
I picked up the glass. I was going to throw it away. I was going to throw the flower in the garbage disposal and be done with it.
But as I lifted the glass, I noticed something underneath it.
The photograph of Antonio, Tessa, and baby Luca had been moved. Underneath it was a second, smaller piece of paper, folded in half. It must have fallen out of Vanessa's clutch when she was in the kitchen earlier that night.
I set the glass down and picked up the paper.
It was a medical document. A pathology report from Chicago General Hospital, dated 1978.
I unfolded it and scanned the clinical text.
Patient: Teresa Moretti.Procedure: Post-partum examination.Notes: Patient exhibits severe abdominal trauma consistent with forced extraction.
I frowned, reading the lines again. Forced extraction?
I kept reading.
Patient delivered a healthy male infant. However, due to the severe internal hemorrhaging caused by the trauma, a secondary procedure was required immediately.
I flipped to the second page, my heart beginning to pound a terrified rhythm.
Secondary Procedure: Emergency Cesarean Delivery of second infant.
The paper slipped from my fingers, fluttering to the kitchen floor.
Second infant.
May you like
Teresa hadn't just given birth to Luca. She had given birth to twins.
And according to the bottom of the pathology report, the second baby had survived.
