Chapter 6 - THE BURNED PHOTOGRAPH
The fire engines arrived within six minutes, their sirens cutting through the night like a physical assault.
The second floor of the Moretti mansion burned fiercely, casting long, frantic shadows across the lawn.
Luca stood perfectly still, his arm instinctively draped over my shoulders, shielding me from the heat and the chaos. He watched his mother's bedroom turn to ash.
Daniel rushed up to us, his face smeared with soot.
"Boss, the fire department is securing the perimeter," Daniel reported, breathless. "We handed Margaret Vance over to the police. They have her in custody."
Luca didn't look at him. His eyes remained fixed on the flames.
"Did Elias make it out?" Luca asked quietly.
Daniel swallowed hard. "No, sir. He didn't come back out. The blast... it was localized entirely in the master suite. If he was in there, he's gone."
I shivered, pulling my thin uniform closer. Elias Vance, the ruthless crime boss, had run into a rigged room to find something. And it had killed him.
"What was in the safe, Luca?" I whispered, looking up at him. "Why did Elias risk his life for it?"
Luca finally looked down at me. The hardness in his eyes softened, replaced by a profound, heavy sorrow.
"Proof," Luca said softly. "My father kept proof."
He turned to Daniel.
"Find David Collins. Make sure the police don't touch him yet. I need to speak with him."
"Yes, Boss." Daniel hurried off into the crowd of first responders.
Luca gently guided me toward the back of an idling ambulance where paramedics were treating Vanessa for shock. She was wrapped in a foil blanket, weeping hysterically while her father, Robert, argued with a police officer.
Luca ignored them. He sat me down on the bumper of the ambulance.
"Stay here," he ordered gently. "Let them check you for smoke inhalation."
"I'm fine," I protested, but my voice was raspy.
A paramedic approached with an oxygen mask, and Luca offered me a reassuring nod before walking toward my father, who was sitting handcuffed in the back of a police cruiser.
I watched as Luca spoke to the commanding officer. A few tense words were exchanged, and then the officer unlocked the car door.
Luca pulled my father out by his arm and walked him away from the flashing lights, into the shadows of the large oak trees lining the driveway.
I pulled the oxygen mask away from my face. I had to know.
I slipped off the bumper and quietly followed them, staying hidden behind the broad trunk of a nearby tree.
"I didn't know it was a bomb!" my father was pleading, his voice frantic and broken. "I swear to God, Mr. Moretti! Margaret set it up! I was just a mechanic!"
"Shut up, David," Luca said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "I know you didn't wire the explosive. Margaret needed Elias dead because Elias was the only one who could connect her to the embezzlement."
My father paused, confused. "Embezzlement?"
"The two million dollars Margaret paid Robert Bellini to kidnap Julian wasn't her money," Luca explained coldly. "It was Elias's money. She stole it from his offshore accounts. Elias spent twenty years trying to find the missing funds. If he found out she used his own money to pay for his son's kidnapping, he would have killed her."
Luca took a step closer to my father.
"My father figured it out ten years ago," Luca said. "Antonio found out Margaret was the one pulling the strings. He kept the evidence in his safe. Margaret knew that. She rigged the room to destroy the proof, and she knew Elias would run in to get it."
My father trembled, tears leaking from his eyes.
"Why didn't Antonio tell Elias the truth?" my father cried. "Why let him grieve for twenty years?"
"Because," Luca said softly, "Antonio didn't want Elias to know Julian was dead."
The silence hung heavy between them.
"Julian wasn't Antonio's son," Luca said, the revelation hanging in the cold air.
My breath caught. I gripped the bark of the oak tree.
"What?" my father whispered. "But Margaret said—"
"Margaret lied tonight to hurt Elias," Luca interrupted. "Julian was Elias's biological son. But Elias was a monster. He beat Julian. He abused Margaret. Antonio found out, and he couldn't stand it. So, my father paid Robert Bellini to kidnap the boy and hide him, to protect him from Elias."
My heart hammered against my ribs.
Antonio Moretti hadn't been a child snatcher. He had been a savior. He had orchestrated the kidnapping to rescue an abused child from a mafia boss.
"And you," Luca said, pointing a finger at my father, "you bought the boy from Robert. And then you let him drown."
My father dropped to his knees in the wet grass, sobbing into his hands.
"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I loved Tommy! I tried to save him, but the current was too strong!"
Luca stared down at him. The anger in Luca's face warred with the deep, exhausting tragedy of the situation.
"Get up," Luca commanded softly.
My father didn't move.
"Get up, David," Luca repeated. "Because you have one chance to make this right, and if you lie to me now, I will let Elias's remaining men deal with you."
My father slowly stood, shaking violently.
"I'll tell you anything," my father swore.
Luca reached into his jacket pocket.
He pulled out a small, scorched piece of paper. The edges were burned black, but the center was intact.
"One of my men pulled this out of the debris before the fire took the whole room," Luca said. "It fell out of the safe when the floor collapsed."
He held it up in the moonlight.
I squinted from behind the tree.
It was a photograph.
"This is a picture of Julian Vance," Luca said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "Taken ten years ago. When he would have been fifteen years old."
My father froze.
"If Julian drowned when he was five," Luca said, stepping impossibly close to my father, "how did my father take a picture of him ten years later?"
My father's eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated panic.
He looked at the burned photograph, then back at Luca.
"I... I don't know," my father stammered.
"You're lying," Luca growled, grabbing my father by the collar of his jacket. "My father was watching him. Which means he didn't drown. Where is he, David? Where is Julian Vance?"
My father shook his head frantically, tears flying from his face.
"I can't tell you! He'll kill me!"
"Who will kill you?!" Luca roared.
Before my father could answer, a loud, sharp sound echoed through the night.
Crack.
It sounded like a firecracker.
But it wasn't.
My father gasped, his eyes going wide. He looked down at his chest.
A small, dark hole had appeared in his jacket. Blood began to rapidly spread across the fabric.
He had been shot by a sniper.
Luca immediately dropped my father to the ground and drew his weapon, scanning the dark tree line.
"Sniper!" Luca yelled, pulling me out from behind the tree and covering my body with his own. "Daniel, secure the perimeter!"
Chaos erupted again. The police drew their weapons, shouting orders, completely oblivious to where the shot had come from.
I knelt in the wet grass, screaming, pressing my hands against my father's bleeding chest.
"Dad!" I sobbed, the warm blood soaking my fingers. "Dad, stay with me!"
My father coughed, blood bubbling on his lips. He looked up at me, his eyes losing focus.
He reached up with a trembling, bloody hand and grabbed the silver locket around my neck.
"Hannah," my father choked out, his voice a wet rasp.
"I'm here, Dad. The ambulance is coming!"
He pulled the locket weakly.
"The back," he whispered, his eyes rolling back. "Look at... the back."
His hand went limp. His eyes stared blankly up at the smoky sky.
He was gone.
"No!" I screamed, burying my face in his chest, sobbing uncontrollably.
Luca knelt beside me, his hand resting firmly on my shaking back. He didn't try to pull me away. He just stayed there, a silent, immovable shield in the darkness.
After several minutes, the police secured the area. The paramedics rushed over, but it was too late.
I sat on the grass, my hands covered in my father's blood, entirely hollow.
Luca gently reached out and unclasped the silver locket from my neck.
He wiped the blood from the metal with his handkerchief.
"He said to look at the back," Luca murmured.
He turned the silver heart over.
There was no engraving. No visible seams.
But Luca noticed something. A tiny, almost imperceptible pinhole near the bottom hinge.
He took a small pin from his lapel and pressed it into the hole.
The back plate of the locket popped open.
Inside the hidden compartment was a tiny, tightly folded piece of paper.
Luca unfolded it carefully.
It was a bank routing number. And a name.
Luca read the name, and his face drained of all color.
He looked at me, his dark eyes filled with absolute horror.
"Hannah," Luca whispered. "This name."
"Who is it?" I choked out, wiping my tears.
"It's the name of the man who shot him," Luca said. "The man your father has been paying for eighteen years to keep Julian hidden."
He turned the paper around so I could read it.
May you like
I stared at the name, my heart stopping completely.
It was the name of my younger sister’s fiancé.
