Chapter 6 - The King Unbound
The sickening crunch of bone against metal echoed over the ringing in my ears.
Arthur Bellini didn't even have time to scream. The heavy steel padlock caught him square in the jaw. He crumpled backward, his handgun clattering across the concrete floor, out of reach.
"Emma!" Luca roared, not looking at Arthur. He dropped to his knees beside me, his large hands immediately pressing against my shoulder.
I gasped in pain, my vision swimming. Blood was soaking through my black maid’s uniform, warm and sticky.
"I’m okay," I choked out, though I felt like I was suffocating. "Get Rose."
"Stay still," Luca ordered, his voice cracking with a fear I had never heard from him before. He ripped a strip of fabric from the hem of his ruined suit jacket and pressed it hard against my wound. "Hold this. Don't let go."
I clamped my hand over the makeshift bandage, biting my lip to keep from crying out.
The three guards standing near the loading dock doors finally recovered from the shock of seeing their boss go down. They raised their assault rifles, shouting in Italian.
Luca didn't hesitate. He lunged across the floor, grabbing Arthur’s dropped handgun. In one fluid motion, he rolled behind a thick concrete pillar just as a hail of bullets shattered the air, sparking against the walls where he had been a second before.
Rose screamed, trapped in her chair in the center of the room, completely exposed.
"Rosie, stay down!" Luca yelled over the gunfire.
He didn't blindly shoot back. He waited. He was counting the shots. He knew exactly how many rounds were in those rifles.
The moment the deafening roar of gunfire paused as the guards reloaded, Luca stepped out from behind the pillar.
Three shots rang out. Precise. Lethal.
The three guards dropped to the floor, instantly neutralized.
The cavernous meatpacking plant fell completely silent, save for my ragged breathing and the dripping of water from a rusted pipe.
Luca kept the gun raised, sweeping the shadows to ensure the room was clear. When he was certain they were alone, he rushed over to Rose.
He didn't have the key anymore, so he grabbed a heavy metal pipe from the debris and smashed the padlock binding her wrists. The lock shattered. Rose collapsed forward into his arms, sobbing uncontrollably.
"I’ve got you," Luca whispered fiercely, holding his older sister tight against his chest. "I’ve got you, Rosie."
"I thought you were dead," Rose wept, burying her face in his ruined suit. "I’m so sorry, Luca. I’m so sorry about Mom."
"We’ll talk about Mom later," Luca promised, pressing a kiss to her temple. "Right now, we get out of here."
He pulled her to her feet and turned back to me.
He knelt beside me, his eyes dark with worry as he checked the bandage on my shoulder. The bleeding was heavy, but it wasn't pulsing.
"It’s a clean through-and-through," Luca said, his voice tense but steady. "The bullet missed the artery. You’re going to be okay, Emma. I’m getting you out of here."
He carefully slipped his arms under me, lifting me off the cold concrete. Even injured and exhausted, his strength was incredible. I rested my head against his chest, the adrenaline finally wearing off, leaving me dizzy and weak.
As we walked past the center of the room, a low groan echoed from the floor.
Arthur Bellini was trying to push himself up. His face was a bloody, mangled ruin. He looked at Luca with pure, unadulterated hatred.
"You think this is over, Luca?" Arthur spat, coughing up blood. "My family knows I have you. If I don't walk out of here, the entire commission will rain fire on your house. They will slaughter everyone you love."
Luca stopped. He stood over Arthur, holding me securely in his arms.
"Your family thinks you're a coward who orchestrated a fake kidnapping to steal my mother’s ledger," Luca said coldly. "Because Vanessa told them everything you planned."
Arthur’s good eye widened in shock. "Vanessa is locked in your house."
"And she talks when she's terrified," Luca lied effortlessly. "She gave you up, Arthur. She told the commission you were planning a coup. You don't have an army waiting for you. You have a hit squad looking for you."
Arthur collapsed back onto the floor, the realization that his own niece had betrayed him completely breaking his spirit.
"Leave him," Rose whispered, grabbing Luca’s arm. "Let’s just go."
Luca didn't shoot Arthur. He didn't have to. The man was a ghost in his own syndicate now.
We walked out of the loading dock doors into the cool Chicago night. My SUV was still idling where I had left it. Luca carefully laid me in the back seat, securing the seatbelt around me. Rose climbed into the passenger seat.
Luca got behind the wheel and tore out of the industrial lot, speeding toward the highway.
"Hold on, Emma," Luca said, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. "I’m taking you to a private clinic. My family’s doctor is there."
"Mr. Moretti," I murmured, my eyelids feeling incredibly heavy. "The tie... why did Rose hide a padlock key in the tie?"
Luca looked at his sister, who was staring out the window, tears still glistening on her cheeks.
"Because she didn't bring the tie as a gift," Luca answered softly, his voice thick with a profound realization. "She brought it as an apology."
I frowned, fighting the darkness creeping into the edges of my vision. "An apology?"
"The key she hid was the master key to the safe in my father’s old study," Luca explained, gripping the steering wheel tight. "The safe he used to lock his most sensitive documents in. When he died, I could never find the key. I had the safe drilled, but it was empty."
He looked at Rose.
"You took the key before he died," Luca said gently. "Didn't you, Rosie?"
Rose nodded slowly, refusing to look at him. "Mom asked me to. She told me the ledger was inside. She told me to take the key so Dad couldn't access it to destroy it."
"And you never told me you had it," Luca said, not with anger, but with deep sorrow. "Because you knew if you gave me the key, I would open the safe, and I would find the ledger. And if I found the ledger, I would find out the truth about how she died."
Rose finally turned to look at him, her face a mask of absolute heartbreak. "I was a coward, Luca. I hid the key in the tie for twenty-nine years. When Vanessa started asking questions, I knew the past was coming back. I brought the tie tonight to give it to you. So you could finally know the truth."
Luca reached across the console, resting his hand over hers. "You aren't a coward, Rosie. You protected me from a truth that would have destroyed me when I was nine years old. You gave up your entire life to raise me."
"But I killed her," Rose wept, squeezing his hand. "I killed our mother, Luca."
"No," Luca said firmly. "You didn't."
Rose blinked, confused. I tried to focus, fighting the urge to pass out.
"Arthur told me everything in the dining room before he left," Luca said, his eyes scanning the dark highway. "He gave me the notebook, Rose. The real one. He didn't take it to blackmail you. He took it to hide it."
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"Hide it from who?" Rose asked, her voice trembling.
"From the man who actually killed her," Luca said, his voice dropping into a chilling whisper. "Because our mother didn't hit her head on the fireplace, Rose. The autopsy report Arthur gave me proved it. She was poisoned three hours before you even walked into that living room."
