Chapter 8 - THE SHIELD AND THE SHADOW
The gunshot cracked like thunder.
But I didn't feel the bullet.
Luca had lunged forward, tackling me to the concrete just as the gun went off. We hit the ground hard, his heavy frame completely shielding me.
A cry of pain rang out.
I scrambled out from under Luca, terrified he’d been hit. But Luca was already up, his gun drawn and leveled at Vanessa.
It was Arthur Harris who had fallen.
The lawyer lay on the asphalt, clutching his stomach, blood pooling beneath his hands. He had stepped directly in front of Vanessa’s gun to protect us.
"No!" Vanessa shrieked, dropping the revolver as if it had burned her.
She hadn't meant to shoot her own family's lawyer. Her hands were shaking violently. Her men, seeing the lawyer go down and hearing the approaching wail of police sirens, immediately dropped their weapons and put their hands on their heads. They were paid thugs, not martyrs.
Dante and the Moretti guards swarmed them, kicking the guns away and pinning Vanessa's men to the ground.
Dante grabbed Vanessa by the hair, forcing her to her knees in the wet street.
Luca didn't even look at her. He rushed to Arthur’s side, kneeling beside the bleeding man. I grabbed my mother’s coat and pressed it hard against Arthur’s wound to stop the bleeding.
"Arthur, hold on," Luca ordered, his voice tight. "Ambulance is coming."
Arthur coughed, a thin line of blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. He looked up at Luca with tear-filled eyes.
"I'm sorry, Luca," the old lawyer wheezed. "Carlo... Carlo threatened my daughters fifteen years ago. I had to forge the will. I had to cover up the murder. But I couldn't let her kill the girl."
"Save your strength," Luca said, his jaw clenched tight.
"Listen to me," Arthur gasped, grabbing Luca’s wrist with surprising strength. "Vanessa... Vanessa didn't just steal the 28 leases. She used Bellini Holdings to take out massive loans... against your legitimate businesses. If you don't find the offshore accounts... the Moretti empire will be bankrupt by Monday."
My stomach plummeted. Vanessa hadn't just tried to steal the housing; she was trying to destroy the entire legacy.
Arthur’s eyes rolled back, and he lost consciousness just as the paramedics arrived, swarming the scene and loading him onto a stretcher.
The police pulled up, their red and blue lights flashing against the brick walls. Because Luca had already sent Arthur's confession, and because Dante had handed over the forged documents and Vanessa’s dropped gun, the police moved straight for Vanessa.
As they slapped handcuffs on her wrists, she turned her venomous glare to me.
"You think you've won, Emily?" she spat, struggling against the officers. "You’re nothing! You’ll always be a maid! He’ll get bored of you the second this is over!"
Luca walked slowly over to her. The absolute contempt in his eyes made Vanessa shrink back.
"She is twice the woman you could ever pretend to be," Luca said, his voice deadly quiet. "Enjoy prison, Vanessa. Tell your father I say hello."
As they shoved Vanessa into the back of a squad car, I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder.
My mother was standing behind me, tears in her eyes. "Are you okay, sweetheart?"
I hugged her tight. "I'm fine, Mom. It's over."
"It's not over," Luca said, walking back toward us. He looked exhausted, but his posture was straight. "Vanessa took out loans against our companies. If we can't find those offshore accounts by Monday morning, thousands of people—including the 28 women in the housing project—will lose everything. The banks will foreclose on it all."
Margaret Ellis, who had been speaking to the paramedics, walked over.
"Marcus knew Carlo was greedy," Margaret said softly. "He told me once that if the Bellinis ever tried to drain the company, the routing numbers to their shadow accounts were hidden in plain sight. Something they would look at every day but never notice."
"Where?" I asked.
Margaret looked at me, her eyes dropping to my chest.
"In the locket, Emily," she said.
My hand flew to the silver pendant around my neck. The locket my mother had given me. The one bearing the Moretti crest.
"Mom?" I asked, looking at her in shock. "You said this was empty."
"I never opened it," my mother confessed softly. "Marcus gave it to me the night before he died. He told me to give it to you, and to never take it off."
With shaking hands, I unclasped the necklace. Luca stepped close, his massive frame blocking the wind. I pressed the tiny latch on the side of the antique silver casing.
The locket sprang open.
There was no picture inside. Instead, neatly folded into a tiny, perfect square, was a small piece of parchment.
I pulled it out and unfolded it. It was a list of twelve bank routing numbers.
"The offshore accounts," Luca breathed, staring at the paper. "My father outsmarted them fifteen years ago."
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He looked up from the paper, his dark eyes meeting mine. The sheer admiration in his gaze made my heart skip a beat.
"Let's go home," Luca said quietly. "We have a family empire to save."
