Chapter 8 - THE CHASE AND THE FATHER'S WATCH
The rain lashed against the windshield of the armored SUV as we tore out of the quiet suburban neighborhood, leaving the shattered house behind under the guard of Marco’s men.
Sarah was wrapped in a thick wool blanket in the back seat, shivering despite the heat blasting from the vents. I sat next to her, holding her hand tightly, my burned palm throbbing with a dull, persistent ache.
Luca sat in the front passenger seat, barking rapid-fire orders into his encrypted radio.
“He’s heading for the private airfield in Kankakee,” Luca told his driver, slamming his hand against the dashboard. “If Arthur Bellini gets in the air with those account numbers, he’ll transfer billions of dollars into untraceable Russian accounts before he even lands in Moscow. Push this engine. Now.”
The heavy SUV surged forward, the speedometer climbing past ninety miles an hour as we merged onto the dark, rain-slicked highway.
“Luca,” I called out softly over the roar of the engine.
He turned in his seat to look at me. The adrenaline and fury masking his features softened slightly when he met my eyes.
“I’m sorry I brought you into this, Nora,” Luca said, his voice carrying a heavy weight of guilt. “My father wanted you to have a normal life. I ruined that tonight.”
“You didn't ruin it,” I said fiercely, squeezing Sarah’s hand. “Arthur Bellini did. Vanessa did. They tried to burn my mother. They tried to steal from you. You didn't start this war, Luca. But you have to finish it.”
Luca stared at me. He saw the fierce, unbroken resilience in my eyes—the exact same resilience that had defined his father. A proud, genuine smile touched his lips.
“You definitely have Moretti blood,” Luca said softly.
He reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a heavy, gold pocket watch. The casing was scratched, etched with the Moretti family crest—a roaring lion holding a single rose.
“My father carried this every day of his life,” Luca said, handing it back to me. “He gave it to me on his deathbed. Press the small button on the top.”
I took the heavy gold watch. My hands were trembling, but I pressed the small release button.
The gold casing popped open.
Inside, opposite the ticking clock face, was a small, faded photograph.
It wasn't a picture of Luca. It wasn't a picture of the mafia empire.
It was a picture of a tiny, newborn baby girl wrapped in a yellow daisy blanket.
“He never stopped looking at you,” Luca whispered, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “He couldn't visit you. He couldn't claim you. But he carried you with him every single day. He loved you, Nora. He did all of this to keep you alive.”
A sob tore from my throat. I traced the tiny face in the photograph with my thumb. Growing up, I had always wondered why my father wasn't around, why Sarah would deflect my questions with sad, evasive answers. I had thought he abandoned me.
To know that the most feared man in Chicago had loved me enough to exile himself from my life just to keep me safe... it healed a wound in my heart I didn't even know I had.
“Thank you,” I wept, clutching the gold watch to my chest.
“We’re two miles out from the airfield, Boss,” the driver interrupted, his voice tight with concentration.
Luca instantly snapped the watch shut, his demeanor shifting back to cold, lethal authority. He drew his weapon and checked the chamber.
“Marco,” Luca spoke into the radio. “Status on the airfield?”
“We’re in position, Boss,” Marco’s voice crackled back over the static. “Bellini’s silver Mercedes is parked on the tarmac. The engines on his private jet are whining. He’s prepping for immediate takeoff. We’re waiting for your signal.”
“Do not let that plane leave the ground,” Luca ordered. “Shoot the tires if you have to.”
We crested a small hill on the rural highway, and the abandoned Kankakee airstrip came into view.
Through the pouring rain, I could see the sleek, white private jet idling on the cracked asphalt runway. A single set of mobile stairs was pushed up against the open cabin door.
Our SUV crashed through the rusted chain-link fence at the perimeter, tearing across the wet grass toward the tarmac.
Marco’s men were already moving. Two black SUVs had boxed in the silver Mercedes, and heavily armed guards were fanning out around the jet.
We slammed to a halt fifty yards from the plane.
Luca threw his door open. “Stay in the car, Nora. Lock the doors.”
He didn't wait for an answer. He sprinted out into the driving rain, his weapon raised, joining Marco at the base of the stairs leading up to the jet.
I sat in the back seat, my heart hammering against my ribs. Sarah was clutching my arm, her eyes squeezed shut in terror.
I couldn't just sit there. The gold pocket watch in my hand felt heavy, a reminder of the father who had sacrificed everything for me. I wouldn't cower in the dark while my brother fought for our family’s legacy.
“Lock the doors, Mom,” I told Sarah, pulling my arm gently from her grasp.
“Nora, no!” she cried, but I had already pushed the heavy door open and slipped out into the rain.
I stayed low, using the cover of the armored SUV, creeping closer to the tarmac to hear what was happening.
Luca was standing at the bottom of the plane's stairs, pointing his gun directly into the dark cabin.
“It’s over, Arthur!” Luca roared over the whine of the jet engines. “You have nowhere to go! Come out with the rosary, and I’ll let you live long enough to stand trial!”
For a moment, nothing happened. The rain lashed against the metal fuselage of the plane.
Then, a figure appeared in the doorway of the cabin.
It was Arthur Bellini. He was an older man, in his late sixties, with slicked-back gray hair and a sharp, cruel face that looked exactly like Vanessa’s. He was wearing an expensive trench coat, completely soaked by the rain.
He didn't have his hands up.
In his right hand, he held a sleek, silver handgun, pointed directly at Luca’s chest.
In his left hand, dangling mockingly in the wind, was the heavy silver rosary.
“You think you’ve won, boy?” Arthur sneered, his voice amplified by the quiet tarmac. “You think because you found your bastard sister you can defeat me?”
“I know you burned your own house down, Arthur,” Luca shouted back, not flinching at the gun pointed at him. “I know you murdered your wife to collect the insurance money, and you blamed my father. Vanessa knows it, too. She read the blue ledger tonight. Your own daughter despises you.”
Arthur’s face twitched. The mention of Vanessa clearly struck a nerve, but his arrogant smirk quickly returned.
“Vanessa is weak,” Arthur spat. “She let emotions cloud her judgment. I don't care what she knows. With these account numbers, I can buy a new life, a new family, and a new army. I will wipe the Moretti name from the face of the earth!”
He raised his gun, aiming directly at Luca’s head.
“Shoot him, Marco!” Luca yelled.
But before Marco could raise his rifle, another figure stepped out from the shadows of the plane’s cabin, standing directly behind Arthur Bellini.
A woman in a torn, gasoline-stained red silk gown.
Vanessa.
She hadn't been locked in a room at the estate. She had escaped the guards, stolen a car, and beaten her father to the airstrip.
Arthur didn't even hear her coming over the roar of the engines.
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Vanessa didn't say a word. She didn't scream or cry.
She simply raised the heavy silver Zippo lighter in her hand—the same lighter she had threatened to use to burn the Moretti estate—and brought it crashing down onto the back of her father’s skull with all the force she possessed.
