Chapter 9 - The Falling Star
The red button clicked with a terrifying finality.
I squeezed my eyes shut, pulling Noah tightly against my chest, bracing for the deafening roar of an explosion, waiting for the sky to light up with the fiery end of the Moretti legacy.
One second. Two seconds. Three seconds passed.
The only sound was the distant, fading whine of the Gulfstream engines high above the clouds.
I opened my eyes. The night sky was dark, unbroken by fire or falling debris.
I looked at Silvio.
The head of security was staring at the small black detonator in his hand, his thumb pressing the red button repeatedly with frantic, disbelieving force.
"It's dead," Silvio whispered, his voice cracking with panic. "The signal isn't connecting. The detonator is dead."
He slammed the device against his thigh, desperately trying to trigger the C4 packed into the fuselage of the escaping jet. Nothing happened.
"Why isn't it working?" I asked, a sudden, wild hope flaring in my chest.
"I don't know!" Silvio shouted, abandoning his usual stoic demeanor. He ripped the back casing off the detonator, exposing the wiring. "I checked it an hour ago! The batteries are fully charged, the frequency is locked... the internal receiver has been ripped out."
He stared at the gutted wiring, realization hitting him like a physical blow.
"Someone tampered with it," Silvio breathed, his eyes wide. "Someone disabled the detonator before I got here."
"Who?" I asked, looking around the empty tarmac. "Nobody was here except Marco and Vanessa."
"Vanessa wouldn't disable a bomb she didn't know existed," Silvio muttered, his mind racing. "And Marco was loyal to Luca until his last breath. He wouldn't—"
"I did."
The voice came from the shadows of the nearby maintenance hangar.
Silvio instantly dropped the useless detonator and raised his sniper rifle, aiming it precisely at the source of the voice. I pulled Noah behind me, shielding him with my body.
Stepping slowly out of the darkness, limping heavily and clutching a blood-soaked bandage to his shoulder, was a man I thought was long gone.
Victor.
The hitman Vanessa had hired ten years ago, the man Elena had shot in the wine cellar, hadn't fled the city. He had followed us to the airstrip.
"Drop the rifle, Silvio," Victor coughed, leaning against a stack of wooden crates for support. He didn't have a weapon drawn, but his eyes were hard and unyielding.
"You disabled the bomb?" Silvio demanded, keeping the crosshairs locked on Victor's chest. "Why? You were hired to kill the Morettis. Letting that plane blow up would have done your job for you."
Victor let out a rough, bitter laugh, wincing as the movement aggravated his gunshot wound.
"I was hired to kill Elena and the boy," Victor corrected, his voice raspy. "Vanessa paid me to clear her path to the syndicate throne. But when I was bleeding out in the alley behind your restaurant, I realized something."
He looked up, meeting Silvio's furious gaze.
"Vanessa set me up," Victor said coldly. "She tipped off your men to my location ten years ago. She used me to try and kill Elena, and when I failed, she tried to have me erased so there would be no loose ends. She used me again tonight, intending to let me take the fall for Marco's murder."
Victor spat a glob of blood onto the tarmac.
"I don't like being a pawn, Silvio," Victor sneered. "If Vanessa dies in a fiery plane crash, she goes out quick. Painless. A martyr to her loyalists."
He gestured vaguely toward the sky where the jet had disappeared.
"I disabled your bomb because I want Luca to handle her," Victor finished, a dark, vindictive satisfaction in his eyes. "Luca won't make it quick. He’ll make her suffer for what she did to his son."
Silvio stared at the wounded hitman, the logic twisted but undeniably effective in the brutal world of the syndicate.
"You think Luca can take her down inside a plane at thirty thousand feet, unarmed?" Silvio asked, skeptical.
"He's a Moretti," Victor said simply, as if that explained everything. "And she's a spoiled princess playing a game she doesn't understand. My money is on the father protecting his cub."
Victor pushed himself away from the crates, staggering slightly. "I'm leaving Chicago. Don't look for me. If you do, I won't hesitate next time."
He turned and limped away into the darkness, disappearing as quickly as he had arrived.
Silvio didn't shoot. He lowered his rifle, the immediate threat gone, but the larger nightmare still unfolding in the sky above us.
"Rachel," Silvio said, turning to me, his voice returning to a sharp, commanding tone. "Get Noah in the SUV. We need to find Elena at the maintenance shed before Vanessa’s remaining loyalists realize what happened."
I didn't argue. I hurried Noah into the backseat of the armored vehicle, buckling him in tightly. The little boy was quiet, his eyes wide and haunted, staring up at the dark sky where his father was currently trapped with a monster.
We drove a mile down the dark access road, stopping in front of a rusted, corrugated metal maintenance shed.
Silvio breached the door with a heavy kick, sweeping the room with his weapon.
"Clear," he called out.
I rushed inside.
Elena was tied to a heavy metal chair in the center of the room, a piece of duct tape across her mouth. She looked bruised and exhausted, but her eyes flared with fierce, desperate hope when she saw us.
I quickly pulled the tape from her mouth and untied her wrists, while Silvio stood guard at the door.
"Where is he?" Elena gasped, her voice hoarse, immediately scanning the room. "Where is Noah?"
"I'm here, Mom!" Noah cried, running into the shed and throwing his arms around her neck.
Elena sobbed, burying her face in his hair, rocking him back and forth. For a long moment, the only sound in the shed was the tearful reunion of a mother and her son.
But the relief was short-lived. Elena pulled back, looking at me with frantic eyes.
"Where is Luca?" she asked. "Vanessa said she was going to kill him."
I swallowed hard, the reality of the situation tasting like ash in my mouth.
"He's on the plane with her, Elena," I said softly. "He traded himself for Noah."
Elena froze, the color draining from her bruised face. She looked at Silvio. "Is the plane still on the ground? Tell me you stopped it."
Silvio shook his head grimly. "It took off ten minutes ago. He's unarmed, locked in the cabin with her."
Elena closed her eyes, a look of profound, agonizing devastation settling over her features. She knew better than anyone what Luca was capable of, but she also knew the ruthless, unpredictable nature of Vanessa Bellini.
"We have to track the plane," Elena said, standing up on shaky legs, her maternal instinct shifting instantly to a protective, fierce determination to save the man she used to love. "Silvio, call the FAA. Get a transponder lock on that Gulfstream. We need to know where she's landing."
"I'm already on it," Silvio said, tapping furiously on his encrypted phone. "But they filed a false flight plan. It’ll take time to triangulate the signal."
We piled back into the SUV, speeding toward the safety of the downtown penthouse. The silence in the car was oppressive, heavy with the terrifying unknown of what was happening at thirty thousand feet.
High above the clouds, inside the luxurious, soundproof cabin of the Gulfstream jet, the atmosphere was thick with lethal tension.
Vanessa sat in a plush leather armchair, her suppressed pistol resting casually on her lap, aimed directly at Luca.
Luca sat across from her, his hands resting on his knees. He looked completely relaxed, a terrifyingly calm predator waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
"You're awfully quiet for a dead man," Vanessa smirked, taking a sip from a crystal glass of champagne she had poured herself. "No last requests? No begging for forgiveness for humiliating me?"
"I don't beg, Vanessa," Luca said, his voice smooth and cold. "And I don't apologize for protecting my son from a parasite."
Vanessa’s smile vanished. She gripped the gun tighter. "You think you're so superior. But look at you now. The great Luca Moretti, reduced to a hostage. When I land in Geneva, my men will take you out to the Alps and put a bullet in the back of your head. The syndicate will be mine."
"You're not going to Geneva," Luca stated simply.
Vanessa laughed. "Oh? And who is going to stop me? The pilot is on my payroll. You're unarmed. You have no moves left, brother."
Luca leaned forward slightly, resting his elbows on his knees, his dark eyes locking onto hers with a piercing, unblinking intensity.
"You forgot one detail about our father's legacy, Vanessa," Luca whispered softly.
Vanessa frowned, irritated by his calm demeanor. "What detail?"
"He never trusted anyone," Luca said, a slow, chilling smile spreading across his face. "Especially not pilots he didn't train himself."
Before Vanessa could process the meaning behind his words, the heavy cockpit door swung open.
The pilot stepped out into the cabin.
But it wasn't the man Vanessa had hired.
It was a tall, heavily scarred man wearing a pilot's uniform, holding a suppressed pistol of his own, aimed directly at the back of Vanessa's head.
"Hello, Vanessa," the pilot said.
Vanessa froze, the color draining from her face as she recognized the voice.
It was Marco. The security chief she thought she had murdered on the access road.
"How..." Vanessa breathed, her hand trembling on her gun. "I shot you. I watched you die."
"You shot a decoy wearing my coat," Marco said coldly, stepping fully into the cabin. "The boss knew you'd try to steal the plane. He had me swap out the pilot an hour before you arrived."
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Luca sat back in his chair, his terrifying smile firmly in place.
"I didn't trade myself to save my son, Vanessa," Luca said, his voice dropping into a lethal, absolute decree. "I traded myself to ensure you never hurt my family again."
