Chapter 4 - The Platform in the Rain
“Get the cars ready! Now!”
Luca’s voice echoed off the marble walls of the foyer. The remaining bodyguards scrambled, grabbing heavy coats and checking their weapons.
I stood by the dining room doors, still holding Daniel’s wet backpack.
Luca turned to his mother. “Mom, take Daniel upstairs. Lock the doors. Don’t let anyone in except me.”
Teresa nodded, reaching for her grandson’s hand. “Go, Luca. Bring her home.”
Daniel looked up at his father, his eyes wide with fear. “Dad, don’t let her leave. Please.”
“I won’t,” Luca promised, kissing the boy’s forehead.
He turned toward the front door, slipping on a black leather jacket over his ruined suit.
As he reached for the doorknob, he stopped and looked back at me.
“Hannah.”
I jumped slightly. “Yes, sir?”
“You come with me.”
I blinked, shocked. “Me? Sir, I’m just—”
“You’re the only person Daniel trusted enough to talk to,” Luca said quickly, his eyes intense. “Isabella knows that. If she’s panicked, she might not trust me right now. But she knows you’ve been protecting our son. I might need you.”
I thought of my mother. If I got caught in the crossfire of a mafia dispute, who would pay her physical therapy bills? Who would take care of her?
But then I thought of Daniel arranging that empty chair every Sunday. I thought of a mother forced to abandon her child to keep him alive.
“Let me get my coat,” I said.
Three minutes later, I was sitting in the back of a black, armored SUV, speeding through the rain-slicked streets of Chicago. Luca sat in the passenger seat, gripping the dashboard, barking orders into his phone.
“I want men at every entrance of Union Station. Shut down the south terminal. I don’t care who you have to bribe, hold the 10:15 to Montreal.”
He hung up, staring intensely at the road ahead.
It was 9:55 PM.
The city blurred past us in streaks of neon and gray rain. The tension in the SUV was suffocating. Luca’s jaw was clenched so tight I thought it might shatter.
“She’s terrified,” Luca muttered, almost to himself. “For eighteen months, she thought Julian was pulling the strings. She thought I was in on it.”
“Mr. Moretti,” I said softly from the backseat.
He glanced at me in the rearview mirror.
“She gave Daniel the emerald bracelet today,” I reminded him. “If she thought you wanted her dead, she wouldn’t have sent him to you with proof of Julian’s lies.”
Answer one.
Luca exhaled a shaky breath. “She was testing me. Seeing if I would believe our son or Vanessa.”
“And you chose Daniel,” I said.
“I almost didn’t,” Luca whispered, the guilt heavy in his voice.
We pulled up to the massive stone pillars of Union Station at 10:07 PM.
The SUV didn’t bother parking. It jumped the curb, stopping right in front of the main glass doors.
Luca was out before the car fully stopped.
I ran after him, pulling my cheap wool coat tight against the biting wind.
Inside, the station was a cavernous echo chamber of announcements, rushing commuters, and the smell of wet pavement and coffee.
“South Terminal,” Luca ordered his men, breaking into a run.
I struggled to keep up as we wove through the crowds. Luca’s men flanked him, pushing people aside with quiet, terrifying authority.
We reached the gates for the South Terminal.
The large digital board overhead flashed yellow:
Montreal Express - Track 4 - DEPARTING.
It was 10:13 PM.
We sprinted down the long, sloping ramp toward the underground platforms. The air smelled thick with diesel exhaust and damp steel.
The massive silver train was sitting on Track 4, its engines humming loudly. The final boarding call echoed from the loudspeakers.
Conductors were stepping back, preparing to close the doors.
“Isabella!” Luca shouted, his voice tearing through the noise of the station.
Commuters turned to stare.
Luca ran along the side of the train, his eyes scanning every window, every face pressing against the glass.
“Check the cars!” he yelled to his men.
I stood near the bottom of the ramp, out of breath, my chest heaving.
I scanned the platform. There were only a few stragglers left, pulling their luggage toward the final open doors.
Then, I saw her.
Standing near a thick concrete pillar, about fifty feet away, entirely shadowed from the platform lights.
She was wearing a dark trench coat, a silk scarf pulled tightly over her hair.
She was watching Luca run past the train cars.
She wasn’t moving toward the train.
She was backing away from it, toward the service exit.
“Mr. Moretti!” I screamed, pointing toward the pillar.
The woman in the trench coat flinched. She locked eyes with me for a fraction of a second.
Then, she bolted.
“Izzy!” Luca yelled, spinning around.
He saw her sprinting toward the dark service tunnel at the end of the platform.
Luca ran after her, abandoning the train completely. I followed, my boots slipping on the wet concrete.
The service tunnel was dimly lit, echoing with the sound of rushing water from the pipes above. It was a dead end, blocked by a heavy, chained chain-link fence.
Isabella hit the fence, rattling the chains desperately.
When she realized it was locked, she spun around, pressing her back against the cold steel mesh.
Luca slowed to a walk, raising his hands, his chest heaving.
“Izzy. Stop. It’s me.”
Isabella was shaking violently. Her face was pale, her eyes wide with a terror that broke my heart. She reached into her coat pocket.
“Don’t come any closer, Luca,” she gasped, pulling out a small, black handgun.
She pointed it directly at his chest.
Luca didn’t stop. He didn’t reach for his own weapon. He just kept walking, slowly, until the barrel of the gun was inches from his heart.
“I know everything,” Luca whispered, tears spilling down his face. “Julian is in the basement. Vanessa is gone. I know they threatened Daniel. I know they forced you out.”
Isabella let out a broken sob, her hands shaking so hard the gun rattled.
“You didn’t know,” she cried. “You let them do it.”
“I was blind,” Luca pleaded. “But I see it now. Please, Izzy. Come home. Daniel is waiting for you.”
Isabella lowered the gun a fraction of an inch. The relief washed over her face, a beautiful, devastating exhaustion.
“He’s safe?” she whispered.
“He’s safe,” Luca promised.
He reached out to touch her face.
But as Isabella stepped forward to fall into his arms, I noticed something wrong.
Her coat swung open slightly.
There was a dark, wet stain spreading across the white silk blouse beneath her trench coat.
It wasn’t rainwater.
It was blood.
“Mrs. Moretti,” I gasped, covering my mouth.
Luca looked down, realizing his hands were suddenly slick with crimson.
Isabella’s knees buckled.
Luca caught her as she collapsed, lowering her gently to the dirty concrete floor of the tunnel.
“Izzy! Izzy, look at me!” Luca screamed, pressing his hands against her side. “Get a medic! Now!”
I dropped to my knees beside them, pulling off my scarf to help apply pressure to the wound.
Isabella’s eyes fluttered, her breathing shallow.
She reached up with a trembling, bloody hand and grabbed Luca’s collar.
“I didn’t run from the train because of you,” she whispered, her voice fading.
Luca stared at her, horrified. “What?”
Isabella’s eyes shifted to me, then back to her husband.
“Julian didn’t work alone, Luca,” she choked out.
She reached into her coat pocket, her fingers fumbling, and pulled something out.
She pressed it into Luca’s bloody hand.
“The man who stabbed me… he dropped this when I fought back.”
Luca slowly opened his hand.
Resting in his palm, stained with his wife’s blood, was a heavy, silver pocket watch.
I recognized it immediately.
May you like
It was the same silver watch I had seen Luca’s head of security checking twenty minutes ago in the mansion foyer.
TITLE: The Watch on the Concrete
