Chapter 5 - THE TRAITOR IN THE VAULT
Daniel didn't look like a man in the middle of a firefight.
His suit was perfectly clean. His breathing was steady.
He aimed the rifle directly at my chest.
“Give me the boy,” Daniel repeated.
I pushed Leo behind my back, keeping myself firmly between him and the barrel of the gun.
“Where is Luca?” I demanded, my voice shaking with a rage I didn't know I possessed.
Daniel offered a thin, humorless smile.
“Luca is currently pinned down in the west wing corridors. My men are keeping him busy. He thinks I'm flanking the intruders. By the time he realizes the truth, you'll be gone, the boy will be gone, and the documents in this vault will belong to the Bellini family.”
“Why?” I spat. “He trusted you.”
“Loyalty doesn't pay a pension, Rachel. The Bellinis offered me ten million dollars to open the gates tonight.”
He took a step into the vault.
“Now. Step away from the boy.”
I looked around the vault. It was a dead end. There were no secondary exits. No laundry chutes.
Just rows of metal boxes and the heavy cart of ledgers.
“No,” I said.
Daniel sighed, raising the rifle to his shoulder.
“Have it your way.”
I closed my eyes.
A deafening roar erupted inside the concrete room.
But it wasn't a gunshot.
It was the sound of a hundred pounds of muscle and teeth slamming into Daniel’s back.
Daniel screamed as the impact threw him forward.
His rifle clattered against the vault floor.
I opened my eyes.
Standing over Daniel, pinning him to the concrete with its massive paws, was a pure black Cane Corso dog.
It was Titan. Luca’s personal guard dog. The animal I had been told never to feed or touch.
Titan’s jaws were locked around Daniel’s right shoulder.
Daniel thrashed, reaching for a combat knife at his belt.
Before he could draw it, a shadow stepped into the vault doorway.
It was Luca.
His suit was torn, his face streaked with soot and blood, but his eyes were completely clear and terrifyingly cold.
“Down, Titan,” Luca commanded softly.
The massive dog released Daniel instantly, taking two steps back, but kept a low, rumbling growl echoing in his chest.
Daniel rolled over, clutching his bleeding shoulder. He looked up at Luca with wide, panicked eyes.
“Boss, listen to me—”
Luca didn't speak.
He drew his firearm and shot Daniel once in the kneecap.
Daniel howled in agony, curling into a ball on the concrete.
Luca holstered his weapon. He didn't even look at the traitor again.
He dropped to his knees and opened his arms.
“Leo.”
The little boy ran out from behind me and threw himself into his father’s chest.
Luca buried his face in his son’s hair, his massive shoulders shaking as he held the boy tight.
“I've got you, buddy. You're safe. I've got you.”
I watched them, tears blurring my vision. The terrifying Mafia boss was just a desperate father who loved his son more than life itself.
After a long moment, Luca stood up, keeping Leo tucked safely behind him.
He looked at me.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.” I handed him the silver pocket watch. “He was working with Vanessa.”
Luca took the watch. He glanced at Daniel writhing on the floor.
“I know. When you went down the chute, he tried to shoot me in the back. Titan got to him first.”
Luca walked over to the back wall of the vault.
He pulled out a heavy metal lockbox.
“This is what Vanessa’s family wanted,” Luca said.
He set it on the table.
“The Bellinis claimed my father stole thirty million dollars from their accounts twenty years ago. They used it as an excuse to start the war that killed your father.”
He opened the box.
Inside was a thick, yellowed file folder.
Luca handed it to me.
“Open it.”
I opened the folder.
Inside were bank transfers, sworn affidavits, and photographic evidence.
“My father didn't steal their money,” Luca said quietly. “Vanessa’s own father embezzled the funds to pay off gambling debts. He framed my family to cover his tracks.”
I stared at the documents.
“If the Commission sees this,” I realized, “the Bellini family is ruined.”
“Exactly,” Luca said. “Vanessa wasn't trying to take over my empire. She was trying to destroy the evidence that proves her family are traitors.”
He closed the box.
“The police are five minutes away. My loyal men have secured the perimeter. The intruders are dead or captured.”
Luca looked at me.
“The war is over, Rachel.”
A profound, heavy silence settled over the vault.
It was over. I was safe. Leo was safe.
But as I looked down at the file in my hands, a loose piece of paper slipped out and fluttered to the floor.
I bent down and picked it up.
It was a faded, black-and-white photograph.
It showed my father, Julian Moretti, holding me as a baby.
But he wasn't standing next to my mother.
He was standing next to Daniel.
And written on the back, in my father’s handwriting, were four words:
To my sworn brother.
I looked up at Daniel, who was bleeding on the floor.
Daniel wasn't just a traitor.
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He was the man my father trusted with his life.
TITLE: THE BROTHER IN THE SHADOWS
