Chapter 9 - The Boss's Final Order
Antonio Moretti looked nothing like the ghost I had imagined.
He was in his late sixties, silver-haired and impeccably dressed, with the calm expression of a man who had never been forced to answer for anything he had done. The silver watch on his wrist gleamed beneath the emergency lights.
Dante raised his gun.
Antonio didn't flinch.
“Put it down, son.”
“No.”
“You'd shoot your own father?”
“You stopped being my father when you turned children into leverage.”
Antonio's smile faded.
Teresa stood behind him, tears streaking her face.
“I tried to stop him,” she whispered.
Elena laughed bitterly.
“You helped him hide Lily.”
Teresa lowered her head.
“I thought I was saving her life.”
“You were saving his empire.”
The words struck harder than a slap.
Antonio gestured toward the table in the center of the room.
“Enough. The key.”
I held up the decoy.
“This one?”
He studied it.
Then shook his head.
“You've always been a terrible liar, Clara.”
He pointed toward Elena.
“Tell her where the original is.”
Elena remained silent.
Antonio raised his gun.
Dante moved, but Antonio's men emerged from the stairwell, surrounding him before he could reach his father.
One struck Dante behind the knee.
He dropped to the floor.
I screamed his name.
Antonio walked toward me.
“Your husband stole something that belongs to me. Your sister helped him. And your daughter carries the final piece of a system that could destroy everyone who has ever crossed me.”
“She's five years old.”
“Which makes her wonderfully easy to manipulate.”
I lunged at him.
He struck me across the face, sending me against the railing. Elena attacked him, but two guards seized her arms.
Antonio ordered Dante disarmed and dragged to the far side of the room.
Then he leaned toward me.
“Your husband will tell me where the real key is. If he refuses, I'll start with your sister.”
He nodded toward the stairs.
A guard dragged Miguel into the room on a stretcher.
He was barely conscious, his shirt soaked with blood.
Antonio crouched beside him.
“Where is it?”
Miguel opened his eyes.
Then he looked at me and whispered, “The dog.”
Antonio frowned.
“What dog?”
Miguel smiled faintly.
“Bruno.”
Before anyone could move, the lighthouse door exploded inward.
A massive black shape charged up the stairs.
May you like
Bruno.
And clutched between his teeth was a small wooden box covered in Sophie's colorful drawings.
