Chapter 7 - THE NIGHT DANTE FINALLY LISTENED
Dante did not kill Alexander DeLuca.
Emma was genuinely surprised.
He wanted to.
That part was obvious.
Orion stood between Emma and DeLuca, teeth bared.
Dante entered the room slowly.
“You threatened her sister.”
DeLuca laughed.
“You sound emotional.”
“Bad choice.”
Emma stepped forward.
“No.”
Dante looked at her.
“No what?”
“You are not killing him in my workplace.”
DeLuca actually smiled.
Dante did not.
Emma continued:
“We need him alive.”
“For information?”
“Yes.”
Dante stared at her.
Then at DeLuca.
“Congratulations.”
He pulled out his phone.
“You’ve been saved by a waitress.”
Federal agents were not yet involved.
But Dante had begun working through an attorney connected to organized-crime prosecutors.
DeLuca was detained privately while evidence was secured.
Emma hated that part.
She told Dante.
“This still feels like kidnapping.”
“It is temporary.”
“That does not improve the sentence.”
Dante rubbed his forehead.
“You are exhausting.”
“So learn faster.”
He almost smiled.
Lucia was brought in.
The moment she saw DeLuca, she went rigid.
Her hands moved.
You killed Paolo.
Emma translated.
Dante frowned.
“Who is Paolo?”
Lucia looked at him.
The driver from my accident.
DeLuca looked away.
That was confession enough.
Lucia continued signing.
Years earlier, she had discovered DeLuca meeting Matteo secretly.
She planned to tell Vittorio.
Before she could, they arranged the crash.
Paolo died.
Lucia survived.
She stayed silent because Luca had already disappeared and she feared Dante would be next.
Dante’s face tightened.
“You should have trusted me.”
Lucia’s hands snapped.
You were killing people at nineteen.
Silence.
Emma looked at Dante.
He did not deny it.
Lucia continued:
I loved you. I did not trust what grief had made you.
That hurt.
Dante sat down.
For once, he did not argue.
DeLuca watched them.
Then said:
“This is touching.”
Lucia looked at Emma.
Her hands moved.
Ask him about Elena.
Emma translated.
DeLuca’s expression changed.
Dante noticed.
“Who is Elena?”
DeLuca said nothing.
Lucia signed:
Your father’s accountant.
Then:
The woman who found the children.
Dante’s face went cold.
“What children?”
Emma translated the rest.
The trafficking network had not begun with strangers.
It began with undocumented families moving through Moretti shipping routes.
Children disappeared.
Records were altered.
Elena gathered names.
She copied everything.
Then vanished.
“Where is she?” Dante asked.
DeLuca laughed.
“Dead.”
Lucia shook her head.
No.
Everyone looked at her.
She sent me a message last week.
Dante stared.
“What message?”
Lucia removed a tiny folded paper from her purse.
Emma read it.
LUCA WAS NOT THE ONLY CHILD THEY TOOK.
Dante looked toward his brother.
Luca’s face changed.
“What does that mean?”
Lucia signed:
There was another Moretti child.
Emma expected another half-sibling.
She was wrong.
Lucia looked at Dante.
Then at Luca.
And signed:
Your sister.
May you like
Neither man spoke.
Because Dante Moretti had spent thirty-eight years believing he had never had one.
