Chapter 9 - THE HUSBAND I HAD INVESTIGATED
Marco finally contacted us himself.
One text.
COME ALONE.
Dante laughed.
“No.”
The second message included a photograph.
Lucia.
Tied to a chair.
Alive.
Dante stopped laughing.
Marco had her.
Which meant either our theory was wrong or the organization had turned on its own founder.
The meeting location was an abandoned customs warehouse near the river.
Dante planned the operation.
I planned to go.
He refused.
We argued for nine minutes.
Then I said the sentence that ended it.
“You married a woman who survived Geneva. Stop treating me like I became fragile when I took your last name.”
He stared at me.
Then nodded.
“Stay behind me.”
“Compromise accepted.”
Marco waited inside alone.
Lucia sat twenty feet away.
Her face was bruised.
“Dante,” she whispered.
Marco held a gun.
“You brought Sophie.”
“I go where I want,” I said.
Marco almost smiled.
“I always liked her.”
“That feeling is not mutual.”
His smile vanished.
Dante’s voice was ice.
“You tried to kill my wife.”
“Yes.”
No denial.
“Why?”
“Because she found Orfeo.”
“Lucia ordered you to extract her.”
“Lucia was sentimental.”
The older woman spat blood onto the floor.
Marco ignored her.
“She believed Sophie’s skills could be useful. I believed she was a liability.”
I looked at him.
“Julien?”
“Yes.”
“You killed him.”
“I paid someone.”
My stomach tightened.
“And Antonio?”
Marco’s expression changed.
“No.”
Dante raised his gun slightly.
“Tell the truth.”
“I am.”
He looked toward Lucia.
“Ask her.”
Lucia closed her eyes.
Dante’s voice broke.
“Zia?”
She whispered, “I poisoned your father.”
The entire warehouse seemed to stop.
Dante lowered his weapon half an inch.
“Why?”
“He was going to destroy everything we built.”
“You killed your brother over a shipping network?”
“I killed him because he was going to hand the family to prosecutors.”
Dante stared at her as if she had become unrecognizable.
Lucia began crying.
“I loved him.”
“That is not love.”
“No.”
Her voice cracked.
“It was fear.”
Marco laughed.
“And that is why she was never strong enough.”
He pointed the gun toward Lucia.
I understood a second before Dante did.
Marco was not her employee anymore.
He had taken Orfeo.
The Bellini agreement was his.
The stolen delays.
Insurance transfers.
Everything.
Lucia had built the machine.
Marco had stolen it.
Then Marco looked directly at me.
“I knew you’d recognize the clause at dinner.”
That confused me.
“You wanted me to find it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To make Dante expose everyone still loyal to Lucia.”
My blood turned cold.
The dinner had been bait.
The insults.
The contract.
The hidden clause.
My reaction.
Everything had been designed to start a purge inside the Moretti family.
Marco smiled.
“And you performed beautifully.”
Then another voice echoed from the warehouse entrance.
“No.”
Vittorio Bellini stepped inside with Lorenzo beside him.
“You forgot one problem.”
Marco frowned.
May you like
Vittorio looked at me.
“Mrs. Moretti performs for nobody.”
