Chapter 10 - What Sofia Hid Beneath the Church
The chapel had another room.
Marco found the mechanism behind Sofia's recording screen.
Matteo's key opened it.
Inside were no weapons.
No money.
Only documents.
Thousands of them.
Sofia had copied everything.
Illegal businesses.
Bribes.
Blackmail payments.
Offshore accounts.
Contracts.
Names of public officials.
Evidence stretching back three generations.
Enough to dismantle the criminal half of the Moretti organization permanently.
I stood surrounded by the architecture of my own life.
For years, I told myself I had rules.
No drugs.
No trafficking.
No children harmed.
No violence against innocent families.
I believed rules separated me from men like Vittorio.
Sofia had apparently understood something I refused to admit.
A criminal empire remained a criminal empire even if the man sitting at the top preferred cleaner hands.
Marco watched me reading.
“What do you want to do?”
“Save Ana.”
“After that.”
I looked at him.
“Burn this life down.”
He didn't react.
Maybe he'd been waiting years to hear it.
The chapel archive contained one more item.
A legal immunity agreement drafted by Sofia with a federal prosecutor.
Unsigned by me.
But ready.
She had planned an exit.
Not only for our children.
For us.
She wanted me to transfer every legitimate business into a clean holding company, surrender evidence about Vittorio's network, and cooperate.
Then our children could inherit something that didn't require guards at the dinner table.
I laughed once.
“She was planning my retirement.”
Elena smiled through tears.
“She was planning your life.”
The exchange for Ana happened the next evening.
I took Matteo's key.
Not the archive.
Marco and Nico positioned teams around the abandoned hotel.
Federal agents waited farther away.
I had contacted the prosecutor named in Sofia's papers.
For the first time in my adult life, I asked the government for help.
I hated it.
Then I remembered Ana calling me Daddy.
Pride became very small.
Inside the hotel's ballroom, Alessandra stood beside Vittorio.
Ana sat on a chair between them eating crackers.
Completely unharmed.
Vittorio looked at me.
“Five children.”
“Six, according to you.”
He smiled.
“Lily belongs to my blood.”
“She belongs to the parents who raised her.”
His expression hardened.
“Blood is ownership.”
“No.”
The answer surprised even me.
“No, it isn't.”
Ana saw me.
“Daddy!”
Alessandra grabbed her shoulder gently.
“Stay seated.”
I held up the key.
“Let her go.”
Vittorio shook his head.
“First you take us to the archive.”
“No.”
“Then she stays.”
I looked at Alessandra.
“You poisoned Sofia.”
For the first time, her calm broke.
Vittorio turned toward her.
Interesting.
He hadn't known everything his wife had done.
“You were supposed to frighten her,” Vittorio said.
Alessandra snapped:
“She wouldn't stop digging!”
The ballroom went silent.
My recorder captured every word.
Vittorio realized it.
He reached toward his jacket.
Red laser dots appeared across his chest.
Federal tactical officers stepped from the shadows.
“Hands where we can see them.”
Ana screamed.
I moved immediately.
Alessandra pushed the child toward me as officers closed in.
I caught my daughter.
She wrapped both arms around my neck.
I held her so tightly she complained.
“Too squishy.”
I laughed and cried at the same time.
Vittorio was arrested.
Alessandra too.
For one beautiful minute, I believed the nightmare had ended.
Then Vittorio looked back at me as officers took him away.
“You still don't know why Sofia died.”
I stared.
“We know exactly why.”
“No.”
He smiled.
“Alessandra poisoned her.”
His eyes shifted toward Elena.
“But Sofia survived the poisoning.”
My heart stopped.
Vittorio's smile widened.
“She died three days later.”
I slowly turned toward Elena.
May you like
Her face went white.
Because she already knew.
