Chapter 6 - A Son’s Debt
Lorenzo wanted to go alone.
Clara refused.
“You heard him.”
“He wants you there because you’re leverage.”
“He has my mother.”
“That’s exactly why you don’t go.”
Clara stared at him.
“You think I’m staying here?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“That wasn’t a request.”
She slapped him.
The room went silent.
Gabriel turned away.
Lorenzo slowly looked back at her.
Clara’s hand stung.
“Don’t ever say that to me again.”
His eyes darkened.
“This is not a restaurant argument.”
“No. It’s my mother.”
“And if he kills you?”
“Then stop him.”
His jaw tightened.
“Clara.”
“You don’t get to decide what risks I take for my family.”
He said nothing.
She stepped closer.
“You’d burn Seattle down for Isabella.”
“Yes.”
“Then don’t ask me to sit in a locked room while my mother has a gun to her head.”
That ended it.
The meeting location was an abandoned shipping terminal on the Duwamish River.
Of course it was.
Vittorio had chosen a place tied to the Moretti empire.
Rusting cranes.
Empty containers.
Rain.
Lorenzo wore no jacket.
A shoulder holster sat beneath his shirt.
Clara noticed.
“You’re carrying.”
“Yes.”
“He said no visible weapons.”
“It’s not visible.”
“That is the most Mafia answer possible.”
Despite everything, Lorenzo smiled.
Briefly.
Then the car stopped.
He reached for Clara’s hand.
“Listen to me.”
She looked at him.
“If anything goes wrong, stay behind me.”
“No.”
“Clara.”
“If anything goes wrong, I’m going to my mother.”
“You’re impossible.”
“You noticed.”
For one second neither moved.
Then Lorenzo leaned forward and pressed his forehead against hers.
No kiss.
No dramatic confession.
Just contact.
Warm.
Steady.
“Come back,” he said.
Clara swallowed.
“You too.”
They entered.
Sarah sat under a hanging industrial light.
Hands tied.
Vittorio stood behind her.
Age had not softened him.
He looked like Lorenzo stripped of restraint.
Frank Bellini stood nearby.
Alive.
Scar beneath his ear.
Clara recognized Sarah’s description immediately.
Vittorio smiled.
“Lorenzo.”
Lorenzo stopped twenty feet away.
“You look well for a dead man.”
“You look exactly as I intended.”
Lorenzo’s face hardened.
“Let her go.”
Vittorio glanced at Sarah.
“Which one?”
Clara felt Lorenzo shift.
“Both.”
Vittorio laughed.
“There. That is the weakness.”
“What?”
“Attachment.”
Isabella’s words came back to Clara.
Family is forgiveness.
Vittorio continued.
“I spent years teaching you to remove weakness.”
“You spent years hiding.”
“I built from distance.”
“You abandoned your wife.”
“She became sentimental.”
“You tried to kill her.”
“She threatened the structure.”
“How?”
“She discovered the offshore accounts.”
Lorenzo went still.
Clara understood.
Money.
Control.
The oldest motive on earth.
Vittorio spoke almost proudly.
“Your mother learned I was alive six months ago.”
Lorenzo’s face changed.
“She knew?”
“Yes.”
Clara thought of Isabella telling Lorenzo he was becoming too hard.
She had been trying to pull him away.
“She planned to expose you,” Clara said.
Vittorio looked at her.
“Smart girl.”
“She wanted Lorenzo out before everything collapsed.”
Vittorio smiled.
“Smarter.”
Lorenzo’s voice was quiet.
“You poisoned her because she was going to tell me.”
“Yes.”
“Why involve Daniel?”
“To give you an enemy.”
“Father Adrian?”
“He helped Isabella contact an investigator.”
“Richard Vale?”
“Old men lose courage.”
Every clue clicked.
Daniel’s keycard.
The priest’s tattoo visible on surveillance.
Vale’s lies.
Bellini.
Vittorio had used everyone.
Lorenzo stared at his father.
“You murdered Uncle Matteo.”
Vittorio’s smile disappeared.
“He was going to cooperate with federal investigators.”
“He was your brother.”
“He was a liability.”
Lorenzo flinched.
There it was.
The real fracture.
Daniel’s father had not died protecting Vittorio.
Vittorio had killed him.
“You let Daniel grow up believing his father died for you.”
“Yes.”
Lorenzo’s face went blank.
Clara had learned to fear that expression.
Vittorio saw it too.
“You understand now.”
“No.”
Lorenzo stepped forward.
“I understand what I refuse to become.”
Vittorio raised his gun.
“Don’t disappoint me.”
Lorenzo stopped.
“You want the company?”
“Yes.”
“Take it.”
Clara looked at him.
Vittorio did too.
“What?”
“I’ll sign everything.”
“Enzo,” Gabriel’s voice whispered through Lorenzo’s hidden earpiece.
Lorenzo ignored it.
“All dock interests. Construction. Warehouses. Everything under Moretti Holdings.”
Vittorio studied him.
“You’re lying.”
“No.”
Lorenzo took out a folder.
“I came prepared.”
Clara stared.
He was giving it up.
Not bluffing.
Everything.
For Sarah.
For her.
For Isabella.
Vittorio smiled slowly.
“Put it down.”
Lorenzo placed the folder on the wet concrete.
Bellini approached.
He picked it up.
Vittorio lowered his gun slightly.
That was the opening.
Sarah moved.
Clara had worked the knot loose before they arrived? No.
Clara saw something else.
Sarah’s chair had a loose metal brace.
Sarah shifted her weight.
The brace snapped.
The chair collapsed sideways.
Vittorio turned.
Lorenzo moved.
Gunfire exploded.
Clara ran.
Not away.
Toward Sarah.
Bellini fired.
Lorenzo took him down.
Vittorio shot again.
Lorenzo jerked.
Blood spread across his shoulder.
“Lorenzo!”
Clara reached Sarah.
Cut the binding with a shard of broken metal.
“Can you run?”
“Yes.”
Another shot.
Vittorio backed toward the river exit.
Lorenzo followed despite the blood.
Clara shouted, “Stop!”
He didn’t.
She grabbed his arm.
“You’re hit.”
“He’ll get away.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“He killed my uncle.”
“And he wants you to chase him.”
Lorenzo stared at the doorway.
Vittorio disappearing into rain.
His empire.
His revenge.
His father.
Everything inside him pulled toward that door.
Then Sarah collapsed.
Clara screamed.
Lorenzo turned.
Sarah was unconscious.
Clara dropped beside her.
“Mom?”
Pulse.
Weak.
Breathing shallow.
She looked at Lorenzo.
“Help me.”
He looked once more toward the door.
Then made his choice.
He stayed.
Together they carried Sarah outside.
Police sirens approached.
Gabriel had called them.
Vittorio’s escape route closed.
He ran toward the docks.
Officers intercepted him near the river.
For the first time in thirteen years, Vittorio Moretti was photographed alive.
Handcuffed.
Wet.
Furious.
Lorenzo watched from beside the ambulance.
He did not go to him.
Clara pressed gauze against Lorenzo’s shoulder.
“You need stitches.”
“You need to go with your mother.”
“I can do two things.”
“You always do.”
Sarah’s eyes opened.
Clara nearly cried.
“Mom.”
“I’m okay.”
“You fainted.”
“I’m dramatic.”
“Apparently.”
Lorenzo laughed softly.
Then winced.
Clara looked at him.
Blood.
Rain.
Exhaustion.
He had let his father go rather than abandon them.
That mattered.
More than anything he could have said.
Then Gabriel approached.
“Enzo.”
Lorenzo looked up.
“There’s another problem.”
Clara’s stomach sank.
“What now?”
Gabriel showed them a message intercepted from Vittorio’s phone.
Sent thirty minutes earlier.
To someone saved only as D.
It read:
IF I’M TAKEN, FINISH ISABELLA.
Lorenzo went completely still.
“D.”
Clara looked at him.
“Daniel?”
His face hardened.
And for one terrible second, all the progress disappeared.
May you like
“Get me to the estate.”
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