Chapter 5 - The Price of a Life
"I'm going," Sofia said.
"No," Luca replied.
"My mother is there."
"That's exactly why you're not going."
Sofia stepped closer.
"You don't own me."
"I know."
"You don't command me."
"I know."
"Then stop saying no."
Luca's voice dropped.
"I'm not losing you."
The words silenced the room.
Matteo looked away.
Marco stared at Luca.
Sofia forgot how to breathe.
Luca seemed to realize what he'd said.
But this time he didn't retreat.
"I fired you because I thought distance would keep you safe," he said. "I watched you because I needed to know you were safe. And now I'm standing here knowing the easiest way to get your mother back is to put you in front of two men who want you dead."
Sofia's anger softened.
"Luca."
"No."
His voice cracked slightly.
"I can survive you hating me. I can't survive delivering you to them."
Nobody spoke.
Sofia stepped closer.
"I don't hate you."
His eyes met hers.
"That makes this worse."
She touched his hand.
"I have an idea."
Adrian wanted the ledger.
They had the ledger.
What he didn't know was that the important pages were already missing.
Sofia suggested creating copies.
Matteo would approach from the rear.
Luca would enter with Sofia.
Marco would coordinate with trusted men outside.
"Absolutely not," Luca said.
"You're repeating yourself."
"Because you keep proposing terrible plans."
"It's a good plan."
"It includes you."
"That's why they'll believe it."
Luca stared at her.
Sofia squeezed his hand.
"Trust me."
That was the real challenge.
Not guns.
Not Adrian.
Trust.
Luca had spent twelve years trusting almost nobody.
Finally, he nodded.
The address led to an abandoned printing warehouse near the East River.
Sofia walked beside Luca.
He carried the ledger.
She carried nothing.
"Stay behind me."
"You know I'm going to ignore that if necessary."
"I know."
"You're learning."
"I hate it."
The warehouse doors opened.
Riccardo stood inside.
Adrian waited farther back.
Sofia's mother was tied to a chair.
"Mama."
"Sofia!"
"Enough," Adrian said.
Luca raised the ledger.
"Let her go."
Adrian smiled.
"After Sofia tells me where Carlo hid the pages."
"She doesn't know."
"She decoded his archive."
Riccardo stepped forward.
"She's smarter than you realize."
Luca's eyes shifted toward him.
"I realize exactly how smart she is."
Sofia looked at him.
Wrong moment.
Still, her heart reacted.
Adrian demanded the ledger.
Luca tossed it across the floor.
Riccardo picked it up.
He opened it.
His expression changed.
"These are copies."
Luca smiled faintly.
"You always were observant eventually."
Everything happened quickly.
Riccardo reached inside his jacket.
Sofia's mother screamed.
Luca moved Sofia behind him.
A side door crashed open.
Matteo and three men entered.
Adrian fled toward the rear.
Riccardo grabbed Sofia's mother.
"Nobody moves!"
Silence.
Sofia saw her mother's terrified eyes.
Then she saw something else.
A loose piece of metal beside her mother's foot.
"Mama."
Her mother looked at her.
Sofia glanced down.
Once.
Her mother understood.
She kicked the metal.
It struck Riccardo's ankle.
He flinched.
That second was enough.
Luca moved.
Matteo moved.
Sofia ran to her mother.
Within moments, Riccardo was on the floor and Adrian had disappeared through the loading dock.
No one had been seriously hurt.
Sofia untied her mother.
They held each other.
Luca stood several feet away.
Sofia looked at him.
His knuckles were bleeding.
She walked over.
"You're hurt."
"It's nothing."
"You always say that."
"Usually true."
She took his hand.
"Come here."
She cleaned his knuckles in the back of the car.
Luca watched her.
"You shouldn't be doing that."
"Why?"
"I fired you."
"Yes. I'm considering increasing your overdue-book fines."
He almost laughed.
She wrapped the bandage.
"Why did you watch me?"
"I told you."
"No."
She looked up.
"Tell me the part Matteo thinks you haven't told me."
Luca made a mental note to murder Matteo.
Sofia waited.
"I liked watching you."
Her hands stopped.
"That's creepy when you say it like that."
"I know."
"Try again."
Luca exhaled.
"Every day, you walked into that library after I humiliated you. You smiled at children. Helped strangers. Carried books for elderly people. You continued being exactly who you were before I hurt you."
Sofia's expression softened.
"And?"
"And I couldn't understand it."
"Understand what?"
"How someone could remain kind without becoming weak."
She looked at him for a long time.
"You thought kindness was weakness?"
"I used to."
"And now?"
"Now I think it might require more strength than anything I've ever done."
Sofia slowly released his hand.
"Luca Bellucci."
"What?"
"That was almost emotionally healthy."
"Don't tell anyone."
She laughed.
He stared at her.
There it was.
The thing he'd been driving across Queens to see.
That laugh.
Sofia noticed the way he looked at her.
The air changed.
Luca leaned closer.
Then stopped.
"May I?"
She knew exactly what he meant.
"Not yet."
He immediately moved back.
No anger.
No wounded pride.
Just acceptance.
Sofia smiled.
"That answer might change."
His eyes darkened.
"That's dangerous information."
The moment ended when Matteo opened the car door.
"Sorry to interrupt whatever extremely professional discussion this is."
Luca glared.
"What?"
"We found something on Riccardo."
Matteo handed Sofia a key.
Attached was a brass tag.
BELLUCCI FOUNDATION ARCHIVE — PRIVATE ROOM B.
Sofia frowned.
"There is no Room B."
"Apparently there is."
They returned to headquarters.
Behind the archive's rear wall, they found an old panel.
The key fit.
A hidden door opened.
Inside was a narrow room filled with boxes.
Carlo's final archive.
Sofia switched on the light.
Photographs covered the wall.
Adrian.
Riccardo.
Antonio.
Marco.
Isabella.
And Luca.
Then Sofia saw a photograph of herself.
Taken years before she ever worked for the Belluccis.
Under it, Carlo had written:
THE LAST KEY IS SOFIA.
Luca stepped beside her.
"What does that mean?"
Sofia looked closer.
Behind the photograph was a sealed envelope.
Her name was written across it.
She reached for it.
Then a phone began ringing somewhere inside the hidden room.
Not Luca's.
Not Sofia's.
A phone sealed inside one of Carlo's boxes.
Luca opened the box.
The screen displayed a single name.
May you like
ADRIAN.
And Sofia answered.
