Chapter 8 - The Moretti House Opens Its Doors
By breakfast, the Moretti residence no longer felt like a home.
It felt like a command center.
Men moved through hallways carrying phones and files.
Security teams replaced shifts twice as frequently.
Vehicles were checked underneath before moving.
Every outside contractor had been cancelled.
The kitchen staff had been reduced to employees who had worked for the family longer than five years.
Emma noticed none of the tension.
She was fascinated by pancakes.
“Why are they tiny?”
Alejandro looked at the plate.
“They're normal.”
“They're too perfect.”
“What does that mean?”
“They're all circles.”
“Pancakes are usually circles.”
“Ours aren't.”
Isabella said, “That's because I am terrible at pancakes.”
Emma nodded.
“Some look like countries.”
Alejandro glanced at Isabella.
“What countries?”
“Countries that don't exist.”
Emma ate another bite.
Marco entered.
He looked exhausted.
Emma waved.
“Cookie person!”
Marco closed his eyes briefly.
Alejandro smirked.
“Good morning, Marco.”
“I hate both of you.”
Emma gasped.
“You can't hate me. I'm six.”
Marco sat.
“Fair.”
He placed a folder beside Alejandro.
Emma tried to look.
Alejandro closed it.
“Boring adult things.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“Again?”
“Yes.”
“You have lots of boring things.”
“You have no idea.”
After breakfast, Isabella took Emma to explore the library.
Alejandro and Marco entered the study.
“Rizzo disappeared six months ago,” Marco said.
“Why wasn't I told?”
“He wasn't active.”
“He had hundreds of photographs of my daughter.”
“We didn't know.”
Alejandro looked toward the window.
“How?”
“Private investigator. Maybe several.”
“Money trail?”
“Cash.”
“Associates?”
“We're pulling everything.”
Marco opened the file.
“There's more.”
“There always is.”
“Photographs from the convoy route.”
Alejandro looked.
Several images showed the vehicles days before the attack.
“Surveillance.”
“Yes.”
“From Rizzo's house?”
“Printed there.”
“Doesn't prove he ordered it.”
“No.”
Marco hesitated.
“But one photograph was taken from inside our warehouse.”
Alejandro looked up.
“So we have someone inside.”
“Absolutely.”
“How high?”
“High enough to access route changes.”
Alejandro thought of his captains.
Men he had known for decades.
Men eating at his table.
Men attending funerals beside him.
“Call everyone.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“All captains?”
“Yes.”
Marco understood.
“What are you going to tell them?”
“The truth.”
“That Emma exists?”
Alejandro paused.
He had spent years hiding weakness.
His father taught him that anything loved became a weapon.
Isabella had disappeared because someone believed exactly that.
Keeping Emma secret seemed logical.
But secrecy had already cost him six years.
“No more hiding.”
Marco nodded.
“You know that changes everything.”
“Yes.”
By evening, nine men filled the formal meeting room.
A crystal chandelier reflected warm light over dark wood.
Nobody understood why Alejandro had chosen this room instead of the secure basement.
Then the doors opened.
Isabella entered first.
Several older men recognized her.
Their reactions varied.
Surprise.
Confusion.
Unease.
Then Emma walked in holding Alejandro's hand.
Silence fell.
Alejandro led her to the front.
The men looked at one another.
Marco remained near the wall.
Isabella's discomfort was obvious.
Alejandro crouched beside Emma.
“These are people I work with.”
Emma looked at them.
“All of them?”
“Yes.”
“What do they do?”
Nobody answered.
Alejandro considered.
“Complicated things.”
Emma nodded.
“More boring adult stuff.”
A few men almost smiled.
Alejandro stood.
“This is Emma.”
He looked around the room.
“My daughter.”
Nothing moved.
One man dropped his pen.
Another slowly leaned back.
Carlo Bianchi, who had known Alejandro since childhood, whispered, “Your daughter?”
“Yes.”
“How long—”
“Six years.”
Questions spread.
Alejandro raised one hand.
Silence returned immediately.
“She existed outside this family because someone forced her mother into hiding.”
Several faces changed.
Alejandro studied each one.
“Someone connected to us.”
Now tension replaced surprise.
“Three nights ago, eleven of our men died.”
He let that settle.
“I believed the attack was about territory.”
His gaze moved around the table.
“It wasn't.”
Marco placed photographs on the table.
Rizzo's wall.
Emma.
Alejandro.
Convoy surveillance.
The men leaned forward.
“One of the people responsible had access from inside this organization.”
Nobody spoke.
Alejandro continued.
“So tonight I'm giving every man here a choice.”
He rested one hand on Emma's shoulder.
“If you believe my daughter weakens this family, leave.”
Emma looked up at him.
Alejandro did not look down.
“If you believe Vittorio Moretti's way was the only way, leave.”
Still silence.
“If you believe children, wives, mothers or innocent people are acceptable targets, leave.”
His voice became colder.
“Because if I discover you believe those things after tonight, you won't get another opportunity.”
Nobody moved.
Then Carlo stood.
Isabella tensed.
Carlo walked toward Emma.
Alejandro's entire body prepared.
Carlo stopped several feet away.
He lowered himself onto one knee.
Not submissively.
Respectfully.
“Miss Emma.”
Emma looked at Alejandro.
He nodded.
Carlo said, “Your grandfather and I disagreed about many things.”
Alejandro's expression tightened.
Carlo continued.
“But your father has saved my life twice.”
He looked around at the men.
“If someone comes for his daughter, they come through me.”
One by one, chairs moved.
Men stood.
Some pledged immediately.
Others silently placed hands over their hearts.
Emma whispered to Alejandro, “Why is everyone being weird?”
Alejandro looked at the room.
“They're trying to be nice.”
“They're bad at it.”
Marco turned his face away to hide a laugh.
The tension broke slightly.
For the first time since the attack, Alejandro saw his men as more than soldiers.
Fathers.
Brothers.
Sons.
Maybe that had always been Vittorio's greatest failure.
He had taught them to treat humanity like weakness until none remembered it was the reason loyalty mattered.
Emma tugged Alejandro's sleeve.
“Can I go now?”
“Yes.”
She hugged him unexpectedly.
In front of everyone.
Alejandro froze.
Eight hardened men stared.
Emma wrapped both arms around his neck.
He slowly crouched and held her.
Her cheek rested against his.
Around the room, expressions shifted.
Disbelief.
Respect.
Something close to grief.
These men had known Alejandro since he was young.
None had ever seen him like this.
Emma whispered, “You look sad again.”
Alejandro murmured, “I'm working on it.”
She pulled back.
“You need a hobby.”
“What?”
“Painting rocks.”
A laugh moved through the room.
Actual laughter.
Alejandro shook his head.
“Go with your mother.”
Emma skipped toward Isabella.
Alejandro straightened.
The warmth vanished from his expression.
“Now.”
Every man stopped smiling.
“We find the traitor.”
Later that evening, Marco reviewed security logs.
At 11:07, he entered Alejandro's study without knocking.
“We have something.”
Alejandro was helping Emma with a puzzle.
She had refused to sleep until she finished it.
“What?”
“One of the captains accessed an encrypted server two hours after the meeting.”
Alejandro's eyes lifted.
“Who?”
Marco looked toward Emma.
“Not here.”
Alejandro told Emma, “Five minutes.”
She sighed dramatically.
“Adult boring?”
“The boringest.”
He followed Marco into the hall.
“Name.”
Marco spoke quietly.
“Carlo Bianchi.”
Alejandro stopped.
The first man who had stood for Emma.
The man who had pledged to die protecting her.
Marco continued.
“He sent one message.”
“To whom?”
“Unknown receiver.”
“What did it say?”
Marco handed him the phone.
Five words.
THE GIRL HAS BEEN CONFIRMED.
Alejandro stared at the screen.
Behind him, Emma called from the study.
“Dad?”
Everything stopped.
It was the first time she had called him that.
Alejandro turned.
Emma stood in the doorway.
She seemed unaware of what she had done.
“I found the corner piece.”
Alejandro looked at Marco.
Then at his daughter.
Joy and danger arrived in the same breath.
“Good,” he said softly.
Emma smiled and disappeared back inside.
Marco whispered, “You okay?”
“No.”
Because Alejandro had waited six years without knowing he was waiting to hear that word.
May you like
And now one of his oldest friends might be preparing to take it away.
Before dawn, Carlo Bianchi vanished from the Moretti estate—and Emma disappeared from her bedroom for exactly seven terrifying minutes.
