Chapter 5 - The Wolf Had One Weakness, and His Enemies Finally Found It
They returned to the Moretti house in less than twelve minutes.
The front gates were open.
Two guards lay wounded near the driveway.
A third was unconscious inside the foyer.
Teresa was gone.
Lorenzo moved through the house with a violence Sophie had not yet seen.
He overturned furniture looking for signs.
Shouted names.
Demanded security footage.
Mateo found the recording.
Three vehicles had entered using valid Moretti access codes.
Sylvio had not come personally.
He had sent men Lorenzo's security staff recognized.
No one suspected anything until weapons appeared.
"Nonna fought," Mateo said quietly.
The footage showed Teresa striking one attacker with her cane before being dragged toward a van.
Lorenzo watched twice.
Then punched the wall hard enough to split his knuckles.
Sophie caught his wrist before he could hit it again.
"Stop."
"Let go."
"Breaking your hand won't find her."
"Let go."
"No."
He looked at her.
For several seconds, anger almost overwhelmed him.
Then he saw blood running across his fingers.
Sophie released his wrist and found a towel.
She pressed it into his palm.
"Think."
He stared at her.
"No one tells me to think when my family is taken."
"Then your family has been afraid to tell you what you need to hear."
Mateo looked away.
Lorenzo almost argued.
Instead, he sat.
Sophie understood why people feared him.
But she also understood something his enemies might have missed.
Lorenzo's greatest weakness was not rage.
It was responsibility.
Every person under his protection became a weight he believed he alone had to carry.
Sylvio knew that.
Which was why he had taken Teresa.
"The ledger," Sophie said. "He wants it destroyed."
"Obviously."
"No. He wants the original."
Lorenzo looked at her.
"Meaning?"
"If all he needed was silence, he'd kill Teresa and burn everything. He wants to know what else my father recorded."
Mateo nodded slowly.
"The second cassette."
They had not listened to it yet.
Lorenzo inserted it into Teresa's player.
Antonio's voice returned.
This recording was made later.
He sounded frightened.
He named Sylvio.
Vittorio Russo.
Matteo DeLuca.
Then he discussed another man.
Dominic Moretti.
Lorenzo closed his eyes.
There it was.
His uncle.
The sixth name.
Antonio explained that Dominic was not merely receiving money.
He was the architect.
Carlo Moretti had always been destined to inherit leadership.
Dominic resented him.
He believed the family belonged to him.
So he built alliances with Sylvio and Vittorio Russo.
Their plan was to weaken Carlo's leadership, trigger a conflict, and eventually arrange his death.
Antonio discovered it.
That discovery killed him.
The tape ended with a message addressed directly to Carlo.
"If Sofia survives, do not bring her into this. Let her have another life. Let at least one child leave our sins behind."
Sophie cried silently.
She had spent ten years believing her father died without knowing whether she survived.
Now she knew.
His final concern had been her freedom.
Lorenzo stood beside her.
Neither spoke.
After a moment, Sophie wiped her face.
"Where is Dominic?"
"Connecticut."
"Then why aren't we moving?"
"Because if Antonio was right, Dominic has had twenty years to prepare for this."
"So?"
"So walking into his house is suicide."
Sophie looked at him.
"Your grandmother is seventy-eight."
Lorenzo met her eyes.
"I know."
"Then we don't walk in."
A plan formed.
Dominic believed Sophie and Lorenzo were reacting emotionally.
They would give him exactly that impression.
Lorenzo called Sylvio.
"I have the ledger."
"Good."
"I want proof my grandmother is alive."
A pause.
Then Teresa's voice came through.
"Lorenzo?"
His face changed.
"Nonna."
"I'm fine."
A male voice shouted in the background.
Teresa immediately yelled, "And his coffee is terrible."
Sophie almost laughed despite everything.
Lorenzo closed his eyes briefly.
Sylvio returned.
"Bring the ledger to the old Moretti packing house in Yonkers. Midnight. You and the girl."
"No Mateo?"
"No army."
"You take my grandmother and dictate conditions?"
"Yes."
"Then you don't know me as well as you think."
Sylvio laughed.
"I raised you."
Lorenzo's expression turned deadly.
"My father raised me. You observed."
He disconnected.
At eleven forty, Lorenzo drove toward Yonkers with Sophie beside him.
The ledger sat visibly in a leather case.
It was a copy.
The original had already been photographed, duplicated, and placed somewhere even Lorenzo did not know.
Father Gabriel had arranged it.
"If we don't return," Lorenzo said, "everything goes to the FBI, state police, and three newspapers."
Sophie glanced at him.
"I thought your family avoided law enforcement."
"My family also avoids dying."
The packing house stood near abandoned rail lines.
Lights burned inside.
Lorenzo parked.
"Last chance to stay in the car."
Sophie opened the door.
"Last chance to stop asking."
He looked at her.
Something shifted between them.
Not romance yet.
Not trust.
Recognition.
They understood stubbornness in each other.
Inside, Teresa sat in a chair.
Unhurt.
Sylvio stood behind her.
Three armed men surrounded the room.
Dominic Moretti emerged from the shadows.
He resembled Carlo enough to make Lorenzo's expression tighten.
Older.
Thinner.
Same eyes.
"Hello, nephew."
Lorenzo did not respond.
Dominic smiled at Sophie.
"And Antonio's little girl."
"Sofia," Sophie corrected.
"Yes. Sofia."
"You murdered my father."
Dominic shook his head.
"Sylvio pulled the trigger."
Sylvio did not deny it.
"But you ordered it."
"Your father made choices."
"He discovered yours."
Dominic smiled.
"Same thing."
Lorenzo set the leather case down.
"Release Teresa."
Dominic laughed.
"You still think this is an exchange."
"It is."
"No. This is closure."
Sophie saw movement above.
Mateo.
Hidden along a catwalk.
Good.
Dominic continued.
"Carlo was always weak."
"My father built everything you wanted."
"Exactly. Everything I wanted."
"You betrayed your own brother because you wanted his chair."
Dominic's smile disappeared.
"I betrayed him because he was sentimental."
He pointed toward Sophie.
"Your father was the same. All that talk about honor."
Sophie felt rage rise.
"Honor frightened you."
"Honor is what poor men call the rules rich men make them follow."
Teresa spat at his shoes.
Dominic looked down.
"Still charming, Teresa."
She smiled.
"I changed your diapers. You were disappointing even then."
Sophie could not help it.
She laughed.
Dominic slapped Teresa.
Lorenzo moved.
Every gun lifted.
Sophie grabbed his arm.
"No."
His entire body was rigid.
Dominic enjoyed it.
"There. That's your weakness."
Lorenzo stared.
"You think loving people is weakness?"
"In our world?"
Dominic smiled.
"It's fatal."
Sophie looked around.
Sylvio near Teresa.
Two men beside Dominic.
Another near the entrance.
Mateo above.
Lorenzo's men outside waiting for a signal.
She needed time.
"What happened after my father died?"
Dominic looked at her.
"What?"
"You spent twenty years hiding the truth. Why?"
"Because lies are investments. The longer people believe them, the more valuable they become."
"Did Carlo ever know?"
Dominic's eyes shifted.
That was enough.
Lorenzo noticed.
"My father found out."
Dominic did not answer.
Lorenzo stepped forward.
"That's why he died."
Carlo Moretti's death had officially been a heart attack after years of heart disease.
Lorenzo suddenly saw another possibility.
"You killed him."
Teresa whispered, "Lorenzo."
He looked at her.
She was crying.
"Your father was poisoned."
Silence.
Dominic's face changed.
Teresa continued.
"Carlo discovered Sylvio's accounts. He confronted Dominic."
Lorenzo looked at his uncle.
Seven years of grief transformed.
Sylvio raised his weapon.
That was the signal.
Mateo fired from the catwalk.
Lights shattered.
Darkness swallowed the warehouse.
Lorenzo moved toward Teresa.
Sophie dropped behind a crate.
Gunfire exploded.
Someone shouted.
A body hit the floor.
Sophie saw Sylvio running toward the side exit.
She chased him.
"Sofia!" Lorenzo shouted.
Too late.
Sylvio reached the door.
Sophie tackled him from behind.
They struck the concrete.
His weapon skidded away.
He rolled and hit her hard enough to split her lip.
"You should have stayed dead."
Sophie drove her elbow into his throat.
"You first."
He grabbed her hair.
Then froze.
Lorenzo stood behind him with a pistol.
"Let her go."
Sylvio slowly released Sophie.
Lorenzo's face was unlike anything she had seen.
"You killed Antonio."
Sylvio said nothing.
"You helped kill my father."
Silence.
"You spent thirty years calling yourself family."
Sylvio smiled weakly.
"And you believed me."
Lorenzo's finger tightened against the trigger.
Sophie stood.
She knew what everyone expected.
The Wolf would kill him.
But she remembered her father's final message.
Let at least one child leave our sins behind.
"Lorenzo."
He did not look at her.
"Don't."
Sylvio laughed.
"Listen to the waitress."
Lorenzo's eyes remained fixed on him.
Sophie stepped closer.
"If you kill him now, Dominic's story becomes yours."
That reached him.
"You think he deserves mercy?"
"No."
"Then what?"
"I think he deserves to watch every lie collapse."
Police sirens sounded in the distance.
Sylvio's face changed.
Lorenzo looked at Sophie.
"You called police?"
"No."
"Gabriel."
She smiled faintly.
"He said he'd handle insurance."
Lorenzo lowered the weapon.
For the first time in his life, Sylvio Barone looked truly afraid.
May you like
Not of death.
Of surviving long enough to lose everything.
