Chapter 6 - Her Mother Was Alive
Everything happened in seconds.
Luca charged toward the warehouse.
Marco and the guards followed.
Richard disappeared into the dark.
I ran to the emergency control panel.
The doors would not open.
“Luca!”
He turned.
“Get Vanessa out!”
I searched for the main valve.
My mother was pounding on the glass.
I could see smoke swirling around her.
Then I noticed an old fire system panel.
I smashed it with a metal bar.
Water exploded from the ceiling.
The gas alarm changed.
The doors opened.
Luca reached my mother first.
He carried her outside.
I dropped beside her.
“Mom.”
She touched my face.
“You're so grown.”
I started crying.
“So are you.”
She smiled weakly.
“I’m sorry.”
“You're alive.”
“Barely.”
Luca stood nearby.
My mother looked at him.
“You're his son.”
Luca nodded.
“Luca Moretti.”
“I knew you would become like him.”
He stiffened.
“Like my father?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
She reached for his hand.
“Like the man he wanted to become.”
Luca said nothing.
Vanessa was brought outside.
She looked at my mother in disbelief.
“You were alive?”
My mother looked at her.
“I was never dead.”
Richard had kept her hidden for years because she knew the location of the original records.
But she had escaped three weeks earlier.
She had contacted Mrs. Moretti.
Then Vanessa discovered the communication.
“That was why you knew,” Luca said.
Vanessa nodded.
“My father ordered me to kill her.”
She looked at my mother.
“I couldn't.”
“And yet you helped him kidnap me.”
“I was trying to delay him.”
“People were hurt.”
“I know.”
Luca walked toward her.
“Why didn't you come to me?”
Vanessa looked down.
“Because I knew you'd never forgive me.”
He was quiet.
Then said:
“You were right.”
She cried.
Richard had already disappeared.
But the files gave us something more valuable than revenge.
They gave us leverage.
Over the people who had spent years protecting him.
Within forty-eight hours, several officials resigned.
Investigations opened.
Banks froze accounts.
The Bellini network began to collapse.
But Richard remained free.
He wanted one last confrontation.
He sent a message to Luca.
COME TO THE PLACE WHERE YOUR FATHER DIED.
The old highway outside Chicago.
The same stretch of road where Luca's father had supposedly died in an accident.
We went there at dawn.
Richard stood beside a burned-out shell of an old vehicle.
“You finally came.”
Luca stared at the wreckage.
“My father died here.”
Richard nodded.
“Yes.”
“You killed him.”
Richard shrugged.
“He knew too much.”
Luca's hands clenched.
Richard looked at me.
“Your mother ruined everything.”
“No.”
My mother stepped forward.
“She stopped you.”
Richard laughed.
“You were always sentimental.”
He pulled out a gun.
Luca moved.
Richard fired.
The shot missed.
Marco tackled him.
The weapon fell.
Richard fought desperately, but the police were already closing in.
My mother had sent the files.
The entire confrontation was being recorded.
Richard was arrested before he could disappear again.
For the first time in fifteen years, the Moretti family could breathe.
But there was one person still standing in the middle of it all.
Vanessa.
She was arrested too.
Not because Luca demanded it.
Because she confessed.
She gave investigators every message, every account number, every name she knew.
When she was taken away, she looked at Luca.
“I really did love you.”
Luca looked at her.
“I believe you.”
She cried harder.
“I'm sorry.”
“So am I.”
Then she was gone.
Weeks later, my mother recovered.
The first time we sat together at the kitchen table, she told me everything.
She had disappeared because she believed hiding me was the only way to keep me alive.
She regretted every year she lost.
I forgave her.
Not immediately.
But eventually.
And Luca?
He stopped calling me “Sophie” like it was the name of his employee.
He started saying it like it belonged to someone he cared about.
One evening, I found him standing outside.
“You're leaving tomorrow,” he said.
“I know.”
“Going back to your old apartment?”
I nodded.
“You don't have to.”
“I need to know who I am without this mansion.”
He smiled.
“I understand.”
Then he reached into his pocket.
He held out a small box.
Inside was the silver key.
“I don't want you to stay because you're afraid.”
“I’m not.”
“Good.”
“What is this?”
“A key to a house.”
I stared.
“Why?”
“Because you once told me every person deserves a place nobody can take away from them.”
My eyes filled.
“Luca.”
He stepped closer.
“You don't owe me anything.”
I nodded.
“And I'm not asking you to.”
“Then what are you asking?”
May you like
He smiled.
“A chance.”
