Chapter 6 - The Price of a Child
Mara had never heard a human voice go as quiet as Matteo's.
"If you touch my son—"
"Then what?" Vittorio asked. "You'll kill me?"
A soft chuckle.
"You've wanted to do that since yesterday. Threats are boring when everyone knows the ending."
Matteo's knuckles whitened around the phone.
"Let me hear him."
"No."
"Vittorio."
"No. You don't make demands today."
Mara stepped closer.
"Let me speak to him."
Matteo shook his head.
She held out her hand.
"Matteo."
Vittorio heard her.
"Ah. Mara Bennett."
Mara took the phone.
"If you wanted the evidence, you could have taken it twenty-five years ago."
Silence.
Then, "You sound like your father."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"It isn't."
"Where's Nico?"
"Safe."
"With you?"
"Safer than he was with Matteo."
Mara's anger sharpened.
"You murdered his mother."
Vittorio paused.
"Did I?"
"You had Dr. Hale track her."
"Doctors track patients every day."
"You were photographed beside the car used the day she died."
A longer pause.
Mara knew she had hit something.
"Careful," Vittorio said.
"No. You've spent twenty-five years making everyone careful. My mother. Matteo. Alessia. Salvatore. I'm done being careful."
Matteo stared at her.
Vittorio's voice hardened.
"Bring me everything from the safe."
"Proof Nico is alive first."
"You really think you have leverage?"
"I think you called because you need what we found. If you already had it, Nico would be useless to you."
Silence.
Matteo's eyes locked on hers.
Mara continued.
"So yes. I think I have leverage."
A baby's cry sounded faintly through the phone.
Mara's heart broke open.
Nico.
Then the line went silent.
Vittorio said, "Old freight station on Archer. Six o'clock. Matteo comes with the evidence. No police. No army."
"Who comes with him?"
"You."
Matteo grabbed the phone.
"No."
Vittorio laughed.
"Six o'clock."
The call ended.
Matteo turned on Mara.
"You are not going."
Mara crossed her arms.
"You don't get to decide."
"I absolutely do."
"You're confused."
"Mara."
"He asked for me because he thinks I'm emotional leverage."
"He is correct."
The words came out too fast.
They both went still.
Mara's chest tightened.
Matteo looked away.
Enzo pretended to study the street.
Mara spoke quietly.
"Then use it."
Matteo looked back.
"No."
"We need to get close enough to Nico."
"I will."
"He won't let you if I'm not there."
"I'll find another way."
"And if your other way gets Nico killed?"
Matteo's face contorted.
Mara hated herself for saying it.
But she did not take it back.
He walked several steps away.
Enzo said quietly, "She's right."
Matteo turned.
Enzo lifted both hands.
"I don't like it either."
"I didn't ask what you like."
"No. You hired me to tell you what you don't want to hear."
Matteo stared at him.
Enzo continued.
"We make copies of everything. We put the originals somewhere Vittorio can't reach. We wear wires. We use the perimeter teams."
"No police," Matteo said.
"Not police."
Mara looked at him.
"Federal agents?"
Enzo nodded.
"Alessia contacted an organized crime task force before she died. I found the number in her old phone records."
Matteo's jaw tightened.
"You knew?"
"Since this morning."
"And you didn't tell me?"
"You were busy discovering everyone in your life had lied to you. I was pacing the trauma."
Mara almost laughed.
Matteo did not.
Then, unexpectedly, he nodded.
"Call them."
The next five hours moved quickly.
Copies.
Scans.
Lawyers.
Agents who arrived without sirens.
One woman introduced herself as Special Agent Claire Walsh.
She had spoken to Alessia twice before the crash.
"I believed her," Claire told Matteo. "We just didn't have enough."
Matteo looked at the evidence stacked across the table.
"You do now."
Claire studied him.
"Do you understand what handing this over means for you?"
"Yes."
"Some of these records implicate your father. Your companies. Possibly you."
"I said I understand."
Mara watched him.
This was the first real choice he had made since learning the truth.
Not revenge.
Exposure.
Matteo looked at Claire.
"My son comes first."
"He does."
At 5:41, they approached the old freight station.
Mara wore a small transmitter beneath her coat.
Matteo hated it.
He hated the plan.
He hated every time she stepped more than two feet away.
"Stop looking at me like that," she whispered.
"Like what?"
"Like you're trying to memorize my face."
His expression changed.
Mara regretted the words.
He said, "Stay behind me."
She almost argued.
Then she saw his eyes.
"Fine."
They entered.
The freight station smelled of oil and cold metal.
Vittorio stood under a broken clock.
He was in his early sixties, silver-haired, elegant, and almost handsome.
The dragon tattoo climbed from his wrist beneath his sleeve.
Nico was not in his arms.
Mara's heart slammed.
"Where is he?"
Vittorio smiled.
"Hello, Mara."
"Where is Nico?"
"Near."
Matteo dropped a metal case onto the floor.
"Evidence."
Vittorio looked at it.
"All of it?"
"Enough."
Vittorio's smile disappeared.
"You were never good at obedience."
Matteo's voice was cold.
"You mistook grief for obedience."
Vittorio stepped closer.
"I built you."
"You buried my mother."
"I saved this family after she tried to destroy it."
"You killed my wife."
Vittorio sighed.
"Alessia was sentimental."
Mara felt Matteo move beside her.
She caught his wrist.
Just once.
His body stopped.
Vittorio noticed.
His eyes narrowed.
"Interesting."
Matteo pulled his wrist free, but not angrily.
"Where is my son?"
Vittorio looked toward a side door.
Luca emerged.
He held Nico.
The baby was crying.
Mara's body moved before her mind did.
"Nico."
The child turned.
His arms flew toward her.
Vittorio smiled.
"Remarkable, isn't it? He wants a woman he's known two days more than his own father."
Matteo's face changed.
Mara stepped forward.
"Give him to me."
"No."
Vittorio looked at her pendant.
"Give me the necklace."
"It's empty."
"I know what it becomes."
Mara touched it.
The two halves were together now.
A single locket.
Vittorio extended his hand.
Mara unclasped it.
Matteo whispered, "Don't."
She looked at him.
"Trust me."
She walked forward.
Vittorio smiled.
"Your mother never learned."
"Neither did you."
She dropped the pendant.
It hit the concrete between them.
Vittorio looked down instinctively.
That was all Matteo needed.
He moved.
So did Luca.
So did Enzo from the far entrance.
The next seconds broke into fragments.
A shout.
A gunshot into the ceiling.
Nico screaming.
Mara diving toward the baby.
Luca stumbling as an agent hit him from the side.
Matteo tackling Vittorio against a steel column.
Mara caught Nico before he fell.
She hit the floor on one knee and wrapped herself around him.
"You're okay. You're okay. You're okay."
She did not know whether she was telling Nico or herself.
Agents flooded the building.
Vittorio reached inside his jacket.
Matteo had him pinned.
For one terrible second, Mara saw murder in Matteo's face.
Vittorio smiled.
"Do it."
Matteo's hand tightened around his throat.
"Matteo!"
Mara's voice cut through the station.
He looked at her.
Nico was sobbing into her shoulder.
Mara held Matteo's gaze.
"Don't let him choose who you become."
His mother's words.
Power without love is only fear with better clothing.
Matteo slowly released Vittorio.
Agents pulled the older man away.
Vittorio shouted something.
No one listened.
Matteo crossed the distance to Mara.
He dropped to his knees.
"Nico."
His hands shook.
Mara placed the baby in his arms.
Matteo pressed his face against his son's hair.
Then Nico reached one hand back toward Mara.
Matteo looked up.
So did she.
May you like
They were both crying.
Neither pretended otherwise.
