Chapter 13 - The Garden Gate Opens
Vittorio returned to Naples before midnight.
Luca remained with Matteo inside an armored convoy.
Alessio traveled with them, though Vittorio placed two men beside him.
The villa gates stood open.
The guards were gone.
Inside the garden, lemon trees burned in carefully spaced lines.
Marco had turned Renzo’s work into a warning.
Sophia’s underground room was empty.
Blood marked the door.
Vittorio found her red ribbon near the tunnel entrance.
His calm finally broke.
He struck the wall hard enough to split his knuckles.
Luca watched from the corridor.
Vittorio forced himself to stop.
The children needed a man who could think.
Not a man who could only rage.
A recording waited on Renzo’s cracked phone.
Marco appeared on the screen.
Renzo sat beside him.
Sophia was not visible.
“Bring the complete ledger to the abandoned shipyard,” Marco said.
“Bring Alessio too.”
“Domenico wants both Morelli brothers.”
Luca pointed toward the screen.
“The sound.”
Behind Marco’s voice, a train horn echoed.
The abandoned shipyard had no active railway.
Sophia had taught Luca to notice what did not fit during the drive from Rome.
The recording was false.
Renzo and Sophia were somewhere near the freight station.
Matteo traced the horn pattern.
Only one railway crossing used that sequence after midnight.
It stood beside a cold-storage warehouse owned by the Serra charity.
Vittorio looked at Luca.
“You stay here.”
The boy shook his head.
“I stayed where people told me for five years.”
“Not again.”
Vittorio understood the feeling.
He assigned Luca two guards and took him to the command vehicle.
At the warehouse, cameras showed Marco inside.
Renzo was tied near a loading bay.
No sign of Sophia.
Alessio studied the roof.
“Domenico will be above us.”
“How do you know?”
“He taught me to choose height.”
Vittorio looked at him.
“And Father taught us to create a second entrance.”
The brothers entered through the refrigeration tunnel.
They found Sophia inside a locked office.
She held a broken piece of metal in one hand.
A guard lay unconscious beside her.
“He said children are easy,” she explained.
“He bent down too close.”
Vittorio almost laughed from relief.
Then every warehouse light turned on.
Domenico Serra stood on the upper walkway.
May you like
Isabella was beside him.
A gun rested against her back.
