Chapter 7 - THE FIRST BETRAYAL
Glass exploded across the farmhouse floor.
Lorenzo pushed Isabella and Lucia behind the stone fireplace.
“Basement.”
“I won't leave you.”
“You already survived once.”
He looked at her.
“Do it again.”
Father Gabriel opened the cellar door.
Isabella disappeared downstairs with the baby.
Lorenzo drew his weapon.
Antonio entered through the kitchen.
“Six men.”
“Marco's?”
“No insignias.”
“Alive if possible.”
Antonio nodded.
They moved through the house.
The attackers expected frightened fugitives.
They did not expect Lorenzo DeLuca.
Within three minutes, two men were down.
Two fled into the trees.
Antonio captured one near the barn.
The last attacker surrendered when Lorenzo pressed him against a truck.
“Who sent you?”
The man laughed.
“You know.”
Lorenzo searched his jacket.
He found a photograph.
Sophia.
Emma.
The DeLuca mansion.
Someone had written beneath it.
SECONDARY LEVERAGE.
Lorenzo's stomach dropped.
He called New York.
No answer from Sophia's security detail.
He called again.
Nothing.
“Antonio.”
Antonio saw his expression.
“Go.”
They left Father Gabriel with Isabella and Lucia under heavy guard.
Lorenzo promised he would return before sunrise.
Isabella grabbed his arm.
“Don't trust anyone you didn't personally choose after the crash.”
“That leaves almost nobody.”
“Exactly.”
The flight back to New York took less than an hour.
Lorenzo called Sophia eleven times.
Nothing.
At the mansion, the servants' wing was empty.
A lamp lay shattered on the floor.
Emma's gray rabbit was near the staircase.
Lorenzo picked it up.
Its fabric was torn.
Antonio found a guard unconscious behind the pantry.
Still breathing.
He woke minutes later.
“Three men.”
“Faces covered.”
“One knew the security code.”
Lorenzo's gaze hardened.
“Which code?”
“The emergency service entrance.”
Only four people knew it.
Lorenzo.
Antonio.
The estate manager.
Marco.
The estate manager had been in Rome for six weeks.
Lorenzo walked into his office.
A phone rang.
Not his phone.
Paolo's phone.
The one they had confiscated.
Lorenzo answered.
Silence.
Then Marco spoke.
“You lied to me.”
Lorenzo leaned against the desk.
“So did you.”
Marco laughed quietly.
“I suppose we were bound to disappoint each other eventually.”
“Where are Sophia and Emma?”
“Safe.”
“Let me hear them.”
A pause.
Sophia's frightened voice came through.
“Mr. DeLuca.”
Then Emma cried.
“Mommy.”
Lorenzo closed his eyes.
Marco returned.
“You found Isabella.”
It wasn't a question.
Lorenzo said nothing.
“That farmhouse was expensive.”
Marco continued.
“You should have appreciated the effort.”
“You ordered the crash.”
“I ordered a transfer.”
“The explosion was necessary after she escaped.”
Lorenzo's fingers tightened around the phone.
“Why?”
“You've spent your life sitting on things you don't understand.”
“Ports.”
“Judges.”
“Companies.”
“You inherited an empire.”
“I built mine underneath yours.”
Lorenzo listened.
Marco's voice remained calm.
“Bring Isabella and the child to Pier 19 tomorrow night.”
“No.”
“Then Sophia dies first.”
Lorenzo looked at Emma's rabbit in his hand.
“And the child?”
Marco paused.
“Children are useful.”
“Until they aren't.”
The line disconnected.
Antonio entered.
“We traced it.”
Lorenzo looked up.
“Where?”
Antonio shook his head.
“That's the problem.”
“The signal bounced through one of our own communication servers.”
Lorenzo stared at him.
Marco hadn't merely infiltrated the organization.
May you like
He had built part of it.
And somewhere in New York, a three-year-old girl had just become a bargaining chip in a war she had accidentally started with four innocent words.
