Chapter 3 - The Gathering Storm
I spent the rest of the night in the vault, reading through decades of journals. They contained meticulous records of every transaction, every illegal deal, and every betrayal committed by the Vale family against both the Moretti empire and the local authorities. My mother hadn't just hidden; she had spent her life building a legal and financial guillotine for the people who enslaved her. And now, I held the blade.
When I finally climbed the stone steps back into the morning light, I found Luca standing exactly where I had left him. His coat was damp from the fog, his expression grim and alert.
"You know the truth now," he said, studying my face.
"I know everything," I replied, holding the metal lockbox tightly against my chest. "Dante doesn't just want to destroy you, Luca. He’s planning a drop tonight at the northern docks. He bought off the coast guard. He thinks he’s getting a shipment of black-market weapons that will give him enough firepower to wipe out the Moretti family once and for all."
Luca’s eyes darkened, a lethal fire igniting within them. "He's an idiot to think he can operate in my city without my knowledge. But he doesn't know we have his ledger now."
We walked back to the mansion, where the atmosphere had shifted dramatically. The quiet, empty house from three in the morning was now humming with intense, quiet energy. Dozens of heavily armed men stood in the corridors, cleaning weapons and reviewing tactical maps. Marco Bellini was at the center of it all, shouting orders into a radio.
When Marco saw us enter, he immediately stopped and walked over, bowing his head slightly toward me. "Elena... I'm sorry for keeping quiet last night. I didn't know how deep Dante's poison went."
"It's fine, Marco," I said, feeling a strange new surge of strength inside me. The terrified maid who scrubbed dishes was gone. The truth had given me a spine of iron. "We need to plan for tonight. Dante expects me to call him by noon to give him the coordinates of the Moretti vault entrance."
Luca walked to the head of the tactical table, looking around at his captains. "Then we give him exactly what he wants. Elena will call him. She will tell him she found a weak point in our security at the western perimeter of the estate. We will bait him to come here, while my strike team handles his shipment at the docks."
"No," I interrupted, my voice firm. Every eye in the room turned to me in shock. No one interrupted Luca Moretti.
But Luca didn't look angry; he looked intrigued. "What are you suggesting, Elena?"
May you like
"Dante is paranoid," I explained, stepping up to the map. "If I tell him it's too easy, he will know it's a trap. He knows I'm terrified of him. I need to sound panicked. I need to tell him that you discovered the bruises, that you are keeping me locked in the east wing, and that he needs to come extract me before I break under interrogation. He will come himself because his pride won't let him lose his prize."
Luca stared at me for a long moment, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across his handsome face. "You really are Mara's daughter. Brilliant, brave, and utterly lethal. We do it her way."
