Chapter 11 - The Shadow in the Orchard
The laughter of the children still hung in the warm July air, but the peaceful atmosphere vanished the moment Agent Sarah Vance's cell phone buzzed against the wooden picnic table. She didn't answer it immediately. She stared at the screen, her expression hardening from a relaxed smile into a mask of professional alertness.
Marco noticed the shift first. He set his iced tea down, his jaw tightening. "Sarah? What is it?"
Agent Vance stepped away from the table, walking toward the edge of the oak trees before pressing the phone to her ear. Luca, who was still dusting grass off his jeans after playing with Lena, Ash, and little Grace, froze. His protective instincts, honed by years of surviving the criminal underworld before rebuilding his life in Michigan, flared instantly. He looked at Sarah, then at his wife, whose hand had instinctively dropped to her waist.
"We have a situation," Agent Vance said, walking back to the group, her voice low so the children wouldn't hear. "Luca, Marco... the federal transit van carrying Victor Moretti to his maximum-security medical hearing was ambushed outside Chicago two hours ago."
The name Victor Moretti fell like ice into the warm afternoon. Luca's estranged, ruthless uncle—the man who had ruined his childhood, hunted his family, and nearly destroyed his life before being incarcerated—was free.
Sarah felt the blood drain from her face. She looked out at the orchard, where Lena was teaching Grace how to fly the blue kite. "How? He was supposed to be under twenty-four-hour federal guard."
"It was an inside job," Vance explained, pulling up a secure file on her tablet. "Two dirty guards deactivated the tracking matrix. Victor has a network of loyalists who never accepted his downfall. They didn't just break him out to run, Luca. They broke him out because he wants his assets back. And he wants revenge on the man who betrayed him to the Feds."
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Luca stepped forward, his amber eyes darkening with a cold, absolute resolve. The peaceful family man vanished, replaced by the fierce protector who would burn the world down before letting anyone touch his wife and children. "He knows where we are, doesn't he?"
"We don't think he has the exact coordinates of the Michigan estate yet," Vance replied. "But he has resources. I'm calling in a federal protective detail. Until we lock Victor down, this orchard is no longer a playground. It's a fortress."
