Chapter 5 - The Bellini LieVincent Bellini hugged Matteo after Vittorio’s funeral.
He had delivered the eulogy.
He had taught Gabriel how to drive.
He had attended every DeLuca Christmas for twenty years.
And now he was standing beside Gabriel’s chair with a pistol beneath his jacket.
Betrayal doesn’t always arrive wearing the face of an enemy.
Sometimes it remembers your birthday.
“Release him,” Matteo said.
Vincent smiled.
“You sound exactly like your father.”
“That isn’t a compliment coming from you.”
Vincent’s smile disappeared.
He looked toward me.
“The drive.”
I held an empty purse.
The actual USB drive was hidden elsewhere.
“You hurt me for something you already knew existed,” I said.
“I needed to know what Anna told you.”
“She told me enough.”
Vincent stepped closer.
“Your mother was stubborn.”
“My mother was smarter than you.”
His eyes cooled.
“She ran.”
“She survived.”
“For a while.”
Matteo moved.
Three guns rose instantly.
I saw the calculation in his face.
Distance.
Angles.
Gabriel.
Me.
He stopped.
Vincent chuckled.
“There. That’s growth. Your father would have charged forward.”
“You killed him?”
Vincent’s expression softened almost nostalgically.
“Your father killed himself by believing loyalty mattered more than leverage.”
Matteo’s hands curled into fists.
“Why?”
“Money at first.”
Vincent walked slowly.
“Then survival.”
For years, Vittorio’s shipping empire had unknowingly carried illegal money through subcontractors controlled by Vincent and Lorenzo.
When Anna discovered inconsistencies, Vittorio confronted both men.
Lorenzo wanted to shut everything down quietly.
Vincent wanted Vittorio dead.
“Lorenzo helped you?”
“He helped himself.”
“Where is he?”
Vincent smiled.
“Probably deciding which side he’s on.”
Daniel muttered, “Coward.”
Vincent looked at him.
“You always disliked me.”
“I’m relieved my instincts weren’t completely useless.”
Gabriel lifted his bruised face.
“Can somebody untie me before the family therapy gets deeper?”
Even Matteo almost laughed.
Vincent didn’t.
He walked behind Gabriel.
“Drive.”
I held up my hands.
“It isn’t here.”
Vincent’s gun appeared.
Everything changed.
Matteo stepped forward.
“Elena.”
“I didn’t bring it.”
“You had one instruction,” Vincent said.
“You kidnapped the wrong person if you expected obedience.”
The gun pointed at Gabriel.
Matteo’s voice became deadly quiet.
“Don’t.”
I looked at Vincent.
“The drive is encrypted. Kill Gabriel and you lose any reason for me to unlock it.”
Vincent studied me.
“You’re bluffing.”
“Try me.”
For five seconds, nobody moved.
Then Gabriel laughed.
“She works for you, Matteo?”
“Technically.”
“Give her a raise.”
Vincent struck him.
Matteo lunged.
Chaos exploded.
Daniel tackled one gunman.
Matteo slammed another into a steel column.
I dropped behind a crate as bullets cracked through the warehouse.
Gabriel tipped his chair sideways.
I crawled toward him.
“Elena!”
“I’m coming.”
I reached the chair and grabbed a piece of broken metal from the floor.
The ropes around his wrists were thick.
“Hurry.”
“Helpful.”
Another gunshot.
A man fell.
Matteo moved like someone who had been waiting fourteen years for permission to stop being civilized.
I cut Gabriel’s rope.
He freed one hand.
Then footsteps sounded behind me.
Vincent grabbed my hair.
Pain exploded through my scalp.
He dragged me upright.
Matteo froze.
Vincent pressed the gun beneath my jaw.
“Enough.”
Everyone stopped.
Blood ran from Daniel’s eyebrow.
Two attackers were down.
Three remained.
Gabriel’s hands were partially free.
Matteo’s shirt was torn.
Vincent breathed hard.
“Where is the drive?”
I met Matteo’s eyes.
He looked terrified.
Not for himself.
For me.
Something shifted inside my chest.
For months I had viewed Matteo as another powerful man whose world could swallow people like me.
Now I saw something else.
A man who had built walls because everyone he loved eventually became leverage.
His father.
His brother.
Now me.
“It’s in the car,” I lied.
Vincent smiled.
“Good.”
“But you need my fingerprint.”
He hesitated.
Tiny.
Almost nothing.
Enough.
Gabriel kicked backward.
His chair struck Vincent’s knees.
The gun moved away from my jaw.
I dropped.
Matteo crossed the distance before Vincent recovered.
One punch.
Two.
The gun skidded away.
Daniel secured it.
Seconds later, sirens erupted outside.
Vincent stared toward the doors.
“What did you do?”
I smiled through shaking lips.
“Did you really think my mother’s daughter would come without insurance?”
Before leaving the storage facility, I had emailed a copy of several documents to a federal prosecutor whose name appeared in my mother’s files.
Timed delivery.
11:55.
Attached was the warehouse location.
Federal agents entered from three doors.
Vincent Bellini was arrested at 12:07 p.m.
It should have been over.
It wasn’t.
Because Lorenzo DeLuca was still missing.
And when investigators finally accessed the rest of my mother’s drive, they discovered something worse.
Vincent had ordered Vittorio’s murder.
But someone else authorized the payment.
The electronic signature belonged to a holding company.
A company currently owned by Lorenzo.
Matteo stared at the screen for a long time.
Then Daniel received a call.
His expression turned grave.
“Matteo.”
“What?”
“Lorenzo’s house is empty.”
“Where did he go?”
“We don’t know.”
Daniel paused.
“But security cameras show him leaving three hours ago.”
“With what?”
Daniel turned the phone around.
Lorenzo was carrying two suitcases.
And walking beside him was a woman.
I recognized her immediately.
Mrs. Kaplan.
My elderly neighbor.
Except she wasn’t wearing her bathrobe.
She wore a tailored black coat.
Her posture was straight.
Professional.
And suddenly far younger than I had ever imagined.
I whispered, “What is she doing with him?”
Daniel zoomed in.
Matteo looked at me.
“Elena, how long has Mrs. Kaplan lived beside you?”
“Twelve years.”
Matteo went still.
“Your mother moved into that apartment thirteen years ago.”
I understood before he said it.
Mrs. Kaplan had not been my mother’s neighbor by coincidence.
May you like
She had been watching us.
For twelve years.
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