Chapter 5 - The AmbushThe first bullet shattered the passenger-side mirror.
Anna remained beside her.
Luca did not.
He spent the night tearing apart seven years of lies.
By sunrise, Dominic had identified four former employees of Saint Catherine's Pediatric Research Center. Two had disappeared overseas. One was dead.
The fourth agreed to talk.
Her name was Dr. Caroline Ames.
She was seventy-two and lived quietly in Vermont.
Luca sent a private plane.
Meanwhile, Matteo returned to the DeLuca estate with a security team to search storage rooms that had remained untouched since the fire.
The original nursery furniture had mostly been destroyed.
But Bianca had saved certain objects.
That fact alone made Luca suspicious.
At nine-thirty in the morning, Matteo called.
"We found something."
Luca was sitting beside Emilia's hospital-style bed inside the hotel suite.
She was awake now, eating strawberries while Anna braided her hair.
Luca stepped into the adjoining room.
"What?"
"A music box."
His chest tightened.
"Describe it."
"White wood. Painted moons. Little ballerina inside."
Luca closed his eyes.
Elena had bought it while pregnant.
She used to place it on her stomach and joke that Emilia kicked harder whenever the melody played.
"Bring it here."
"Already on my way."
When Luca returned to the bedroom, Emilia was watching him.
"You found Mama's box."
He stopped.
"How do you know?"
"I heard Uncle Matteo."
Luca almost smiled.
She had always listened to everything.
Like her mother.
"Do you remember it?"
Emilia nodded.
"Anna used to play it."
Anna looked surprised.
"I did."
Emilia touched the blackened button.
"Mama's voice is inside."
Luca looked sharply at her.
"What?"
Emilia shrugged.
"That's what Grandma said."
Anna frowned.
"When?"
"When I was little."
Luca sat.
"Can you tell me?"
Emilia looked uncertain.
Anna squeezed her hand.
"It's okay."
The girl thought.
"Grandma was mad because I kept asking for the song."
"What song?"
"The one Mama sang."
Luca remembered Elena singing during pregnancy.
A simple Italian lullaby her own mother had taught her.
"Grandma said Mama was gone and I had to stop remembering things that would hurt Daddy."
His jaw tightened.
"Then what?"
"She took the box."
"You never saw it again?"
Emilia shook her head.
"No."
Luca forced calm into his voice.
"Sweetheart, why did you say Mama's voice was inside it?"
"Because she told me."
"Who?"
"Mama."
Luca felt the room tilt.
"You remember your mother?"
"A little."
Emilia frowned.
"Maybe."
She had been four months old when Elena died.
That was too young for normal autobiographical memory.
Anna seemed to understand Luca's confusion.
"Maybe she heard a recording later."
Exactly.
Luca waited.
Within forty minutes, Matteo arrived.
The music box looked smaller than Luca remembered.
Smoke had darkened one corner.
The painted moon on its lid was cracked.
Emilia gasped.
"Mama."
Luca placed it on the table.
He wound the key.
The mechanism played.
Three notes.
Then stopped.
Matteo examined the bottom.
"There's a screw that's newer than the others."
Dominic brought tools.
They removed the base.
Inside, beneath the mechanism, was a sealed plastic compartment.
Nobody spoke.
Luca pulled it free.
There was no paper inside.
Only a tiny digital storage card.
Anna covered her mouth.
Matteo whispered, "No way."
Luca stared at it.
Elena had hidden evidence inside a music box.
For eight years.
Dominic loaded the card into an isolated computer.
Three folders appeared.
One contained financial documents.
One contained photographs.
The third contained video.
Luca clicked the first file.
Elena appeared on-screen.
His wife.
Alive.
For a moment Luca could not process what he was seeing.
Her blonde hair was tied carelessly behind her head. She was sitting in Emilia's nursery.
He could see the white crib behind her.
Elena looked tired.
Afraid.
But alive.
Luca's hand began trembling.
On the video, Elena spoke.
"If Luca is watching this, then something has happened to me."
Matteo turned away.
Luca remained frozen.
Elena continued.
"I don't know who I can trust."
She explained finding Carlo DeLuca's records.
She named Vittorio.
Two judges.
A police commissioner.
A senator.
Three businessmen.
She described payments connected to Carlo's poisoning.
Then her expression changed.
"The worst part isn't what Vittorio has done."
Luca leaned closer.
"It's what Bianca knows."
Luca's stomach dropped.
Elena looked toward the nursery door before continuing.
"Bianca believes everything can be contained if everyone remains loyal. She is frightened of Vittorio, but she also protects him."
Luca thought of his mother crying in the conference room.
Victim.
Accomplice.
Perhaps both.
Elena held up a document.
"If I die, Luca needs to understand that his father's death wasn't about power."
She paused.
"It was about the children."
Matteo turned back.
"What children?"
Elena explained.
Carlo had discovered Vittorio was using DeLuca-controlled shipping companies to move people illegally across borders.
Not narcotics.
Not weapons.
People.
Young women.
Teenagers.
Runaways.
Carlo wanted it stopped.
Vittorio had built an entire hidden operation using legitimate DeLuca companies.
Luca felt physically sick.
The family had done terrible things.
But there had always been lines.
Or so Luca believed.
Elena continued.
"Carlo gathered proof because he intended to turn Vittorio over to federal authorities."
Matteo whispered, "Dad was going to cooperate?"
"Apparently."
On-screen, Elena looked directly into the camera.
"I know Luca will hate hearing this. But Carlo wanted his sons out."
Luca's throat tightened.
"He wanted Luca and Matteo to inherit legitimate businesses and walk away from everything else."
Luca sat back.
Everything he thought he understood about his father shifted.
Then Elena said something unexpected.
"I haven't told Luca because I am pregnant again."
Silence filled the room.
Luca stared at the screen.
Anna gasped softly.
Matteo looked at his brother.
"What?"
Luca could not speak.
Pregnant.
Elena had never told him.
On-screen she pressed a hand against her abdomen.
"It's very early."
Luca felt as though someone had punched him.
His wife had died carrying their second child.
Elena's eyes filled with tears.
"I wanted to tell you after your birthday."
Luca covered his mouth.
The video continued.
"If anything happens to me, protect Emilia. Vittorio will search the house. He may search the nursery. But the evidence isn't here."
Luca frowned.
Elena smiled faintly.
"It's where only Emilia can take you."
The video ended.
Luca stared at the black screen.
"Where?"
Emilia's voice came from behind him.
"The garden."
Everyone turned.
They had not noticed her entering.
She stood in the doorway.
Standing.
Without support.
Luca jumped up.
"Emilia."
She smiled shakily.
"I'm okay."
Anna hovered behind her.
Emilia pointed at the paused image of her mother.
"That's the lady in my dreams."
Luca's heart broke a little more.
He went to her.
"What garden?"
"The blue flowers."
Luca frowned.
The DeLuca estate had dozens of gardens.
"What blue flowers?"
Emilia closed her eyes.
Then whispered.
"Behind Mama's angel."
Luca knew instantly.
Elena's memorial garden.
Her statue stood beneath a row of cypress trees.
Blue hydrangeas surrounded it.
Elena had been buried elsewhere, but Bianca had commissioned the memorial after her death.
Luca looked at Matteo.
"Get everyone ready."
Thirty minutes later, three black SUVs left the hotel.
But they never reached the estate.
On the highway, the lead vehicle suddenly swerved.
Gunfire shattered the rear window.
Emilia screamed.
Luca threw himself over his daughter.
Dominic shouted into his radio.
More shots hit the SUV.
Anna pulled Emilia down.
Matteo reached beneath his jacket.
Luca looked through the fractured glass.
Two vehicles were approaching fast from behind.
Vittorio had been locked inside a secure DeLuca property all night.
Which meant one thing.
May you like
He had never been working alone.
And whoever was helping him had just decided Emilia could not reach Elena's garden alive.
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