Chapter 7 - Anna’s Real NameThe firefight lasted less than four minutes.
Emilia stood beside Anna, holding her hand.
Luca did not like having his daughter near the investigation.
But he had learned something painful during the last twenty-four hours.
Everyone had underestimated Emilia.
Her memory.
Her awareness.
Her courage.
He would not make the same mistake by treating her like a piece of furniture to be moved whenever adults became uncomfortable.
Dominic inspected the chair.
"Custom frame."
Luca nodded.
"My mother ordered it."
Emilia was three at the time.
Bianca had insisted it would help her posture.
Luca remembered signing the purchase paperwork without reading more than the first page.
He had trusted her.
That memory now felt ridiculous.
Dominic removed the seat cushion.
Nothing.
Then the support panel.
Still nothing.
Emilia frowned.
"I heard Grandma talking about it."
"When?" Luca asked.
"I don't know."
"Try."
She closed her eyes.
"They thought I was asleep."
"Who was with her?"
"Uncle Vittorio."
Luca crouched.
"What did they say?"
"Grandma said, 'If Luca ever finds the map, we're finished.'"
Matteo looked at him.
"When was this?"
Emilia shrugged.
"I was little."
Dominic turned the chair over.
Beneath the frame was a manufacturer's plate.
He ran a finger beneath it.
"One screw is different."
Again.
A newer screw.
The same type of concealment Elena had used in the music box.
Dominic removed the plate.
A folded piece of waxed paper was hidden inside.
Luca stared.
Not Elena's work.
Bianca's.
He unfolded it carefully.
A hand-drawn map of the estate.
One location circled.
Elena's memorial statue.
Beside it, a handwritten number.
Matteo said, "Three-fourteen."
"Combination?" Dominic suggested.
Anna stared at the handwriting.
"That's Bianca's."
Luca already knew.
He had seen his mother's handwriting on birthday cards his entire life.
Why hide the map?
If Bianca wanted the evidence destroyed, why preserve directions?
Because she couldn't find it herself.
Or because part of her had wanted someone else to find it eventually.
Luca wasn't ready to decide which.
Emilia pointed.
"What's the number?"
"I don't know."
She looked at him.
"Mama's birthday was March fourteenth."
Luca froze.
Of course.
March 14.
3/14.
Elena had joked about being a "pi baby."
Luca nearly laughed despite everything.
She hated mathematics.
But she loved the coincidence.
"That's not a combination," he said.
"It's a date."
Matteo leaned over the map.
"Then we're looking for something tied to her birthday."
Night came slowly.
Luca prepared the operation with more caution than he had used for major criminal negotiations.
The warehouse would remain guarded.
Emilia would stay with Anna and Dr. Brooks.
Luca, Matteo, Dominic, and four trusted men would enter the estate through the eastern greenhouse tunnel.
Salvatore remained restrained downstairs.
At nine-forty, Luca knelt beside Emilia.
"I need you to stay here."
She crossed her arms.
"What if you can't find it?"
"Then I come back."
"And we figure it out."
"Yes."
She studied him.
"Promise?"
"I promise."
Emilia held out the brass button.
"Take this."
Luca frowned.
"Why?"
"For luck."
He accepted it.
The button was charred black around the edges.
A piece of the night everything changed.
"I'll bring it back."
She hugged him.
For seven years Luca had lifted her from wheelchairs into beds.
From cars into clinics.
From physical therapy mats into his arms.
This time she stood and hugged him.
He almost couldn't let go.
Anna noticed.
She looked away, giving him privacy.
Luca kissed Emilia's forehead.
"Stay with Anna."
"I will."
Then his daughter whispered:
"Daddy?"
"Yes?"
"Don't become bad because they were bad."
Luca looked at her.
The words landed harder than any accusation.
He had spent most of his adult life believing power meant answering betrayal with destruction.
Emilia, eight years old, somehow understood the trap.
He nodded.
"I'll remember."
The estate was dark when they arrived.
Rain had begun.
Luca's childhood home rose behind iron gates and old trees like a monument to every lie he had inherited.
They entered through the greenhouse.
The maintenance tunnel smelled of wet earth and rust.
Matteo walked behind Luca.
"Did you know this tunnel was still open?"
"No."
"Dominic did."
Dominic glanced backward.
"I keep track of exits."
Good man.
They emerged behind the old pool house.
No alarms.
No guards.
Too easy.
Luca signaled everyone to stop.
"What?"
Matteo whispered.
"Someone wants us inside."
They moved anyway.
Elena's memorial garden was fifty yards away.
Blue hydrangeas glowed pale beneath landscape lights.
The white stone statue stood in the center.
Elena holding an infant.
Bianca had commissioned it.
Luca had once thought it beautiful.
Now he wondered whether his mother had built it out of grief, guilt, or both.
He approached.
The map showed the location directly behind the statue.
They searched.
Nothing.
Matteo examined the pedestal.
"No compartment."
Dominic checked the soil.
"Recently disturbed."
Luca turned.
"What?"
"Here."
Behind the statue, beneath the hydrangeas, the soil was softer.
Someone had dug recently.
Belladonna?
Luca crouched.
They removed earth.
Six inches.
A foot.
Then Dominic's shovel struck metal.
A small steel box.
Locked.
On top were engraved three rotating number wheels.
Matteo smiled grimly.
"314."
Luca entered it.
Click.
The box opened.
Inside was a waterproof folder.
A flash drive.
Three photographs.
And a letter addressed in Elena's handwriting.
LUCA.
He stared at it.
Before he could open it, gunshots erupted.
One of Luca's men fell.
"Cover!"
Lights around the garden died.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Dominic dragged Luca behind the statue.
Matteo fired toward the tree line.
More shots.
The ambush had been waiting.
Luca shoved the flash drive and letter beneath his jacket.
"Back to the tunnel!"
Dominic shouted into his radio.
No response.
Jammers.
Someone knew their procedures.
A figure moved between the trees.
Luca fired.
The figure disappeared.
Then headlights exploded across the garden.
A black sedan drove directly onto the lawn.
The rear door opened.
A woman stepped out beneath an umbrella.
Older.
Elegant.
Gray hair.
Luca stared.
It was Dr. Caroline Ames.
The physician they had summoned from Vermont.
The physician who had supposedly been on a private plane to meet them.
She smiled.
"You really do have Elena's stubbornness."
Luca raised his gun.
"Belladonna."
Dr. Ames smiled.
"At last."
Matteo moved beside him.
"Why?"
Dr. Ames looked toward Elena's statue.
"Because your wife came closer than anyone to destroying what took thirty years to build."
Luca's finger tightened around the trigger.
"What did you do to my daughter?"
"Very little."
She tilted her head.
"Bianca did most of it."
Luca hated how those words affected him.
Dr. Ames continued.
"Your mother believed temporary conditioning would protect Emilia."
"Seven years isn't temporary."
"Things became complicated."
"You're going to prison."
Dr. Ames laughed.
"You think this is about prison?"
She nodded toward the box.
"You have one piece of Elena's evidence."
"Enough."
"No."
Her smile disappeared.
"Not even close."
She lowered the umbrella.
Rain touched her face.
"Your wife divided the records into three parts."
Luca froze.
"Three?"
"One was in the music box. One beneath the statue."
"And the third?"
Dr. Ames looked directly at him.
"The third is with the one person you've trusted from the beginning."
Luca's chest tightened.
"Who?"
May you like
Dr. Ames smiled.
"Ask Anna Mercer why she changed her name."
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