Chapter 8 - The Empire Built on LiesLuca did not lower his weapon.
He threw the metal visitor chair.
The attacker fired.
The bullet shattered a wall monitor.
Emily rolled from the bed.
Pain ripped through her side.
She hit the floor and nearly blacked out.
“Emily!”
“Go!”
Daniel grabbed the emergency alarm.
Nothing happened.
The system had been disabled.
The gunman kicked the chair aside.
Then a second man entered.
“Take the girl. Leave the kid.”
Emily grabbed a glass water pitcher and smashed it against the first man’s face.
He cursed.
Daniel tackled him.
For one glorious second, Emily thought they might escape.
Then the second attacker struck Daniel with the butt of his pistol.
He fell.
“Daniel!”
Emily lunged toward him.
A needle entered her neck.
Cold spread through her body.
The room tilted.
The last thing she saw was Daniel lying motionless beside the bed.
Then darkness.
When Luca’s convoy entered Manhattan, Marco finally regained cell service.
His phone exploded with alerts.
“Boss.”
Luca looked up.
Marco’s face had gone pale.
“What?”
“Hospital security breach.”
Luca stopped breathing.
“When?”
“Twenty-eight minutes ago.”
“Emily?”
Marco didn’t answer quickly enough.
Luca grabbed the phone.
Security footage showed two men in scrubs pushing a covered gurney through a service elevator.
A blond strand of hair hung from beneath the sheet.
Luca’s vision narrowed.
“Daniel?”
“Found unconscious. Alive.”
“And Emily?”
“Gone.”
Luca turned toward the driver.
“Faster.”
They reached the hospital in eleven minutes.
Daniel sat in the emergency room with six stitches above his eyebrow.
He stood when Luca entered.
“They took her.”
“I know.”
“I tried.”
Luca placed both hands on Daniel’s shoulders.
“This is not on you.”
“Stop saying that!”
Daniel shoved him.
Every guard in the room tensed.
Luca didn’t.
Daniel hit Luca’s chest again.
“You said she’d be safe!”
Luca let him.
“You said your people were everywhere!”
“I know.”
“You promised!”
“I know.”
Daniel’s anger collapsed.
He covered his face.
“She got shot because of me and now they took her.”
Luca pulled him into an embrace.
Daniel resisted for half a second.
Then broke.
Luca looked over the boy’s shoulder at Marco.
“Find her.”
Marco nodded.
Every camera.
Every toll booth.
Every private contact.
Every corrupted official Luca had spent years wishing he didn’t need.
Use all of them.
Meanwhile Emily woke inside a moving van.
Her wrists were tied.
Her side burned.
A man sat opposite her.
Vincent Moretti.
He was not what she expected.
No flashy suit.
No gold chains.
No theatrical cruelty.
He wore a blue button-down and looked like a suburban accountant.
That frightened her more.
“Good morning.”
Emily glared.
“Daniel?”
“Alive.”
“If you hurt him—”
“You’ll do what?”
He smiled.
“Collapse in front of another gangster?”
Emily pulled against the restraints.
“You’re scared of Luca.”
Vincent’s smile thinned.
“I’m smarter than Luca.”
“Smart people usually don’t need to say that.”
He leaned forward and slapped her.
Her head snapped sideways.
Pain exploded across her lip.
Vincent grabbed her jaw.
“You’re alive because I need something your father hid.”
Emily tasted blood.
“He hid the ledger.”
“No.”
“What else?”
“A recording.”
“I don’t know anything about a recording.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not.”
Vincent released her.
“Your father secretly recorded mine confessing to Frank DeLuca’s murder.”
Emily stared.
“Why?”
“Insurance.”
“Against what?”
“My father.”
Vincent leaned back.
“Your father was a mechanic. People underestimate mechanics. They listen while customers talk. They notice cars. Dates. License plates.”
Emily thought of her father’s dusty office.
He always seemed to know everyone’s business.
Vincent continued.
“Victor met Peter DeLuca at your father’s shop seventeen years ago. They thought Robert Carter had gone home.”
“But he hadn’t.”
“No.”
Emily’s stomach turned.
“My dad heard them planning Frank’s murder.”
“And recorded part of the conversation.”
“Why didn’t he go to the police?”
Vincent laughed.
“Because one of the men in the conversation was the police commissioner.”
F.C.
The initials.
Emily understood.
“So he hid it.”
“He copied it.”
“Where?”
“That’s what you’re going to tell me.”
“I don’t know.”
Vincent leaned closer.
“Then we’ll find out how much pain it takes before you remember.”
Emily’s fear rose.
But something else rose beside it.
Anger.
“You already tried that.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You beat me for weeks.”
“You survived.”
“And I still didn’t sign.”
“You will this time.”
“No.”
Vincent smiled.
“You know what Luca will do when he finds us?”
Emily’s heart skipped.
Vincent saw it.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“You care about him.”
“No.”
“Don’t insult me.”
Emily looked away.
“He cares about you too.”
“You don’t know him.”
“I know men like Luca. Possession looks like love from the right angle.”
Emily snapped her gaze back.
“You don’t know him at all.”
Vincent’s expression changed.
She continued.
“When Luca touched me, he asked permission.”
Vincent stared.
“You never did.”
The van stopped.
Vincent opened the rear door.
They were inside an abandoned factory.
Emily was dragged into a concrete room and tied to a chair.
Hours passed.
Vincent questioned her.
Where had Robert Carter kept tapes?
What banks did he use?
What storage units?
What childhood places mattered?
Emily truly didn’t know.
Then Vincent placed Daniel’s photograph on the table.
“You know what I think?”
She said nothing.
“I think your father told you without telling you.”
“What does that mean?”
“He hid clues inside something ordinary.”
Emily closed her eyes.
Her father loved puzzles.
Every birthday, he created scavenger hunts.
Even when she became an adult.
Daniel mocked them.
Emily secretly loved them.
One phrase returned suddenly.
Her father’s final birthday card to her.
When everything gets too loud, remember where your mother still sings.
At the time, Emily thought it was sentimental.
Her mother had died when Emily was twelve.
She used to sing while baking in the kitchen.
But there was another place.
A music box.
Her mother’s music box.
Emily’s pulse changed.
Vincent noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
He smiled slowly.
“You remembered something.”
Emily forced her face blank.
He leaned close.
“Tell me.”
“No.”
Vincent stood.
“Then we start again.”
Before he could move, a distant explosion shook the factory.
Vincent froze.
Another explosion.
Gunfire erupted outside.
Emily’s heart raced.
Vincent cursed.
“He found us.”
Emily smiled for the first time.
“You sound surprised.”
Vincent drew his weapon.
“You think this ends with Luca carrying you home?”
“No.”
“What happens?”
Emily looked straight at him.
“He keeps his promise.”
The factory lights died.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Then Luca DeLuca’s voice echoed through the building’s emergency speaker system.
“Vincent.”
Emily’s eyes filled with tears.
Moretti looked upward.
Luca continued.
“You took something from me.”
Vincent grabbed Emily and pressed a gun to her head.
The door exploded inward.
Smoke filled the room.
Luca stepped through it.
His black suit was torn.
Blood marked his temple.
His pistol was aimed directly at Vincent.
Emily had never seen anyone look so calm.
Or so dangerous.
Vincent pulled her upright.
“One more step.”
Luca stopped.
“Let her go.”
“Put the gun down.”
“No.”
Vincent laughed nervously.
“You think I won’t kill her?”
“I think you know what happens if you do.”
“Maybe I don’t care.”
Luca’s eyes moved to Emily.
“Are you hurt?”
She almost laughed.
“Again?”
“Emily.”
“My stitches are probably ruined.”
His jaw tightened.
Vincent shouted, “Stop talking to her!”
Luca ignored him.
“Can you stand?”
Vincent pressed the weapon harder against Emily’s head.
“She doesn’t need to stand!”
Emily understood.
Luca wasn’t asking about her condition.
He was preparing her.
She looked at his left hand.
Two fingers moved.
A signal.
Three.
Two.
One.
Emily dropped.
Luca fired.
The bullet hit Vincent’s shoulder.
His gun flew across the room.
Luca crossed the distance before Vincent recovered.
He slammed him into the wall.
Once.
Twice.
Then dragged him to the floor.
Vincent laughed through blood.
“You can’t kill me.”
Luca pressed the gun beneath his jaw.
“Why?”
“Because if I die, the recording goes public.”
Luca froze.
Emily stared.
Vincent smiled.
“Insurance.”
“Where is it?”
“Not mine.”
“What?”
Vincent laughed.
“I don’t have Robert Carter’s recording.”
Emily understood.
“Then whose recording goes public?”
Vincent looked at Luca.
“Yours.”
Luca became still.
Vincent continued.
“Every murder. Every payoff. Every business you own.”
Luca’s face hardened.
“Impossible.”
“Ask Marco.”
Silence.
Emily looked toward the doorway.
May you like
Marco stood there.
And his face told Luca everything.
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