Chapter 12 - Don Ricci’s Secret Deal Inside the Romano Estate

Vivian read Ricci’s warning twice.

Then she laughed, a short sound with no humor in it.

“Everyone keeps deciding where I am allowed to go.”

Claire understood the anger but not the timing.

“This is not about control. Serra may want you dead.”

“He has wanted several people dead. It never stopped them from opening doors for him.”

Alessandro took the phone.

“Ricci is inside. We need to know why.”

Paolo studied the estate from a service road through binoculars.

“Four guards at the east gate. Two more near the main house. Serra’s black sedan is behind the garage.”

Claire looked at Vivian.

“Your father believes you are coming alone.”

“Yes.”

“Then we use that.”

Alessandro immediately shook his head.

“No.”

Claire ignored him.

“Vivian goes to the gate. We stay close enough to intervene.”

“No,” Alessandro repeated.

Vivian looked amused.

“Now you care whether I survive?”

“I care whether Serra gets another hostage.”

The sentence landed harder than cruelty because it was practical.

Vivian nodded.

“Fair.”

They compromised. Vivian would approach in her car while wearing a concealed microphone. Paolo’s team would follow through an old orchard road used by grounds staff.

Claire remained with Alessandro in a vehicle beyond the wall.

She hated waiting.

She hated hearing footsteps through the microphone while someone else entered danger.

Cesare’s voice came through first.

“My daughter.”

Vivian answered, “Father.”

No embrace.

No warmth.

Only ritual.

“Where is the child?”

“Safe.”

“The code?”

“With me.”

A chair scraped.

Then Don Ricci spoke.

“You should not have come.”

Vivian’s voice sharpened. “You sent the warning after I was already on the road.”

“I hoped Alessandro would stop you.”

Cesare chuckled.

“He has never been good at stopping Moretti women.”

Alessandro’s hand tightened around the receiver.

Claire watched him.

“Do not react to bait.”

His mouth twitched once.

“I was going to say the same to you.”

Inside, Vivian asked the question they had agreed upon.

“Where is Serra?”

Silence.

Then Cesare said, “Handling a problem.”

“What problem?”

“Evidence.”

Claire looked at Alessandro.

He signaled Paolo.

Move.

The team crossed the orchard.

Vivian continued.

“I have Daniel’s code. But before I give it to you, I want the truth. Did you order his crash?”

Cesare sounded tired rather than guilty.

“I ordered him frightened.”

Claire’s stomach turned.

“By forcing his car off a road?”

“I told Vieri to make him understand the consequences of obsession. Vieri exceeded instructions.”

“And after Daniel survived?”

“That became Serra’s matter.”

Vivian’s breath caught audibly.

“You knew he was alive.”

“Yes.”

“You let me go to the clinic.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“To learn what he had told you.”

Claire closed her eyes.

Vivian’s voice changed.

For the first time, she sounded like a daughter rather than an operative.

“You used me.”

Cesare sighed.

“I raised you to be useful.”

Alessandro whispered, “Enough.”

He and Claire left the vehicle.

They crossed the wall through a gap Paolo’s team had opened.

The microphone crackled.

Don Ricci spoke again.

“Cesare, this ends tonight.”

Cesare laughed.

“You have been saying that for twenty years.”

“And you have mistaken patience for weakness for twenty years.”

“Give me the recorder.”

“No.”

Claire stopped behind a hedge.

Ricci had gone to the estate deliberately.

Not to surrender.

To negotiate.

Cesare’s voice hardened.

“You paid Viviana Moretti to disappear.”

“To keep her alive.”

“You concealed evidence.”

“To build a case that could survive your lawyers.”

“You protected Alessandro’s father.”

Ricci was silent.

Cesare pressed.

“There it is. Saint Ricci had his compromises too.”

Claire saw Alessandro react.

Ricci answered slowly.

“Yes. I protected Vittorio Moretti from prosecution for an old killing because I believed exposing him would trigger retaliations across six families. It was cowardice dressed as stability.”

Claire had never heard a powerful man confess without trying to rename the act.

Ricci continued.

“I will not make the same bargain twice.”

A door slammed through the microphone.

Vivian gasped.

Serra’s voice entered.

“You already did.”

Paolo’s voice whispered through Claire’s earpiece.

“Serra entered from the west hall. Armed.”

Alessandro moved faster.

Claire followed despite his gesture to stay back.

Inside the house, voices rose.

Serra said, “Vivian, your father has spent years trying to protect you from consequences you never understood.”

Vivian replied, “You mean consequences you created.”

“Semantics.”

“No. Graves.”

A sharp sound followed.

Claire knew it immediately.

A gun being cocked.

Alessandro reached the terrace door.

Locked.

Paolo’s team moved toward another entrance.

Inside, Cesare said, “Put it down, Gianni.”

Serra laughed softly.

“You still think this is your house.”

Then a new sound came through the microphone.

Glass breaking.

Vivian shouted.

The signal died.

Alessandro drove his shoulder through the terrace door.

Claire entered behind him.

Don Ricci lay on the floor beside an overturned table, blood on his temple but conscious.

Cesare stood against the wall, empty-handed.

Vivian was gone.

So was Serra.

On the carpet lay Daniel’s recorder.

Claire picked it up.

A fresh red light blinked.

Recording.

Don Ricci looked at her.

“Serra took Vivian to the old airfield.”

“Why?”

Ricci pushed himself upright.

“Because she finally knows what happened to Daniel after San Luca.”

Claire froze.

“He told her?”

“No.”

Ricci looked at Cesare.

“Her father did.”

Cesare’s face had lost all color.

Claire stepped toward him.

“Where is my husband?”

Cesare swallowed.

“I do not know where he is now.”

Now.

Not where he died.

Claire heard the word like an explosion.

Alessandro did too.

“You said now.”

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Cesare closed his eyes.

“Because Daniel Bennett was alive when Serra left San Luca with him.”