Chapter 8 - The Last Lie Vittorio Told

The shot echoed across the runway.

Isabella screamed.

Luca hit the ground.

Not wounded.

He had tackled her.

Behind them, Enzo held his shoulder.

Blood.

Sofia ran to him.

Federal agents moved.

Vittorio fired twice more.

Then ran into the hangar.

Gregory shouted:

“He’s going for the jet!”

Luca followed.

I followed Luca.

He turned.

“Amelia!”

Too late.

Inside the hangar, engines started.

Wind tore through the open doors.

Vittorio climbed the stairs to the jet.

Michael emerged from behind a service truck.

Luca stared.

“You were supposed to stay back.”

Michael smiled weakly.

“I have a problem with instructions.”

He pressed a remote.

The hangar doors began closing.

The jet could not leave.

Vittorio turned.

For the first time that night, he looked afraid.

Luca walked toward him.

“No more exits.”

Vittorio laughed.

“You think this changes anything?”

Agents surrounded the plane.

Vittorio stepped down slowly.

His gun lowered.

Then he looked at Luca.

“I raised you.”

Luca stopped.

“You kidnapped me.”

“I made you strong.”

“You made me lonely.”

“I gave you an empire.”

“You stole it from my father.”

Vittorio smiled.

“And he would have wasted it.”

Enzo appeared at the hangar entrance.

Sofia had wrapped his shoulder.

Vittorio looked at him.

“You always were sentimental.”

Enzo answered:

“And you always confused cruelty with intelligence.”

Vittorio’s expression changed.

Then Romano spoke from behind the agents.

“There is one thing he has not told you.”

Luca looked at him.

Romano leaned against Isabella.

Weak but standing.

“The trust.”

“What about it?”

Romano looked at Vittorio.

“Vittorio cannot inherit it.”

Luca frowned.

“Why?”

“Because your grandfather knew what he was.”

Vittorio’s face hardened.

Romano continued.

“The trust names a secondary beneficiary if Luca is removed illegally.”

Luca looked at Enzo.

“My father?”

“No.”

At Sofia.

“My mother?”

“No.”

Romano looked at Gregory.

Then at me.

I felt cold.

“What?”

Gregory stared.

Romano continued.

“The secondary beneficiary is the surviving line of Thomas Shaw.”

Gregory’s father.

My great-grandfather.

I shook my head.

“That makes no sense.”

Gregory whispered:

“Thomas Shaw was your grandfather’s business partner.”

Romano nodded.

“He helped build Bellini Holdings before Vittorio pushed him out.”

Luca looked at me.

“If something happened to me…”

Romano answered:

“The voting shares would pass to Amelia.”

Vittorio laughed.

There it was.

The reason Michael had hired me.

Not by accident.

Not because of my mother.

Because Vittorio had discovered the trust.

Michael went pale.

“I didn’t know.”

Vittorio looked at him.

“You knew enough.”

Michael stared.

“You told me she was leverage.”

“She was.”

Against Luca.

Against Gregory.

Against the trust.

Luca’s expression changed.

“You planned to frame me.

Then control Amelia.”

Vittorio smiled.

“She was a maid with no idea who she was.”

I looked at him.

“I still know who I am.”

His smile faded.

Agents moved closer.

Vittorio looked at Sofia.

Then Enzo.

Then Luca.

“All of you think this ends because I go to prison?”

Elena Cross answered:

“No.”

She held up a file.

“It ends because Romano gave us twenty years of names.”

Officials.

Judges.

Bankers.

Port managers.

The network.

Vittorio’s face finally broke.

He looked at Romano.

“You kept it?”

Romano smiled.

“Two copies.”

Vittorio raised the gun again.

Elena fired.

One shot.

The weapon flew from his hand.

Agents took him down.

Luca did not move.

He simply watched.

Vittorio shouted from the concrete:

“You are nothing without me!”

Luca looked at Enzo.

Then Sofia.

Then Gregory.

Then Isabella.

Then me.

“No.”

His voice was quiet.

“That was your last lie.”

Vittorio was taken away.

The jet engines shut down.

And for the first time since the engagement ball, there was silence.

Then Isabella looked at Luca.

Her engagement ring was still on his library table.

“I suppose this is where we decide what happens to us.”

Luca looked at her.

“Not tonight.”

She nodded.

Fair.

But before anyone could leave, Elena Cross walked toward us.

“There is another problem.”

Luca frowned.

“What?”

She opened the file.

“Vittorio was not the only Bellini moving people through the docks.”

Enzo stared.

“Who?”

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Elena looked at Luca.

“The signature on the oldest manifests belongs to your grandfather.”