Chapter 6 - THE SON THEY TRIED TO TAKE
At 3:08 the next morning, the brownstone alarm went silent.
Not activated.
Silent.
Serena woke because Leo stopped making noise through the monitor.
Her eyes opened.
Something was wrong.
She reached for the screen.
Black.
“Elena.”
No response.
Serena left the bed and crossed the hall.
Elena’s door opened simultaneously.
“You too?”
“Yes.”
A floorboard creaked downstairs.
Serena’s blood froze.
Elena reached for her phone.
No signal.
Then glass shattered.
“Take Leo,” Serena whispered.
“What about you?”
“Take him.”
Serena moved toward the stairs.
A figure appeared below.
Black clothing.
Gloves.
Serena backed away.
Then another man came through the kitchen.
Elena grabbed Leo and ran toward the rear staircase.
The first intruder charged.
Serena slammed the hallway door into him.
He stumbled.
She ran.
A hand caught her cardigan.
Fabric tore.
Then a gunshot exploded downstairs.
Serena screamed.
Another shot.
The man behind her dropped.
Marco DeLuca appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
“Mrs. Moretti!”
Moretti security flooded the house.
Lucian entered seconds later without a coat, white shirt open at the throat.
He saw Serena.
Then blood.
His face changed.
“It’s not mine,” she said quickly.
Lucian reached her anyway.
His hands moved over her shoulders, face, arms.
“Leo?”
“With Elena.”
He closed his eyes for half a second.
Then the softness vanished.
“Take one alive.”
The command was terrifying.
Serena grabbed his wrist.
“No.”
Lucian looked at her.
“No killing.”
“They came for our son.”
“And if you become exactly what they expect, Leo grows up inside the same war.”
Lucian stared at her.
Then slowly nodded.
“Alive.”
One intruder survived.
His name was Daniel Rusk.
He worked for Vittorio.
That revelation fractured the Moretti organization by sunrise.
Vittorio disappeared.
So did twelve million dollars.
But the interrogation produced something stranger.
Vittorio had not ordered Leo kidnapped for himself.
He was working with Carlo Ventresca.
Lucian refused to believe it.
“Carlo tried to save my father.”
“Maybe,” Serena said. “Fifteen years ago.”
People changed.
Grudges evolved.
And men who believed they had been robbed of kingdoms rarely remained noble forever.
Bianca arrived that afternoon.
It was the first time Serena met her.
She was beautiful.
Of course she was.
But she also looked exhausted, with a scar beneath one ear and none of the seductive ease the photograph had implied.
“I owe you an apology,” Bianca said.
Serena folded her arms.
“For touching my husband’s ankle?”
Bianca blinked.
Then, unexpectedly, laughed.
“That photograph.”
“You’ve seen it?”
“About nine thousand times. It destroyed an eighteen-month operation.”
Serena stared.
Bianca explained.
The apparent intimacy had been staged because someone was watching the villa.
Lucian had been pretending Bianca was his lover to hide the investigation.
The photograph had accidentally reached social media.
“He wanted to leave immediately,” Bianca said.
Serena looked at Lucian.
“He didn’t.”
“No. Because we received confirmation Ventresca planned to move that night.”
Lucian said nothing.
Bianca continued.
“He chose the operation.”
Serena’s eyes met his.
There it was.
Not adultery.
Something almost more painful.
Choice.
Again.
Lucian approached.
“I thought ending the threat would protect you permanently.”
“You missed his birth.”
“I know.”
“You can’t investigate that away.”
“I know.”
“You can’t buy it back.”
“I know.”
Her voice broke.
“Then stop saying you know.”
Lucian’s eyes reddened.
“What do you want me to say?”
“The truth.”
He looked at his son sleeping nearby.
“The truth is I was afraid.”
Serena stared.
“I knew how to fight Ventresca. I knew how to manage Palermo. I knew how to command men.”
His voice lowered.
“I didn’t know how to be a father.”
The confession hung between them.
“So you ran?”
“Yes.”
Serena had expected excuses.
The absence of one disarmed her.
Lucian swallowed.
“My father died when I was twenty-six. Before that, he taught me that family was something men protected by standing between it and danger. He never taught me how to stand inside it.”
Serena’s anger remained.
But now grief existed beside it.
That evening, police transferred Daniel Rusk to federal custody.
The convoy never arrived.
At 8:31 p.m., the transport vehicle was found abandoned beneath the Queensboro Bridge.
Two agents were injured.
Rusk was gone.
On the windshield, someone had painted a black crown.
And beneath it:
BRING ME THE HEIR.
Lucian read the message.
Then Serena stepped beside him.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“No more heir. No more kingdom. No more men deciding what our son represents.”
She took his hand.
Not as a wife.
Not yet.
May you like
As Leo’s mother.
“We end this together.”
