Chapter 20 - The Midnight Bell
"Elena is locked in a high-security psychiatric holding cell in upstate New York," Luca growled, refusing to be baited. "Her father was stripped of his council seat and exiled."
"Her *father* was," Marco sneered. "Her mother, however... Sofia Vance... was born Sofia Valenti. My older sister."
The revelation hit the room like a physical shockwave.
Elena wasn't just a spoiled socialite from a rival syndicate family; she was the secret niece of the destroyed Valenti dynasty, planted years ago to marry Luca, take the Moretti throne, and destroy the empire from within. When I had exposed her deceit six months ago by pulling the truth from Vito's Army jacket, I hadn't just broken an engagement—I had shattered a thirty-year blood vengeance.
"Where is she?" Luca demanded, stepping forward, his eyes burning with lethal fury.
"She’s already where you can't touch her," Marco laughed.
With a lightning-fast motion, Marco raised his revolver—not at Luca, but up toward the glass skylight, aiming straight at me.
"Clara!" Luca roared.
Before Marco could pull the trigger, Luca fired twice. The bullets struck Marco in the chest, driving him backward against the ship's wheel. The revolver slipped from his lifeless fingers, and he slumped to the floor, dead.
Luca bolted up the stairs, pulling me down from the roof into his arms, checking me furiously in the flashes of lightning. "Did he hit you? Did a bullet hit you?"
"No, I'm okay! I cut the feed, Luca! The broadcast was stopped!" I yelled over the wind, holding onto his soaked Kevlar vest.
Dominic burst onto the bridge, his face pale and grim despite the victory. "Boss! We secured the ship, but we just got an emergency priority transmission from the mainland estate!"
Luca pulled away, his eyes sharp. "Report."
"It’s your father-in-law," Dominic said, his voice trembling slightly. "Arthur was supposed to be in the underground bunker under twenty-four-hour guard. Five minutes ago, the security detail was found unconscious. Arthur is gone."
My heart stopped. The world around me seemed to tilt dangerously. "Dad? What do you mean he's gone?!"
Dominic pulled a satellite phone from his pocket and handed it to Luca. "The guards woke up. They found this taped to the bunker door."
Luca put the phone to his ear. A cold, electronically disguised voice spoke through the speaker, loud enough for both of us to hear above the howling storm:
*"Congratulations on surviving the freighter, Don Moretti. You kept your empire, and you cut the transmission. But the Architect belongs to us now. If you want to see Arthur Reed draw another breath, bring Vito's Silver Star and the briefcase to St. Jude’s Cathedral at dawn. Come alone—or the next thing that falls from that old Army jacket will be your wife's severed hand."*
The line went dead.
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A sudden, chilling clap of thunder rattled the windows of the wheelhouse, illuminating the bloody deck, the recovered leather briefcase, and the obsidian black rook sitting on the navigation console.
Luca looked down at me, his face carved of absolute vengeance, but before he could speak, the distant tolling of a church bell began to chime through the speaker of the open phone line—one heavy, funeral ring after another into the dead of night.
