Chapter 8 - Blood Doesn't Make a Family
Lorenzo didn't lower his gun.
“Let them go.”
Anthony tilted his head.
“Always giving orders. Just like your mother.”
“Now.”
Giovanni stood between them, his weapon pointed toward the floor.
For the first time in his life, he looked like a man who had run out of places to hide.
Anthony placed the medical record on the table.
“Your fatherhood was never the question, Lorenzo. Your mother knew the truth.”
Lorenzo's eyes flicked toward Sarah.
She couldn't read his expression.
“Is it true?” he asked.
Sarah shook her head.
“I don't know.”
Anthony laughed.
“Neither does she. That's why this is so useful.”
Lorenzo fired.
The bullet struck the wall beside Anthony's shoulder.
Everyone froze.
“Next one won't miss.”
Anthony's smile disappeared.
Marco moved to Eleanor and cut her restraints.
Sarah rushed to her grandmother's side.
“Can you walk?”
Eleanor nodded, though her legs trembled.
As Marco escorted them toward the corridor, Giovanni stepped into Sarah's path.
“Wait.”
Lorenzo swung his gun toward him.
Giovanni raised both hands.
“I didn't kill Rebecca.”
“No,” Sarah said. “You just helped everyone believe she was dead.”
Giovanni looked at her with something close to shame.
“I was told she would be protected. Anthony said he had arranged passage out of the country.”
“And you believed him?”
“I wanted to.”
Sarah's voice broke.
“My mother spent years running. I grew up believing she was dead. My grandmother spent fourteen years terrified of a man who wasn't even supposed to exist.”
Giovanni lowered his head.
“I know.”
“No. You know what happened. You don't know what it cost.”
A second explosion shook the building.
Marco shouted that the exits were compromised.
Anthony had activated the warehouse's old security system, locking the main doors and triggering an emergency fire suppression alarm.
Smoke began filling the upper corridor.
Lorenzo seized Anthony by the collar.
“Where are the records?”
Anthony smiled through his fear.
“Your father kept copies in the one place you never thought to search.”
“Where?”
“The family chapel.”
Lorenzo's expression changed.
The chapel had been sealed after his mother's death.
He had never been allowed inside.
“Why?”
Anthony leaned closer.
“Because your mother left something there. Something Giovanni has spent twenty years trying to destroy.”
Giovanni lunged.
Marco caught him, but not before he struck Anthony across the face.
“Shut up!” Giovanni shouted.
Lorenzo stared at him.
“You knew about the chapel.”
Giovanni struggled against Marco's grip.
“Your mother wasn't the only person who wanted the truth buried.”
The alarm grew louder.
Lorenzo ordered everyone toward the basement exit.
They escaped through a service tunnel just before flames spread across the warehouse's upper floor.
Outside, sirens approached.
Anthony was gone.
So was Giovanni.
Sarah stood in the rain, holding Eleanor upright, while Lorenzo watched the burning building.
“You saved us,” Sarah said quietly.
“I should have found him years ago.”
“You didn't know.”
“That's no excuse.”
She looked at him.
For the first time, she saw the difference between a man who regretted his choices and a man who regretted getting caught.
Lorenzo looked genuinely devastated.
“I won't ask you to forgive me for what my family did.”
“Good.”
“But I need you to know something. Whatever that document says, you are not responsible for any of it.”
Sarah swallowed.
“And if it's true?”
“Then I'll spend the rest of my life making sure you never have to pay for the sins of the men who came before us.”
Before she could answer, Marco approached with a phone recovered from the warehouse.
“Boss. We found this in Anthony's coat.”
The screen displayed a video.
A woman sat in a dimly lit room.
Older.
Thinner.
But unmistakable.
Rebecca Miller looked directly into the camera.
“Lorenzo,” she said, her voice trembling. “If you're watching this, Anthony has found Sarah.”
She paused, tears gathering in her eyes.
“And there's something you need to know about the night your mother died.”
The screen went black.
A second video began automatically.
It showed Giovanni entering a hospital room fourteen years earlier.
May you like
He was carrying a newborn baby.
And behind him walked Rebecca, very much alive.
