Chapter 2 - THE MAN WITH THE SAD EYES
Someone screamed.
Not Emma.
One of the men near the ballroom entrance.
The darkness lasted only three seconds, but three seconds inside a room filled with armed men who distrusted one another was enough to start a massacre.
I heard weapons being drawn.
Metal against leather.
A chair fell.
Someone shouted in Italian.
Then Damiano's voice cut through everything.
"Nobody fires."
It wasn't loud.
It didn't need to be.
Emergency lights activated along the floor, casting the ballroom in dim red.
Damiano stood directly in front of Emma and me, his body positioned like a shield.
Matteo appeared beside him.
"Backup generator failed."
"Sabotage?"
"Has to be."
Damiano turned toward the five dons.
"This is exactly what whoever planned tonight wants. Panic. Suspicion. One bullet, then everyone blames everyone."
Don Salvatore Russo, an elderly man from Boston, slowly lowered his weapon.
"He's right."
Others followed.
Don Romano did not.
His pistol remained pointed at the floor, but his hand trembled.
"My daughter is in your chapel."
Damiano looked at him.
"Then come with me."
Romano's expression shifted.
"You trust me?"
"No."
Damiano's honesty almost made me laugh despite the terror.
"But if Isabella is innocent, you'll want to see it. If she isn't, you'll need to see that too."
Damiano turned to Matteo.
"Lock the ballroom."
Then he looked at me.
"Sophia, stay here."
"No."
His eyes narrowed.
I hated that my voice shook.
"Emma can identify the man."
"I'm not putting her in the middle of gunfire."
"You already said no one leaves the estate."
"That doesn't mean I bring a six-year-old into a chapel with an armed traitor."
Emma tugged on his sleeve again.
"He isn't bad."
Damiano looked down.
"Who?"
"The sad man."
Every adult near us froze.
Emma continued.
"He was crying."
"What did he say?"
"Nothing."
"Then why do you think he isn't bad?"
She hugged her rabbit.
"Because the shiny lady told him she'd hurt his brother if he didn't do it."
Damiano's expression changed.
"Brother?"
Emma nodded.
"She said, 'You want Luca to come home, don't you?'"
Matteo cursed under his breath.
Damiano looked at him.
"You know Luca?"
"Enzo Bellini's younger brother."
"Enzo?"
"The explosives technician who disappeared three months ago."
Now we had a name.
The man in the chapel wasn't necessarily Isabella's partner.
He might be her hostage.
Damiano looked toward the hallway.
"Bring Emma to the security room."
He turned to me.
"You stay with her. You don't leave that room."
This time I nodded.
Not because I was suddenly obedient.
Because I understood.
Five minutes later, Emma sat before a wall of security monitors while Matteo replayed footage from earlier that evening.
Most cameras had been disabled in loops.
Somebody knew exactly how the estate's network worked.
Then one image appeared.
A man in a maintenance jacket entered through the east corridor.
Emma pointed immediately.
"Him."
Enzo Bellini.
Thirty-two.
Former demolitions expert.
Moretti employee until six months earlier.
According to Matteo, Enzo had vanished after his younger brother Luca accumulated gambling debts with a rival crew.
Damiano entered the security room.
"He's alive."
"Enzo?"
"Luca."
"Where?"
"We don't know."
Damiano's eyes remained on the screen.
"But Isabella does."
A guard spoke through the radio.
"Boss. Chapel secure."
Damiano turned.
"Isabella?"
"Gone."
"What?"
"Secret sacristy exit."
"And Enzo?"
"Alive."
Twenty minutes later, Enzo Bellini sat in the library with blood soaking one sleeve.
No handcuffs.
Damiano stood across from him.
Don Romano watched from the doorway.
I stayed beside Emma at the far end.
Enzo looked at my daughter.
Then lowered his head.
"I'm sorry."
Emma whispered:
"Is Luca okay?"
His face collapsed.
That was all the proof I needed.
Enzo began talking.
Isabella had approached him two months earlier.
She knew where Luca was being held.
Not by ordinary criminals.
By a private security company connected to Victor Romano—Isabella's uncle.
Don Romano's younger brother.
Victor had long believed the peace agreement would destroy the profits generated by twenty years of conflict.
Weapons.
Protection rackets.
Smuggling routes.
War made men like Victor rich.
Peace threatened everything.
Isabella wanted something else.
Damiano's position.
Through marriage.
The original plan was simple.
Kill the six dons.
Make it appear one family betrayed the others.
Surviving lieutenants would tear each other apart.
Isabella would publicly mourn Damiano.
Privately, Victor's organization would seize trade routes during the chaos.
"Why help her?" Damiano asked.
Enzo's eyes filled.
"Luca."
"Where is he?"
"She never told me."
"What was supposed to happen after the explosion?"
"I was supposed to drive to Pier 19."
"And?"
"Someone would bring Luca."
Matteo looked at Damiano.
"Trap."
"Probably."
Enzo shook his head.
"No."
"How do you know?"
"Because Isabella needed me afterward."
"For what?"
Another silence.
Enzo stared at the floor.
"More devices."
Don Romano stepped forward.
"Where?"
Enzo looked at him.
"Philadelphia."
The old don went pale.
"What targets?"
"Your home."
Silence.
"Your social club. Two warehouses. Your daughter's charity office."
Don Romano's face transformed.
Isabella wasn't only betraying Damiano.
She was preparing to destroy her own father's organization.
"Why?"
Enzo whispered:
"Because Victor promised her she wouldn't be anyone's daughter anymore."
Damiano walked toward the window.
Five criminal empires.
One peace agreement.
And now a coup stretching across states.
Don Romano looked older than he had an hour earlier.
"I want my daughter found."
Damiano turned.
"So do I."
Romano clenched his jaw.
"If she did this..."
He couldn't finish.
Damiano did.
"Then you don't protect her because she's family."
The words landed differently than a threat.
Romano looked away.
We moved everyone to the fortified lower level before midnight.
The peace agreement remained unsigned.
But no one left.
That alone was remarkable.
Six men who normally distrusted one another enough to travel with armored convoys now sat around a plain dining table drinking coffee while security teams compared intelligence.
At 1:17 a.m., Matteo found something.
A deleted camera clip restored from backup.
Isabella entered the estate earlier that afternoon.
With someone else.
A woman.
Tall.
Blonde.
Dark coat.
The angle didn't show her face.
But I recognized the way she walked.
My stomach dropped.
"No."
Damiano looked at me.
"What?"
I stared at the screen.
"I know her."
"Who?"
"My sister."
Silence.
Damiano slowly turned toward me.
"You told me your sister was dead."
"She is."
May you like
At least...
That's what I had believed for seven years.
