Chapter 19 - The Last BulletLuca was dying.
Everyone knew it.
Alessandro held pressure against the wound.
“Stay with me.”
Luca smiled weakly.
“I’ve been dying for twelve years.”
“You’re not dying tonight.”
“You always were a bad liar.”
Emma knelt beside him.
“Uncle Luca?”
He looked at her.
“You know something?”
She shook her head.
“You saved me twice.”
“How?”
“You gave me my dad.”
Luca looked at Alessandro.
“I think he was always there.”
Alessandro’s face hardened.
“Where is he?”
Luca pointed toward the door.
“The old tunnels.”
Marco took three men.
“I’ll bring him back.”
Alessandro stopped him.
“No.”
“I’m going.”
“This is personal.”
“It stopped being personal years ago.”
Alessandro handed Emma to Sophia’s recovered arms.
“Stay here.”
Emma grabbed his sleeve.
“Come back.”
“I promise.”
He entered the tunnels alone.
The old man waited at the end.
“You ruined everything.”
“No.”
Alessandro raised his weapon.
“You ruined yourself.”
The man smiled.
“I built your world.”
“You destroyed it.”
“I gave you power.”
“You gave me fear.”
“You needed fear.”
“No.”
Alessandro stepped closer.
“I needed a family.”
The old man fired.
Alessandro moved.
The shot missed.
They fought.
No guards.
No weapons.
Only two men carrying generations of hatred.
Alessandro finally disarmed him.
The old man laughed.
“Kill me.”
Alessandro stared.
He could.
He wanted to.
But then Emma’s voice echoed in his memory.
“You always keep promises.”
He lowered the weapon.
“No.”
The old man looked surprised.
“I’m not killing you.”
“Why?”
“Because my daughter deserves a world where she never has to become me.”
Police flooded the tunnel.
The old man was arrested.
The empire was gone.
The Moretti name was stripped of its criminal power.
The mansion became a foundation.
Employees kept their jobs.
The trust funded schools, hospitals and housing.
Sophia recovered.
Luca survived surgery.
Isabella testified.
Richard, or Gabriel, disappeared after exposing the remaining network.
And Emma?
She returned to school.
But every Friday afternoon, she visited the mansion.
Not because she had to clean.
Because she wanted to.
One afternoon, she stood beside Alessandro in the study.
The same window.
The same room.
The same man.
Only now the spray bottle was gone.
Emma smiled.
“Do you remember?”
Alessandro nodded.
“The window?”
“No.”
She touched his hand.
“The first promise.”
He smiled.
“I remember.”
Then Emma noticed something on his desk.
An envelope.
Her name.
She opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
A baby.
A hospital.
And a woman she had never seen.
Emma looked up.
“Dad?”
Alessandro’s smile disappeared.
“What?”
“Who is this?”
He took the photograph.
His face went white.
Because the woman in the picture was wearing the same bracelet Isabella had buried.
May you like
And written on the back were five words:
She is not really dead.
