Chapter 8 - THE CHURCHRain hammered the church roof.
Matteo entered through the center doors carrying the flash drive.
Sophia sat near the ruined altar.
Two armed men stood nearby.
Luca waited beneath broken stained glass.
Bianca stood beside him.
“You were always predictable,” Luca said.
“Release my mother.”
“The drive.”
Matteo held it up.
Emma slipped through a side entrance.
From behind an old choir staircase, she could see nearly everything.
Then she looked upward.
A man stood on the balcony.
Rifle aimed at Matteo.
“Matteo!”
He turned.
The shot hit stone where his head had been.
Chaos exploded.
Romano security entered from two side doors.
Bianca seized Sophia.
Emma ran toward them.
Bianca swung a handgun.
“Stop!”
Emma froze.
Bianca’s perfect composure was gone.
“This is unbelievable.”
She laughed breathlessly.
“All of this because you slept in the wrong room.”
Emma looked at her.
“No.”
Bianca’s eyes narrowed.
“All of this happened because you chose the wrong man to betray.”
Bianca raised the weapon toward Sophia.
Emma moved.
The gun fired.
Matteo heard it.
Everything inside him stopped.
He turned.
Emma lay on the floor.
He crossed the church before anyone could stop him.
Bianca tried to raise the gun again.
Matteo knocked it away and dropped beside Emma.
“Emma.”
Her eyes opened.
“I’m okay.”
Blood covered her sleeve.
The bullet had grazed her upper arm.
Matteo pressed one hand against the wound.
Across the sanctuary, Luca ran for an exit.
Matteo saw him.
Stood.
Raised his pistol.
Luca stopped.
Everyone understood.
Matteo’s father was dead because of him.
Sophia had been kidnapped.
Emma was bleeding.
Matteo’s finger settled near the trigger.
Emma caught his wrist.
“Don’t.”
The same word she had spoken in her office stairwell.
Matteo looked at her.
Luca almost smiled.
He mistook hesitation for weakness.
Matteo lowered the gun.
His men seized Luca.
“You think this makes you better than me?” Luca spat.
“No.”
Matteo looked at Emma.
“It makes me different from the man you expected me to become.”
Sirens grew louder outside.
Luca’s expression changed.
“You called police?”
“Federal investigators too.”
Before entering the church, Matteo had sent Daniel’s evidence to prosecutors, attorneys and federal authorities.
Luca would not disappear.
He would live.
And watch everything he built collapse publicly.
Emma looked at Matteo.
May you like
For a man raised to believe power meant deciding who suffered—
mercy had become the most dangerous choice he could make.
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