Chapter 6
At midnight Luca entered the warehouse alone.
Elena sat tied to a folding chair.
Mia sat on her lap, pressed against her chest.
The child still held the teddy bear.
Julian stood ten feet away.
“You came.”
“You knew I would.”
“I need the paper.”
“You kidnapped a woman and a three-year-old over a sheet of paper.”
Julian’s expression hardened.
“This is bigger than them.”
Luca looked at Mia.
She was watching him.
He slowly adjusted his right cuff with two fingers.
Mia’s eyes widened.
It was the gesture she had practiced in his mirror.
Luca touched his watch.
Mia suddenly became perfectly still.
That was the signal.
Victor’s men emerged from positions Julian had never known existed.
The takeover lasted seconds.
No shot was fired.
Luca went straight to Elena.
He cut her wrists free.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Mia?”
“She’s frightened.”
“I’m not frightened,” Mia whispered.
Elena laughed once, halfway between relief and tears.
“You’re allowed to be frightened.”
Luca lifted Mia long enough for Elena to stand, then returned the child immediately to her mother.
“Victor will take you outside.”
Elena looked at Julian.
“Come with us.”
Luca shook his head.
“No.”
“Please.”
“I need to finish something.”
Elena understood that she could not stop him.
But she said quietly, “Finish it without becoming him.”
Luca looked at her.
That sentence followed him after she left.
Outside, Julian was held by two men.
Even defeated, he attempted to recover the tone he had used for ten years.
“The woman is alive. The child is alive. Nothing happened that cannot be corrected.”
Luca said nothing.
Julian’s patience cracked.
“You’ve gone soft.”
Luca finally looked at him.
“You risked everything for a housekeeper and a child who isn’t even yours. Your father would have understood what that means. A man in your position does not spend himself protecting strangers. He spends strangers protecting himself.”
For years, Luca might have believed him.
Tonight he remembered a little girl in sunglasses.
They protect the little people.
“When my father died,” Luca said, “you told me strength was measured by how many people feared me.”
“It is.”
“No.”
Luca stepped closer.
“Strength is what you do when someone smaller has no way to repay you.”
Julian laughed bitterly.
“Children’s philosophy.”
“Maybe children see things clearly because men like us spend years learning how not to.”
Luca took the old folded slip from his pocket.
He handed it to Julian.
“Read it.”
Julian opened it.
Julian. Three months.
The date drained the color from his face.
Luca watched the realization arrive.
“I found the bottle too.”
Julian looked up sharply.
“It’s being examined.”
For the first time in ten years, Julian Mercer appeared afraid of Luca for a reason that had nothing to do with violence.
The truth had finally reached him.
“Did you kill my father?”
Julian said nothing.
“You spent ten years teaching me silence was power,” Luca continued. “Now you can discover what silence costs.”
Victor stepped forward.
Julian looked desperately toward Luca.
“I built you.”
Luca shook his head.
“No. You kept me twenty-two.”
Victor took Julian away.
Luca did not order his death.
He also did not protect him from the consequences of kidnapping Elena, endangering Mia, betraying the organization, stealing from Giovanni, and whatever the investigation into Giovanni’s death would eventually prove.
For once, Luca refused to make himself judge, jury, and executioner.
He had spent enough years inheriting other men’s darkness.
His first act of freedom was deciding he did not have to inherit their methods too.
The first place Luca went afterward was not the estate.
Victor had taken Elena and Mia to a quiet family property near Oyster Bay.
When Luca opened the front door, Elena stood beside the fireplace.
Mia sat on the rug.
The teddy bear rested in her lap.
She looked up.
For one frightening second, Luca wondered whether she would run from him now.
She did not.
She walked across the room and stopped in front of him.
“Are you still important?”
Luca looked down at her.
Then he knelt.
Elena’s eyes filled.
“I’m trying,” Luca said.
Mia frowned.
“Trying what?”
“To become the man you thought I was before you knew enough to be scared of me.”
Mia considered that.
May you like
Then she wrapped both arms around his neck.
Luca froze.
