Chapter 7 - The Man Who Was Supposed to Be DeadThe gunfight lasted forty-three seconds.
Emma knew because later she checked the security recording.
In memory, it lasted much longer.
There were moments in those forty-three seconds that seemed to stretch into entire minutes.
The first bullet punching through the storage door.
Luca’s hand around hers.
Enzo shouting orders.
Marco returning fire.
The smell of concrete dust.
The darkness.
Then silence.
Luca’s security team had entered from both ends of the corridor.
Two attackers were captured.
One escaped.
No one on Luca’s side was killed.
Marco took a bullet through his shoulder and complained more about the ruined jacket than the wound.
Emma did not understand men.
Especially mafia men.
She understood one thing perfectly.
Someone had tried to kill them because of Daniel Carter’s notebook.
That meant the notebook mattered.
By midnight, Emma sat in Luca’s library at the Romano estate while the evidence from the storage unit covered an entire table.
Rosa sat beside her.
Sofia stood near the fireplace.
Enzo had returned from the hospital after confirming Marco would recover.
Luca stood at the far end of the table.
No one had slept.
Rosa had listened to Daniel’s recording twice.
The second time, she cried silently.
Emma held her hand.
“I should have told you,” Rosa whispered.
Emma looked at her mother.
“Yes.”
Rosa flinched.
Emma squeezed her hand.
“But I understand why you didn’t.”
“I wanted your father to have died as your father.”
“What does that mean?”
“Not as someone connected to this.”
Rosa looked around the Romano library.
“He hated this world.”
Luca nodded.
“He should have.”
Sofia looked at her son.
There was something in her expression Emma noticed.
Guilt.
“Sofia?”
The older woman looked toward her.
“You knew Daniel.”
“Yes.”
“How well?”
Sofia hesitated.
Emma’s heart tightened.
“Please don’t make me discover another family secret from a cardboard box.”
Sofia closed her eyes.
“Daniel saved Luca when Luca was twelve.”
Luca stared at his mother.
“What?”
Sofia looked at him.
“You remember the accident near Lake Geneva.”
Luca’s face changed.
Emma waited.
“I remember the brakes failed.”
“They didn’t fail.”
Sofia said it quietly.
“Someone cut the line.”
Luca went still.
“Daniel found it?”
“No.”
Sofia approached the table.
“He found you.”
She looked at Emma.
“Vittorio had taken Luca with him to inspect a property. The driver lost control. The car went through a barrier.”
Luca stared at the fire.
“I remember waking in the hospital.”
“Daniel happened to be driving behind them.”
Emma almost laughed at the impossible repetition.
“Of course he was.”
Sofia gave her a sad smile.
“He pulled Luca from the car before it caught fire.”
Emma looked at her fiancé.
Luca had never told her.
Because he had not known.
“Dad saved you.”
“Yes.”
“And years later I fixed your car.”
Enzo leaned against the bookshelf.
“The Carter family apparently has a contractual obligation to keep Romanos alive around vehicles.”
Nobody laughed.
Then Emma did.
It was brief.
Exhausted.
But necessary.
Sofia continued.
“Vittorio trusted Daniel after that.”
Emma looked at the photograph.
“Then why was Dad afraid of him?”
“He wasn’t afraid of Vittorio.”
“Carlo.”
“Yes.”
Luca opened Daniel’s notebook.
“We need the missing list.”
Enzo nodded.
“The storage unit was bait.”
Emma looked at him.
“How?”
“Someone wanted us to find Daniel’s things.”
“Then tried to kill us for finding them?”
“Maybe the attack wasn’t meant to kill us.”
Luca looked at Enzo.
“Explain.”
“If Moretti wanted you dead, that hallway was a bad place to try. Too many exits for our people to cover. Too predictable.”
Emma frowned.
“So what did they want?”
Enzo pointed toward the notebook.
“To see what we found.”
Luca’s expression darkened.
“Or to make us move the evidence.”
Emma understood.
“So they can follow it.”
Enzo nodded.
“Exactly.”
Luca looked toward his security chief.
“Everything stays here.”
“No.”
Emma spoke immediately.
Everyone turned.
She pointed toward Daniel’s notes.
“My father wrote that no one person had all the evidence.”
“Yes,” Luca said.
“So this isn’t everything.”
“No.”
“Then we need to think like him.”
Luca watched her.
Emma walked toward the table.
“My father was a mechanic. He trusted systems he understood. Cars. Tools. Parts.”
She turned pages.
“He wouldn’t hide everything in bank boxes or secret apartments.”
Rosa wiped her eyes.
“He hated banks.”
Emma looked at her.
“Why?”
“Fees.”
Despite everything, Emma smiled.
“That sounds like Dad.”
She studied the final pages again.
Something bothered her.
Dates.
Vehicle identification numbers.
Repair codes.
Then she saw it.
“Wait.”
She took a pencil.
“Dad taught me his shorthand.”
Luca moved closer.
Emma pointed at several entries.
“R means repair. P means parts. W means warranty.”
She moved farther down.
“But these?”
Small letters appeared beside several dates.
S&R.
Luca looked at her.
“Sunrise and Rose?”
“No. The diner didn’t exist then.”
Emma stared.
Sunrise.
Her father’s garage.
Rose.
Rosa.
She looked at her mother.
“Did Dad ever call something Sunrise and Rose?”
Rosa went pale.
“Our cabin.”
“What cabin?”
“We had a small fishing cabin when you were little. Your father called it Sunrise because the porch faced east.”
“And Rose?”
Rosa touched her chest.
“He carved my name into the kitchen beam.”
Emma stood.
“Where?”
“We sold it after he died.”
“To whom?”
“I don’t remember.”
Luca was already reaching for his phone.
Then he stopped.
He looked at Emma.
She noticed.
“Do it.”
Within fifteen minutes, Enzo had the property records.
The cabin had changed owners twice.
It currently belonged to an investment company.
Luca read the name.
His expression hardened.
“Who owns it?” Emma asked.
He turned the screen.
Moretti Holdings LLC.
No one spoke.
Carlo Moretti had bought Daniel Carter’s old cabin six months earlier.
The same month someone rented the storage unit in Daniel’s name.
Emma felt cold.
“He wants us to go there.”
“Yes,” Luca said.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then we go.”
“No.”
Emma stared.
Luca stared back.
Sofia quietly left the room.
Enzo followed.
Rosa looked between them.
“I’m going to make tea.”
Within seconds, Emma and Luca were alone.
“That was coordinated,” Emma said.
“Our families have learned.”
“You said no.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because someone fired thirty rounds at us today.”
“Which is exactly why hiding here won’t solve anything.”
“I didn’t say hide.”
“You were thinking it loudly.”
Luca walked toward the window.
“Emma.”
“No. Explain it.”
He turned.
“I nearly watched you die today.”
His voice was quiet.
That stopped her.
Luca rarely raised his voice when truly afraid.
He became quieter.
“I heard the bullet hit the metal behind you.”
Emma remembered.
“I know.”
“For half a second, I thought it hit you.”
She swallowed.
“It didn’t.”
“That does not erase the half second.”
He looked at her.
“I can negotiate with enemies. I can plan for threats. I can put twenty men around this estate. I cannot negotiate with a bullet after it leaves a gun.”
Emma approached him.
“I’m scared too.”
“Then stay here.”
“No.”
Pain crossed his face.
She touched his hand.
“Being scared doesn’t mean you decide for me.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
He closed his fingers around hers.
“That is why I said no instead of locking the gates.”
Emma almost smiled.
“Progress.”
“Painful progress.”
“We go together.”
“With security.”
“Yes.”
“Body armor.”
She stared.
“Luca.”
“Body armor.”
“Fine.”
“Eight men.”
“Six.”
“Eight.”
“Seven.”
“Done.”
Emma narrowed her eyes.
“You agreed too fast.”
“I was going to take twelve.”
She hit his arm.
The cabin was ninety miles outside Chicago.
They arrived the following afternoon.
It stood near a quiet lake surrounded by pine trees.
Emma remembered almost nothing until she saw the porch.
Then memory returned violently.
Her father teaching her to fish.
Rosa burning marshmallows.
Rain on the metal roof.
Daniel carrying Emma inside after she fell asleep beside the fire.
She stopped beside the SUV.
Luca remained close.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Do you want to leave?”
“No.”
They entered.
Dust covered the furniture.
Someone had recently changed the locks.
Enzo opened them anyway.
Emma did not ask how.
The kitchen beam remained.
A carving was visible beneath layers of paint.
D + R
Emma touched it.
Her parents.
Her father had existed here.
Not as evidence.
Not as a victim.
As a husband.
As her dad.
She needed that reminder.
They searched for two hours.
Nothing.
Then Emma noticed the fireplace.
One brick was slightly darker.
She crouched.
“What?”
Luca asked.
“My father used to hide Christmas presents behind a loose brick.”
She pulled.
The brick moved.
Behind it was a metal box.
Enzo checked it.
Clear.
Emma opened it.
Inside were photographs.
A flash drive.
And a sealed letter.
The envelope read:
FOR EMMA.
Her hands shook.
She opened it.
The letter was dated three days before Daniel died.
Emmy,
If you ever read this, then I didn’t get the chance to explain.
Emma sat on the floor.
Luca crouched several feet away.
She continued.
You are going to be angry that I kept secrets. You should be. I told myself I was protecting you, but sometimes protection is just fear wearing a respectable coat.
Emma looked at Luca.
He stared back.
Neither commented.
There are dangerous men around us. Some wear criminal names. Some wear badges. Some sit behind desks. The worst one is Carlo Moretti because he understands that people will do terrible things if they believe they are protecting someone they love.
He tried to recruit me. I refused.
Then he threatened you.
Emma’s eyes filled.
I copied his records. I hid enough evidence to destroy him if necessary. But there is something you must know.
She stopped.
The next sentence changed everything.
Carlo Moretti is your uncle.
Emma stared.
No.
She read it again.
Luca moved closer.
“What?”
She handed him the letter.
He read.
His face became completely still.
Emma could barely hear herself.
“My mother doesn’t have a brother.”
Luca looked toward the cabin door.
“Rosa.”
They turned.
Rosa stood there.
She had arrived in the second SUV with Sofia despite being told to remain at the estate.
Her face confirmed the truth.
Emma stood.
“Mom?”
Rosa began crying.
“My name wasn’t always Carter.”
Emma felt the room tilt.
“What was it?”
Rosa looked at her daughter.
“Moretti.”
Emma could not speak.
“Carlo is my older brother.”
Luca stood slowly.
Sofia appeared behind Rosa.
She looked equally shocked.
Emma stared at her mother.
“You told me you had no family.”
“I told you I had no family left.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Carlo killed everyone I loved who tried to leave him.”
Emma went still.
Rosa stepped forward.
“I ran when I was nineteen. Daniel helped me disappear. We married. We built a life.”
She looked toward the letter.
“Then Carlo found us.”
Emma’s voice broke.
“And Dad?”
Rosa closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
The word was barely audible.
“I always believed Carlo killed him.”
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
Luca’s head snapped upward.
Enzo raised his weapon.
Everyone froze.
They had searched the cabin.
It was supposed to be empty.
Then a man’s voice came from the staircase.
“You always were smarter than people thought, Rosie.”
Rosa turned white.
A silver-haired man stepped into view.
He was in his late sixties.
Thin.
Elegant.
Calm.
Emma knew his face from the photograph.
Carlo Moretti.
He smiled at her.
“Hello, Emma.”
Seven Romano guards raised weapons.
Carlo did not appear concerned.
He looked at Luca.
“Your father used to bring more men.”
Luca’s voice was ice.
“My father thought you were dead.”
“So did most people.”
Carlo descended one step.
Emma stared at the man who might have murdered her father.
Her uncle.
Her blood.
Carlo looked at her as though she were something precious.
“That photograph did exactly what I hoped.”
Emma’s stomach tightened.
“You sent it.”
“Yes.”
“The storage unit?”
“Yes.”
“The gunmen?”
Carlo smiled.
“A test.”
Luca moved slightly in front of Emma.
Carlo laughed.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The Romano instinct.”
His eyes moved between them.
“Possession disguised as protection.”
Emma stepped beside Luca.
Not behind him.
Carlo noticed.
His smile faded slightly.
“Interesting.”
Emma looked directly at him.
“Did you kill my father?”
Silence.
Rosa began trembling.
Carlo studied Emma.
Then he smiled again.
“No.”
Emma’s breath caught.
May you like
Carlo looked toward Luca.
“His father did.”
