Chapter 9 - The Night the Moretti Estate BurnedEmergency lights turned the hallways red.
Sophie immediately found Isabella.
Jenny was already with her.
“Safe room.”
Sophie ordered.
Jenny nodded.
Toby appeared carrying a handgun.
Sophie stared.
“Where did you get that?”
“Silas.”
“I’m going to kill him.”
“Can we postpone that?”
A window shattered.
“Fine.”
Lorenzo and Silas coordinated defenses downstairs.
Gabriel had brought approximately twenty armed men.
But he had also brought something worse.
Fire.
Molotov cocktails struck the east wing.
Flames climbed curtains.
Smoke spread across the ceiling.
Sophie remembered the first time she had entered the mansion.
Cold marble.
Empty walls.
A mausoleum.
Now it was home.
And someone was burning it.
She guided Isabella toward the underground safe room.
Then Isabella stopped.
“My photographs.”
“No.”
“My Mateo.”
“Isabella, we have to go.”
“My Mateo!”
She turned toward her bedroom.
Sophie caught her.
“Listen to me.”
Isabella struggled.
“The photographs!”
“I’ll get them.”
“Sophie!”
Toby shouted.
But Sophie was already running.
Smoke filled the stairs.
She covered her mouth with her sleeve.
The bedroom door was burning.
She kicked it open.
Flames crawled along one wall.
The wedding photograph remained above the fireplace.
Sophie grabbed it.
Then heard coughing.
“Help!”
Jenny.
Sophie turned.
The hallway ceiling had collapsed.
Jenny was trapped beneath a wooden beam.
Sophie dropped the photograph.
She tried lifting the beam.
Too heavy.
“Go!”
Jenny coughed.
“Leave me!”
“No.”
Sophie pulled again.
Nothing.
Then Toby appeared.
“Soph!”
“I told you to go!”
“And I ignored you.”
Together they lifted.
Jenny crawled free.
A section of ceiling collapsed behind them.
They ran.
Downstairs, the battle had reached the foyer.
Lorenzo fired from behind a marble column.
Silas covered the eastern entrance.
Gabriel’s men pushed inside.
Then Lorenzo heard Sophie.
“Toby!”
He turned.
Sophie, Toby, and Jenny emerged through smoke.
Relief struck him.
Then Gabriel appeared behind them.
He grabbed Sophie.
Again.
The pistol pressed against her head.
Everything stopped.
“Drop them.”
Gabriel smiled.
Lorenzo lowered his gun.
Silas did the same.
Gabriel looked around the burning mansion.
“This should have been mine.”
Lorenzo stared at him.
“That’s what this was about?”
“It belonged to my brother.”
“Exactly.”
Gabriel’s face twisted.
“He was younger.”
There it was.
Not ideology.
Not business.
Jealousy.
Decades of it.
“He got everything.”
Gabriel tightened his grip on Sophie.
“The family. The house. Isabella. Respect.”
Sophie looked toward Isabella.
The older woman had emerged from the safe-room corridor.
“Gabriel.”
He froze.
Isabella walked forward.
Her nightgown moved in the hot air.
“Isabella, stay back.”
Lorenzo warned.
She ignored him.
Gabriel stared at her.
“You.”
Isabella’s eyes were unusually clear.
“You were always jealous.”
Gabriel’s expression changed.
“Mateo loved you.”
“Yes.”
“He chose you.”
“Yes.”
“I could have given you more.”
“No.”
The simplicity of her answer wounded him.
Isabella continued.
“You never understood Mateo.”
Gabriel laughed bitterly.
“He was weak.”
“No.”
She looked toward Lorenzo.
“He knew family was not what you owned.”
Then toward Sophie.
“It was who you protected.”
Gabriel’s gun shifted.
Sophie felt it.
A fraction away from her temple.
Enough.
She stomped backward onto Gabriel’s foot.
Then dropped.
Silas fired.
The bullet struck Gabriel’s shoulder.
Lorenzo crossed the distance.
He hit Gabriel once.
Twice.
Three times.
Gabriel fell.
Lorenzo stood above him.
The house burned around them.
Gabriel laughed through blood.
“Do it.”
Lorenzo raised his gun.
“Kill me.”
Sophie stood.
“Lorenzo.”
Gabriel smiled.
“Show her what you are.”
Lorenzo’s finger rested on the trigger.
Sophie approached.
“Look at me.”
He did.
“If you kill him now, he wins.”
“He murdered my father.”
“I know.”
“He threatened you.”
“I know.”
“He took Toby.”
“I know.”
Lorenzo’s hand shook.
Sophie touched his wrist.
“But you are not him.”
For several seconds, Lorenzo did not move.
Then he lowered the gun.
Sirens sounded beyond the gates.
Not police.
Fire engines.
Ambulances.
Federal vehicles.
Sophie stared.
Silas smiled faintly.
“I made calls.”
Lorenzo looked at him.
“What calls?”
“The kind you’re going to yell about later.”
Federal agents entered the estate.
Gabriel was arrested.
This time publicly.
There would be no private prison.
No secret revenge.
Evidence from Mateo’s ledgers had been copied before Gabriel stole them.
The copies had been delivered to federal prosecutors through attorneys.
Names would fall.
Judges.
Politicians.
Police officers.
Traffickers.
Criminal organizations.
Including parts of the Moretti empire.
Lorenzo knew what that meant.
“You gave them everything?”
he asked Silas.
“No.”
Sophie answered.
Lorenzo looked at her.
“I did.”
Silence.
“When?”
“Before Gabriel took me.”
Lorenzo stared.
“I photographed several pages when we first found the ledgers.”
“You sent them to federal authorities?”
“Through an attorney.”
“Without telling me?”
“Yes.”
Anger flashed across his face.
Then Sophie stepped closer.
“Those ledgers contained names of children.”
That stopped him.
“People being sold.”
Her voice shook.
“I could live beside a criminal, Lorenzo.”
She looked directly into his eyes.
“I could not become someone who protected monsters.”
The burning house cracked behind them.
Lorenzo looked toward it.
Then toward Gabriel being placed into a federal vehicle.
Finally, he looked at Sophie.
“What happens to my organization?”
“Maybe it changes.”
“And if it can’t?”
“Then maybe it deserves to end.”
Silas looked away.
Toby held his breath.
Everyone waited.
Lorenzo Moretti had spent his entire life building an empire.
Sophie had just told him to consider destroying it.
He looked at the burning mansion.
The house his father had owned.
The empire his uncle had killed for.
The inheritance that had nearly destroyed everyone he loved.
Then Lorenzo began laughing.
Quietly.
Exhaustedly.
Sophie frowned.
“What?”
“You.”
“What about me?”
“You walked into my life carrying champagne.”
He shook his head.
“And somehow you’re dismantling organized crime.”
“I’m efficient.”
Lorenzo pulled her against him.
The mansion burned behind them.
“We’re going to need a new house.”
Sophie rested her head against his chest.
“Something smaller.”
“No.”
“Lorenzo.”
“I have limits.”
She laughed.
Then kissed him.
Behind them, dawn began turning the Chicago sky gray.
The Moretti estate burned until sunrise.
May you like
But everyone Sophie loved walked away alive.
And sometimes, she would later realize, losing a house was the price of finally finding a home.
