Clara’s eyes became hard.
“Salvatore Moretti is alive.”
Luca laughed once.
It was the ugliest sound I had ever heard.
“I buried him.”
“You buried a body.”
“I identified him.”
“A burned body with dental records provided by his personal physician.”
Luca stared.
Clara continued.
“He disappeared because federal investigators were getting too close. He rebuilt quietly. New names. New partners. New money.”
“Why?”
“Because he never intended to leave the empire to you.”
Luca’s face became dangerously calm.
“Where is he?”
Clara looked toward the far warehouse.
“Watching.”
A gunshot cracked.
Matteo collapsed.
Chaos erupted.
Luca pulled me behind a container.
Enzo fired toward the warehouse.
Clara’s men scattered.
Greg dropped flat.
More shots exploded across the pier.
A bullet tore through the metal inches from my shoulder.
“Stay down!” Luca shouted.
Then I heard a child crying.
Impossible.
But unmistakable.
Leo.
My blood froze.
Luca heard it too.
Every trace of color vanished from his face.
“No.”
From the far end of the pier, a man emerged carrying Leo.
Old.
Broad.
Gray hair combed back.
One hand held the baby.
The other held a pistol against his tiny ribs.
Luca stopped moving.
“Father.”
Salvatore Moretti smiled.
Leo cried and reached toward me.
Again.
Just like Table Twelve.
Both hands.
Desperate.
“Give me the girl,” Salvatore said.
Luca raised his gun.
“I will kill you.”
“And shoot through your son?”
Luca’s arm lowered.
I stepped from behind the container.
“No,” Luca snapped.
Salvatore smiled at me.
“There she is.”
I stared at the man who had destroyed my mother’s life.
“My mother said you sold her children.”
Clara appeared from the opposite side, gun raised.
“Because he did.”
Salvatore laughed.
“I arranged adoptions.”
“You sold babies,” Clara hissed.
“Families paid for discretion.”
Luca looked at her.
“Children?”
Clara’s eyes filled.
“Avery was not my only child.”
I thought of Elena.
“Oh God.”
Clara nodded.
“Elena was born three years after you.”
My knees nearly gave out.
My sister.
Leo’s mother.
Luca’s face emptied.
“You knew?”
“Not until years later.”
Salvatore smiled.
“And by then it was amusing.”
Luca looked sick.
“You knew Elena was Clara’s daughter when I met her.”
“Yes.”
“You let me—”
“You were not related by blood closely enough for it to concern me.”
Luca lunged.
Salvatore pressed the gun harder against Leo.
The baby screamed.
“Careful.”
Everything stopped.
Then Salvatore looked at me.
“Take off your necklace.”
My hand rose.
“Why?”
“Because inside the second panel is something your mother stole from me twenty-seven years ago.”
I frowned.
“There is no second panel.”
He smiled.
“There is.”
I opened the pendant.
Behind the photograph was a metal plate.
I pressed it.
A tiny compartment popped free.
Inside was a sliver of black plastic.
A memory card.
Clara stared.
“I thought it was lost.”
“What is it?”
“Records,” she whispered.
“Names. Payments. Politicians. Judges. Police officers. Every child he sold. Every family that bought one. Every murder used to hide it.”
Salvatore’s smile vanished.
“Give it to me.”
I looked at Leo.
Ten months old.
Terrified.
My nephew.
The child who had somehow recognized my face before I recognized his.
I pulled out the memory card.
Luca whispered, “Avery, don’t.”
I looked at Salvatore.
“You want this?”
“Yes.”
I held it up.
Then snapped it in half.
Salvatore fired.
