Chapter 8 - What Sophia SawDante felt the bullet pass beside his shoulder.
Behind him, one of Vittorio’s gunmen collapsed.
Isabella fired again.
Chaos erupted.
Elena pulled Sophia behind a concrete pillar.
Nico returned fire.
Mateo knocked out the basement lights.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Dante reached Vittorio before the old man could escape.
They crashed against the stairs.
Vittorio was sixty-seven, but rage had kept him strong.
He struck Dante across the jaw.
Dante drove him into the wall.
“You took a child.”
“Your father took mine!”
“So you became him?”
That stopped Vittorio for half a second.
Enough.
Dante disarmed him.
Sirens approached outside.
Vittorio heard them.
His face changed.
“You called the government?”
“Yes.”
“You fool.”
“Probably.”
“You’ll lose everything.”
Dante looked toward Elena and Sophia.
“No.”
The basement doors burst open.
Federal agents flooded the building.
Within minutes, it was over.
Vittorio was arrested.
His surviving men surrendered.
Nico placed his own weapon on the floor before Rebecca Shaw reached him.
“You too?” she asked.
Nico nodded.
“I helped them access the estate.”
Dante looked at him.
Nico did not ask for protection.
Good.
Accountability had to cost something.
Outside, dawn began turning the horizon gray.
Sophia sat wrapped in Dante’s coat.
She looked tiny inside it.
Dante crouched.
“You okay?”
She nodded.
“The angry man is very grumpy.”
Dante glanced toward Vittorio being loaded into a federal vehicle.
“Yes.”
Sophia touched the bruise on Dante’s jaw.
“He hit you.”
“Yes.”
“You should tell his mommy.”
Dante almost smiled.
“She’s been dead a long time.”
Sophia considered that.
“Then tell God.”
Elena laughed through tears.
It was the first sound of relief any of them had made.
Then Sophia looked at Isabella.
“Miss Isabella?”
Isabella approached carefully.
Sophia frowned.
“You did steal the bird.”
“Yes.”
“Stealing is bad.”
“Yes.”
“Mommy says you have to give things back.”
Isabella looked at Dante.
“I intend to.”
But Sophia shook her head.
“Not the bird.”
Everyone looked at her.
“What?” Dante asked.
Sophia pointed at Isabella’s handbag.
“The little black book.”
Isabella froze.
Dante’s eyes moved toward the bag.
“What black book?”
Sophia answered.
“The one she took from the angry man.”
Isabella slowly closed her eyes.
Dante held out his hand.
“Isabella.”
She removed a leather notebook.
Vittorio’s ledger.
Names.
Payments.
Dates.
Judges.
Police.
Politicians.
And Moretti operations Dante himself had never known existed.
Rebecca took one look.
“This could put half the organization away.”
Dante met her eyes.
“Then do it.”
Isabella stared.
“Dante.”
“You wanted the truth.”
“Yes.”
“So did I.”
Rebecca turned pages.
Then stopped.
“Interesting.”
“What?”
She held up the book.
“There’s an entry from six years ago.”
Dante looked.
A payment.
$250,000.
Recipient: N. Bellandi.
Nico.
Dante turned toward him.
Nico’s face showed genuine confusion.
“I never received that.”
Rebecca looked closer.
The payment description contained two words.
VASQUEZ GIRL.
Elena went still.
“What does that mean?”
Mateo stared at the page.
Then his face drained.
“Elena.”
She looked at him.
“What?”
Mateo whispered:
May you like
“You weren’t supposed to survive.”
And suddenly the kidnapping was no longer the first time someone had tried to erase Elena Vasquez.
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