Chapter 13 - THE WOMAN THEY UNDERESTIMATED
Gunfire started outside.
Daniel shouted orders.
I pushed Beatrice down.
Isabella pulled Luca behind a concrete wall.
Lorenzo laughed.
“He found you.”
I grabbed him by the collar.
“How?”
“I didn't tell him.”
“Then who?”
Daniel rushed inside.
“Perimeter camera was hacked.”
Beatrice suddenly touched her necklace.
Her face changed.
“What?”
“The pendant.”
I looked at it.
Small silver cross.
“Hospital gave my belongings back.”
Daniel ripped it from her neck.
Inside the clasp was a tracker.
Vincent had planted it before she left the hospital.
Probably through a nurse he owned.
“Move!”
We descended into the storm shelter beneath the property.
Vincent’s men breached the front doors.
The ledger was with us.
So were copies.
That mattered more.
Daniel opened a hidden tunnel leading fifty yards into the woods.
Isabella went first.
Beatrice followed.
Luca stayed.
“I’m not running again.”
“You're not.”
I gave him a rifle.
Lorenzo stared at me.
“You trust him with that?”
“He's my brother.”
Something painful crossed Lorenzo's face.
Too late.
We escaped through the tunnel.
A second vehicle waited near the highway.
Once inside, Beatrice opened her coat.
The original red ledger was gone.
My blood froze.
“Where is it?”
She smiled faintly.
“Safe.”
“Beatrice.”
“I put it somewhere Vincent will never find.”
“Where?”
“With the police.”
Silence.
Lorenzo laughed.
I stared at her.
“You did what?”
“Before I came to the safe house, I mailed copies to the FBI, the Illinois Attorney General, and three newspapers.”
Daniel covered a smile.
I couldn't believe it.
“You just exposed half the organization.”
“Yes.”
“You exposed me.”
“Yes.”
Luca started laughing.
I turned.
“This is funny?”
“A little.”
Beatrice looked at me.
“You said you wanted to end what Vincent built.”
“I did.”
“Well, congratulations.”
She adjusted the bandage under her coat.
“It’s ending.”
My phone erupted with notifications.
News alerts.
Search warrants.
Arrests.
Financial accounts frozen.
One headline mentioned Vincent Moretti by name.
Another mentioned Vale-controlled companies.
My empire was collapsing in real time.
And strangely—
I felt lighter.
Lorenzo looked sick.
“You destroyed everything.”
Beatrice looked at him.
“No.”
She nodded toward Luca.
“I saved what mattered.”
Then Daniel's phone rang.
His face hardened.
“What?”
He looked at me.
“Vincent’s at your mansion.”
“My house?”
“He took staff hostage.”
Beatrice went pale.
There were eleven workers at the estate.
Cooks.
Cleaners.
Drivers.
People with families.
Daniel continued.
“He says he wants Adrian and Luca.”
“Of course.”
“And he has one more hostage.”
I waited.
Daniel looked at Isabella.
“Your son.”
She stopped breathing.
“No.”
Her twelve-year-old boy, Michael, had been staying with a friend.
Apparently not anymore.
Isabella screamed.
I caught her.
Daniel turned his phone toward me.
Live video.
Vincent stood in my dining room.
Michael knelt beside him.
A gun pressed against the boy’s head.
May you like
Vincent smiled into the camera.
“Bring me the brothers.”
