The Road Where Matteo Died
Chapter 06 - The Road Where Matteo Died
The Lakeshore turnout had no lights.
Only the black sweep of water beyond the guardrail and the cold shine of Chicago far behind them.
Wind came off the lake with teeth.
Julia sat in the SUV, both hands clenched in her lap, while Luca stepped out with the cassette tape in his coat pocket and a gun hidden beneath his jacket.
He had not come alone, though Vanessa had demanded it.
Men like Luca understood the difference between obedience and theater.
Marco’s team waited beyond sight, scattered in the dark like shadows with pulses. Julia knew because Luca had told her. She did not know where. She did not want to know. It frightened her how quickly her standards had changed.
Hours ago, she had been afraid of losing a job.
Now she was sitting inside a mafia boss’s armored car, praying his hidden men could save her father from his fiancée.
Luca opened her door.
“Stay behind me.”
“You keep saying that.”
“You keep ignoring it.”
She stepped onto the wet gravel.
Ahead, a single car waited with its headlights off.
Vanessa stood beside it in a wool coat thrown over her red gown. Her hair had loosened in the wind, but somehow she still looked composed. Some women unraveled. Vanessa sharpened.
Edward Bennett stood beside her.
Julia’s heart broke at the sight of him.
He was thinner than he pretended to be. His gray hair was flattened on one side, his cardigan buttoned wrong, his oxygen cannula hanging loose around his neck. A man Julia had always thought of as sturdy suddenly looked old under the moon.
“Dad.”
He turned.
“Julie.”
Vanessa held a small pistol at his side, low enough that from a distance it might have been a folded glove.
Luca stopped walking.
“Let him go.”
“Give me the tape.”
“You first.”
Vanessa smiled.
“You were always predictable when something touched the word family.”
“I was never predictable. You were just never close enough to matter.”
Her smile faltered.
Julia saw it and understood something. Vanessa had not only wanted money or access. She had wanted to be chosen by the man she had studied for years. Wanted to become indispensable. Wanted Luca Moretti to look at her and not see a weapon.
Maybe that was why hatred shone through the elegance.
“My mother was his wife,” Vanessa said.
Luca’s face did not change.
“I know.”
“Then you know Isabella stole him.”
“My mother married a liar. That is not theft.”
Vanessa’s hand tightened around the gun.
“My mother died with nothing while yours lived in that mansion.”
“Your mother sent you here to revenge her?”
“My mother sent me to collect what Antonio promised her.”
“The ledger?”
“The ledger, the accounts, the property titles—everything he hid under Isabella’s name after he got bored of us.”
Edward coughed hard.
Julia took a step.
Vanessa lifted the gun slightly.
“Stay.”
Luca’s voice dropped.
“You shoot him, you die here.”
Vanessa laughed.
“And if I don’t? What happens to me? You hand me to your men? Cancel the wedding? Pretend you were fooled by a woman and survive the humiliation?”
“You mistake humiliation for grief.”
“Oh, spare me Matteo’s ghost. Your sainted brother was going to destroy everything. He followed Antonio. He found my mother. He threatened to expose us all.”
Luca went very still.
“Us?”
Vanessa looked at Edward.
“Ask the driver.”
Julia turned to her father.
“Dad?”
Edward’s eyes filled.
“I didn’t know they meant to kill him.”
The words entered Julia slowly.
Not as meaning.
As impact.
“I was told to drive Mr. Matteo to the turnout,” Edward whispered. “Mr. Antonio said his son was drunk and needed to be kept out of sight until he calmed down. I believed him.”
Luca did not move.
“And then?”
“Another car came. Men got out. I heard arguing. Matteo shouted that he had copies. That he knew about Celia. About the girl.”
Vanessa lifted her chin.
“Me.”
Edward wiped his eyes with trembling fingers.
“I tried to leave. Antonio told me to stay in the car. Then there was a fight. Matteo ran. One of the men hit him. He fell near the road.”
Luca’s voice was barely audible.
“Was he alive?”
Edward broke.
“Yes.”
Julia covered her mouth.
Luca closed his eyes for one second.
Only one.
When he opened them, he looked older.
“My father put him in the car?”
Edward nodded.
“He told me to drive. Said we were taking him to a doctor. Then on Lakeshore, he grabbed the wheel.”
Vanessa watched Luca like she was feeding him poison by the spoon.
Edward sobbed.
“The car hit the barrier. I blacked out. When I woke, Matteo was dead and Antonio told me if I ever spoke, he would make sure my little girl disappeared from her crib.”
Julia could not breathe.
Her father looked at her.
“Julie, I’m sorry. I should have told someone.”
“You were scared,” she whispered.
“I was a coward.”
Luca took one step toward him.
Julia moved instinctively between them.
“Don’t.”
Luca stopped.
Her voice shook.
“He carried this for twenty-three years.”
“My brother carried it for the last five minutes of his life.”
“I know.”
“You don’t.”
“No,” she said, tears spilling now. “I don’t. But I know what it is to be trapped by someone more powerful than you. I know what fear does to the spine. It bends you until you think bending is the only way your family survives.”
The wind struck hard off the lake.
Luca looked at Edward.
Then at Julia.
Then at Vanessa.
“Where are the copies Matteo mentioned?”
Vanessa’s smile returned.
“That is why I need the tape.”
Luca reached into his coat and removed it.
Julia stared.
“Luca—”
He held it out.
Vanessa pushed Edward forward.
The exchange happened slowly.
Edward stumbled toward Julia.
Vanessa reached for the tape.
At the same moment, headlights burst from the dark.
Marco’s men moved.
Vanessa spun, gun raised.
A shot cracked through the night.
Julia screamed.
Luca shoved her down behind the SUV, covering her with his body as gravel sprayed beneath them.
More shouting.
Feet pounding.
Then silence.
When Julia lifted her head, Vanessa was on the ground, alive, furious, pinned beneath Marco’s knee.
The tape lay broken on the gravel.
Luca picked up the cracked plastic case.
Vanessa laughed breathlessly.
“You idiot. That was the only recording.”
Edward, trembling beside Julia, shook his head.
“No.”
Everyone looked at him.
Edward reached beneath his cardigan and pulled out a small digital recorder taped against his undershirt.
“I recorded tonight,” he said, voice breaking. “Every word.”
Vanessa’s face changed.
For the first time, she looked afraid.
Luca stared at Edward Bennett, the driver who had carried his family’s darkest truth for twenty-three years.
Then Julia saw red spreading across Luca’s sleeve.
The bullet had not missed.
May you like
It had struck him while he shielded her.
And as Luca swayed, Vanessa whispered from the gravel, “You still don’t know where Rosa hid the real proof.”
