Chapter 5
The alarm screamed through the building.
Red lights flashed.
Doors opened down the hall.
People shouted.
The three men hesitated.
That second saved us.
Enzo moved first.
He slammed one attacker into the wall.
Matteo drove another backward before the man could reach inside his coat.
Clara grabbed my arm and shoved me toward the stairwell.
“Run.”
I did.
My back burned with every step.
David followed, cursing and stumbling.
I hated that he was behind me.
I hated more that he was scared enough to be useful.
Clara kept one hand on my elbow as we went down.
“Do not stop.”
“What about Matteo?”
“He knows how to survive.”
On the fourth floor, a man burst through the stairwell door.
I froze.
David shoved me aside and took the hit meant for me.
He crashed into the railing with a grunt.
The man grabbed my wrist.
Pain ripped through my back.
I screamed.
Then Clara struck him across the throat with the metal end of her cane.
He dropped.
I stared at her.
She grabbed my sleeve.
“I said run.”
We made it to the garage.
Matteo’s men were already there.
A black SUV rolled up.
Clara pushed me inside.
David climbed in after me, holding his ribs.
I moved away from him.
He winced.
“Fair.”
The SUV shot into traffic.
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photo appeared.
Leo.
At school.
Playing on a playground.
My heart stopped.
Another message.
Give us Sofia’s bloodline or the boy pays for your courage.
I screamed for Matteo.
He answered Clara’s phone before the second ring.
“I know,” he said.
His voice was colder than winter.
“Leo’s school is already locked down. He is safe.”
I sobbed.
“I brought this to him.”
“No,” Matteo said. “They brought it. You exposed it.”
But guilt is stubborn.
It sits in your chest even when truth tells it to leave.
We went to a house outside the city.
Not a mansion.
A fortress pretending to be one.
Leo arrived thirty minutes later in another SUV.
He ran straight to Matteo, then saw me and changed direction.
“Ava!”
He hugged my waist carefully.
I cried into his hair.
“I’m sorry.”
He pulled back.
“For what?”
“For all this.”
He frowned like I had said the sky was underground.
“You saved me. Bad people are bad because of them.”
Six years old.
Wiser than half the world.
Matteo looked at him.
“Go with Nina.”
Leo obeyed, but not before handing me his dinosaur.
“For brave.”
I held it like a medal.
That night, Clara spread the papers across a long table.
Birth records.
A ledger.
Photos.
Old newspaper clippings.
The truth formed slowly.
My grandmother, Rose, had been born Rosalina Moretti, daughter of Sofia Moretti.
Sofia had testified against the Varrano family and disappeared with her child.
Lorenzo De Luca, Matteo’s uncle, had helped them escape.
He hid records proving Varrano crimes and accounts.
When Lorenzo died, the Varranos searched for anyone who could legally unlock his sealed trust.
Sofia’s bloodline.
Me.
I stared at the documents.
“I don’t want money.”
Clara looked at me.
“This is not about wanting. This is about leverage.”
Matteo stood at the end of the table.
“If Ava is confirmed as Rose’s granddaughter, she can petition to unseal Lorenzo’s archive.”
David sat bruised near the wall.
“That archive can bury Varrano.”
“And others,” Clara said.
Matteo’s face hardened.
“What others?”
Clara opened the ledger.
Names filled the page.
Not only rivals.
Judges.
Politicians.
Police captains.
And one name that made Matteo go still.
Marco De Luca.
His father.
The room froze.
Matteo took the ledger.
His hands did not shake.
But something in his face broke.
“My father was on their payroll?”
Clara’s voice softened.
“It appears he paid Varrano for safe passage after the purge.”
Matteo slammed the ledger shut.
Leo’s laughter drifted from another room.
Small.
Alive.
Matteo looked toward the sound.
Then back at me.
“My family’s sins nearly killed my son and carved up your back.”
I did not know what to say.
He turned to his men.
“Find every living person in that ledger.”
Clara stepped closer.
“And Ava?”
Matteo looked at me.
“She decides whether to open the archive.”
Everyone looked at me.
For years, nobody asked what I decided.
They took.
They left.
They used.
Now the most dangerous man in the room waited for my answer.
I looked at Leo’s dinosaur in my hand.
May you like
Then at my grandmother’s ring.
“Open it,” I said.
