Chapter 6 - THE GHOST IN THE SHADOWS
I stared in absolute shock.
Stepping out from the pitch-black hallway at the back of the shed was a tall, gaunt man. He wore a faded canvas jacket, and his face was pale and hollowed by sickness, but his eyes burned with a fierce, protective fire.
He walked with a heavy limp, favoring his right leg.
The woman holding the gun—Victoria, Vanessa’s twin sister—whirled around, her eyes wide with terror.
“Thomas?” she gasped, stumbling backward. “You… you’re dead! The hospital said you died!”
“I paid a nurse to forge the certificate,” Thomas said, his voice raspy but steady. “I knew you would come for the boys the moment you thought I was out of the way. I’ve been following you for three weeks, Victoria.”
He stepped forward, placing himself between the gun and little Lucas.
“Daddy!” Lucas cried, reaching out.
“I’ve got you, buddy,” Thomas whispered, without taking his eyes off Victoria.
My mind was reeling. Margaret had told us Vanessa left Thomas when he got sick. But Margaret hadn’t known there were twins. She had only known Vanessa.
“Your mother doesn’t know, does she?” I asked Victoria, my voice shaking. “Margaret thinks you’re Vanessa.”
Victoria let out a bitter, manic laugh. “My mother hasn’t seen me since I was fifteen and ran away to New York. She only knew the good twin. The boring twin. When Vanessa died in childbirth, I came to the hospital to claim her things. That’s when I found out she’d been sleeping with Antonio Moretti.”
She aimed the gun squarely at Thomas’s chest.
“I assumed her identity. I went to the Moretti family, pretending to be the grieving mother of Antonio’s unborn child, looking for a payout. But Luca…” Victoria’s eyes gleamed with greed. “Luca was so much better than Antonio. He was the head of the family. He felt so guilty about his brother’s death, he took me in. All I had to do was dump the twins with you, Thomas, and pretend I was a childless widow.”
“You monster,” Thomas coughed, clutching his chest. “You left your own flesh and blood to rot.”
“They’re not my flesh and blood!” Victoria shrieked. “They’re Vanessa’s mistakes!”
“Drop the gun, Victoria.”
The voice boomed from the doorway.
Luca stepped into the light. He held his weapon steady, his dark eyes locked on the woman who had shared his home, his life, and his bed for the past two years.
Victoria panicked. She grabbed Lucas by the collar, dragging the screaming boy in front of her as a shield, and pressed the barrel of her gun against his temple.
“Get back!” she screamed. “All of you! I’ll kill him! I swear to God I’ll kill him!”
Thomas let out an anguished cry and lunged forward, but his weak leg gave out, and he collapsed onto the dusty floorboards.
“Luca, let her go,” I pleaded, taking a step toward him. “Let her take the money and go. Don’t let her hurt the boy.”
Luca didn’t lower his gun. He looked at Victoria with a cold, terrifying emptiness.
“You think you’re smart, Victoria,” Luca said smoothly. “You think you played my family. But you made one critical mistake.”
Victoria tightened her grip on Lucas. “What mistake?”
“You assumed Antonio didn’t tell me about the affair.”
Victoria frowned. “What?”
“Antonio knew Vanessa was pregnant,” Luca said, taking one slow step into the room. “He knew she was having twins. And he knew she was married to Thomas. Antonio loved her, but he knew she chose her husband. He was paying for the boys’ medical care because he wanted them to have a good life.”
Luca’s eyes drifted from Victoria to the little boy trembling in her grip, and then, finally, to the silver pocket watch lying on the floor.
“He left that pocket watch for the boys the day he died,” Luca said softly. “It’s a Moretti heirloom.”
Victoria sneered. “Touching. But that doesn’t help you now. The money, Luca. Wire it. Or the kid dies.”
“I’m not wiring you anything,” Luca said. “Because you’re not leaving this shed.”
Before Victoria could react, a deafening crash shattered the back window of the shed.
Marco, Luca’s massive head of security, swung through the broken glass on a rope, slamming boots-first into Victoria’s back.
She screamed as she was thrown forward, the gun flying from her hand and skittering across the floor.
I dove for Lucas, snatching the terrified boy into my arms and shielding his body with my own as Marco pinned Victoria to the ground.
She thrashed and clawed, screaming curses, but Marco snapped zip-ties onto her wrists with brutal efficiency.
Thomas pulled himself up from the floor, tears streaming down his gaunt face, and wrapped his arms around me and Lucas.
“Thank you,” he sobbed into his son’s hair. “Thank you.”
I looked up at Luca. He had lowered his weapon and was staring at the reunited father and son. For the first time since I’d met him, the mafia boss looked completely devastated.
He walked over and picked up the silver pocket watch from the floor. He wiped the dust from the glass face and held it tightly in his fist.
“Let’s go home,” Luca said quietly.
But as we turned to leave the shed, a low, mechanical rumbling sound began to vibrate through the floorboards.
Victoria, pinned to the ground, started laughing. A wet, hacking sound that chilled me to the bone.
“You think you won?” she spat, her face pressed against the dirty floor.
I looked down at her. “It’s over, Victoria.”
She grinned, revealing bloodstained teeth. “I didn’t just call you here for a ransom, Luca. I knew you’d track me. I knew you’d bring your security.”
The rumbling grew louder. The walls of the shed began to shake.
“Thomas didn’t just maintain these sheds,” Victoria hissed. “He used to store the demolition explosives here for the city.”
Luca’s head snapped toward the corner of the room. Hidden beneath a pile of moldy burlap sacks was a blinking red light.
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And a timer.
It read: 00:14.
