Chapter 8 - THE GRIP OF A MOTHER
My blood turned to ice.
“Nico,” I whispered, the name tearing from my throat.
Matteo lunged, kicking the detonator from his mother’s failing grip. It clattered across the wet concrete. But it was too late. The red light on the device was already blinking in a steady, rhythmic pulse. A countdown.
Constanza coughed, a terrible rattling breath leaving her lungs. She looked at me, her eyes clouded with hate and fading life.
“You think you saved them, Elena,” she whispered. “But you can only have one. The timer is set for ten minutes. You’ll never make it back.”
Her eyes rolled back, and she went still. The architect of my destruction was dead.
But there was no relief. Only blind, suffocating panic.
“Matteo!” I screamed, grabbing his blood-soaked shirt. “Nico is in the boathouse! Luca took him there!”
Matteo was already moving. He scooped Mia into his arms. The little girl buried her face in his neck, traumatized into silence.
“To the car!” Matteo roared at the surviving capos. “Move! Move!”
We sprinted to the stolen sedan. Matteo threw me the keys. “You drive. I can’t steer with this shoulder.”
I jumped into the driver’s seat. Matteo and Mia piled into the back. I slammed the car into gear, the tires screaming against the asphalt as we fishtailed out of the pier.
“Call Luca!” I yelled over the roar of the engine. I merged onto the highway, slamming the pedal to the floor. The speedometer climbed past ninety. A hundred.
Matteo fumbled with his satellite phone, his bloody fingers slipping on the keys. He put it on speaker.
It rang once. Twice.
“Boss,” Luca’s gruff voice answered.
“Luca, get out of the boathouse!” Matteo bellowed. “It’s rigged! Run!”
There was a heavy pause on the line.
“I can’t, Boss,” Luca said, his voice terrifyingly calm. “The steel blast doors triggered when we walked in. It’s a dead-drop lock. We’re trapped inside.”
I swerved around a semi-truck, my knuckles bone-white on the steering wheel. “Luca, what do you mean trapped? Break the glass!”
“Bulletproof, Elena,” Luca replied. In the background, I could hear Nico crying. “There’s a digital keypad on the inside of the door. It’s asking for an override code. If I guess wrong, the detonator on the door triggers immediately.”
“I don’t know the code!” Matteo shouted, despair cracking his voice. “My mother built that system. I never used it.”
“Seven minutes,” Luca said softly. “Nico is being brave, Boss. I’ve got him behind the engine block of the boat. It might absorb some of the blast.”
“It won’t absorb C4,” Matteo choked out, a tear sliding down his face. He looked at me in the rearview mirror. “Elena. I’m going to lose him.”
“No,” I snapped. My mind was racing, shuffling through the fractured pieces of my memories.
Constanza hated me.
She built the system to protect her secrets.
She was obsessed with the Bellandi legacy.
“Five minutes,” I said, calculating the distance. “We’re five minutes away. Keep him on the line.”
I drove like a madwoman. We tore through the iron gates of the Bellandi estate, drifting across the manicured lawns, tearing up grass and mud. I slammed on the brakes fifty yards from the stone boathouse.
We leaped out of the car. Matteo carried Mia, who was clutching my leg the second we hit the ground.
We ran to the boathouse. The heavy steel blast doors were sealed shut. Through the reinforced glass window, I could see Nico huddled on the floor, his hands over his ears, and Luca standing by the door, staring at a flashing red keypad.
The timer on the keypad read: 01:45.
“Luca!” I screamed, pressing my hands against the glass. Nico looked up, his face streaked with tears.
“Mommy!” his muffled voice came through the thick glass.
“Elena, you have to get back,” Luca yelled through the intercom on the wall. “If it blows, it’ll take you out too.”
“I’m not leaving my son!” I screamed back.
I stared at the keypad. Six digits.
Constanza’s final words echoed in my mind. Ask your wife what she did to your sister.
Wait. That was a memory from before the crash. My sister.
I didn’t have a sister.
Did I?
A sudden, violent flash of memory hit me so hard my knees buckled.
I wasn’t an only child. I had a younger sister. Clara. Constanza had found out Clara was in debt to a rival family. Constanza paid the debt, but took Clara as collateral. She locked her in the boathouse to ensure my compliance.
I had begged Constanza to let her go. Constanza had laughed and whispered a number in my ear.
“The date,” I gasped, looking at Matteo. “Matteo, what day did your father die?”
Matteo looked confused, panicked. “What? October 12th, 1999. Why?”
“Constanza killed him,” I said rapidly, tears streaming down my face. “She considered it her greatest triumph. The day she took the throne. It’s her master password. I know it is.”
The timer ticked down. 00:45.
“Luca!” I pressed the intercom. “Type it in! 1-0-1-2-9-9!”
Luca hesitated. His hand hovered over the keypad. “If it’s wrong, Elena—”
“DO IT!” Matteo roared.
Inside, Luca typed the numbers.
1 - 0 - 1 - 2 - 9 - 9.
The timer froze at 00:12.
A heavy, mechanical clunk echoed off the stone walls. The red light turned green.
The heavy steel doors slowly hissed open.
Nico didn’t wait. He scrambled out from behind the boat and sprinted through the gap.
I dropped to my knees, opening my arms.
Nico slammed into my chest, knocking me backward into the wet grass. He buried his face in my neck, sobbing uncontrollably.
“I got you,” I cried, kissing his hair, his face, pulling him so tight I thought we might fuse together. “I got you, baby. Mommy’s here. I’m never leaving again.”
Matteo dropped to his knees beside us, wrapping his massive arms around me, Nico, and Mia.
May you like
We were a tangled mess of blood, rain, and tears. But we were alive.
And for the first time in four years, the Bellandi family was whole.
