Chapter 6 - The Traitor
The floodlight cast long, monstrous shadows across the wet pavement.
Rocco stood in the doorway of the shipping container, holding Mia tightly against his chest. His other hand held a suppressed pistol, aimed directly at my back.
The breath was knocked out of me.
Rocco.
My oldest lieutenant. The man who had trained me. The man who had driven me here tonight, pretending to be my backup.
He was the one who had taken Mia from the house.
Vivien let out a breathless, cruel laugh. She closed her umbrella and tossed it aside.
“Did you really think I would trust a ghost like Marco to handle the heavy lifting?” Vivien sneered, walking toward Rocco. “You’re smart, Lorenzo, but you’re arrogant. You thought your empire was loyal to you.”
I stared at Rocco. The betrayal cut deeper than any knife.
“Why, Rocco?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper over the falling rain.
Rocco didn’t look me in the eye. He looked at the ground.
“Your father built this family, Lorenzo,” Rocco said gruffly. “But he got soft at the end. Paying off Marco. Hiding secrets. You’re just like him. You wanted to legitimize the business. You wanted to go straight.”
Rocco raised his eyes, and the loyalty I had relied on for ten years was gone. Replaced by pure, calculating greed.
“Vivien understands what this city needs,” Rocco continued. “Fear. Power. The old ways. She promised me the seat at her right hand.”
Marco stood frozen, realizing he was the odd man out in this equation.
“You used me,” Marco growled at Vivien, gripping his gun tighter.
“Oh, Marco, don’t be dramatic,” Vivien sighed, waving a dismissive hand. “I needed a boogeyman to scare Lorenzo. And I needed someone to take the blame for the massacre that’s about to happen here tonight.”
She turned to Rocco. “Kill the brother first. Then the maid.”
Mia started to cry, burying her face in Rocco’s shoulder.
“Don’t hurt her,” Elena screamed, struggling against her zip ties in the mud. “Take me! Leave my daughter alone!”
“Shut up,” Vivien snapped. She looked at Rocco. “Do it!”
Rocco raised his gun, aiming at Marco.
Marco, cornered and desperate, raised his own weapon.
“I told you to wait for my signal, Rocco,” I said loudly, my voice cutting through the panic.
Everyone froze.
Vivien frowned. “What?”
I looked directly at Rocco.
And Rocco lowered his gun.
He didn’t point it at Marco. He didn’t point it at me.
He gently set Mia down on the ground, shielding her with his body.
Then, Rocco raised his weapon and aimed it squarely at Vivien’s chest.
Vivien gasped, stumbling backward. “What are you doing? I’m paying you three million dollars!”
Rocco spat into the mud. “I’ve been with the Duca family for thirty years, lady. You think you can buy me out from under my Don in three months?”
I took a slow breath, letting the tension leave my shoulders.
I had known Rocco was the leak since this afternoon. When Mia had shown me the conversation between Vivien and Elena, I had asked myself one question: How did Vivien get Elena into the house in the first place?
Rocco handled all background checks. Rocco vetted the staff.
Vivien couldn’t have planted Elena without Rocco’s help.
So, I had played him. I gave him the bank accounts. I let him find the locket. I fed him the exact information I needed him to report back to Vivien, drawing them both out into the open.
“You set me up,” Vivien whispered, her eyes wide with terror as she looked at me.
“I protect my house, Vivien,” I said coldly.
Marco, realizing the shift in power, let out a wild laugh. He pointed his gun at Vivien.
“Looks like the Queen is dead,” Marco sneered.
“Drop the gun, Marco,” I warned him. “It’s over.”
“It’s not over until I get what’s mine!” Marco shouted, his finger tightening on the trigger.
He fired.
But he didn’t aim at Vivien.
He aimed at me.
The gunshot echoed like thunder in the empty shipyard.
I felt a blinding, white-hot pain tear through my left shoulder. The force spun me around, and I hit the wet pavement hard.
“Lorenzo!” Elena screamed.
Rocco fired twice.
Marco grunted as the bullets hit his chest. He staggered backward, dropping his gun, and collapsed onto the muddy ground, staring up at the rain.
I pressed my hand to my shoulder. Blood poured through my fingers, warm and thick.
Vivien didn’t hesitate. Seeing the chaos, she turned and sprinted into the darkness of the shipping containers, her high heels clicking frantically against the concrete.
Rocco started to run after her.
“Let her go,” I gasped, struggling to sit up.
Rocco stopped, looking back at me. “Boss, she’ll run to the police.”
“She has nothing to run with,” I gritted my teeth against the pain. “Her accounts are frozen. The ledger is gone. Let the street swallow her.”
Rocco nodded. He holstered his weapon and ran toward Elena, pulling a knife to cut the zip ties binding her wrists.
The moment her hands were free, Elena scrambled through the mud, sobbing wildly.
She didn’t run to me. She ran to Mia.
She collapsed, pulling the little girl into her arms, burying her face in Mia’s hair.
“Mommy’s here,” Elena cried, rocking her. “Mommy’s here, baby. You’re safe.”
Mia clung to her mother, crying softly. Then, the little girl looked over her mother’s shoulder at me, bleeding on the ground.
Mia pulled away from Elena. She toddled over to me, her red skirt soaked with rain and mud.
She stopped beside me and reached into the pocket of her tiny cardigan.
She pulled out a crumpled, dirty tissue.
And she pressed it firmly against my bleeding shoulder.
“Shh,” Mia whispered, her big brown eyes looking deeply into mine. “Don’t talk, Uncle Lorenzo. I fix it.”
I looked at this brave, beautiful little girl who had walked into the darkness to save her mother.
And as I reached up with my good hand to touch her cheek, I realized something that changed my life forever.
I didn’t just want to protect them.
I wanted them to be mine.
But as the wail of police sirens began to echo in the distance, I knew I had one more secret to uncover before I could offer them a home.
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Because I had finally recognized the man in the photograph inside the silver locket.
And it wasn’t Julian.
