Chapter 8 - THE CONFESSION
The heavy thud of tactical boots echoed down the marble stairs.
"FBI! Drop your weapons!" a voice boomed through the subterranean hallway.
Arthur’s two guards immediately dropped their guns and raised their hands. They were thugs, not martyrs.
Arthur Bellini stood completely still, staring at the slightly singed documents scattered on the vault floor.
His empire had just crumbled to ash.
Federal agents flooded the room, their weapons drawn.
"Arthur Bellini, you are under arrest," the lead agent announced, snapping handcuffs onto Arthur’s wrists.
Arthur didn't struggle. He simply looked at Luca.
"You think this changes anything?" Arthur hissed as he was dragged away. "The board will never accept a bastard child as the head of the company. You'll lose it all."
"I don't care about the company," Luca replied quietly. "I care about my family."
Vanessa stood in the corner, sobbing into her hands. An agent approached her gently, leading her out to take her statement. She didn't look back. She had done the right thing, finally, but she had lost everything in the process.
I dropped the useless gun and ran to Luca, dropping to my knees beside him.
"Are you okay?" I asked, my hands hovering over his bruised face.
"I'm fine," he breathed, leaning against the cold metal boxes.
He looked past me.
Leo was standing there, staring at the burned papers on the floor.
Luca slowly pushed himself up. He walked over to Leo.
For a long moment, the two brothers just looked at each other. Twenty-eight years of stolen time hung in the space between them.
Answer one: Arthur was defeated, and the proof of Leo's lineage was saved.
Open two: How does a law student accept that his entire life was a lie, and that a billionaire is his flesh and blood?
"I..." Leo started, his voice cracking. "I don't even know what to say."
Luca reached out and placed a hand on Leo's shoulder.
"You don't have to say anything," Luca said softly. "You're safe. That's all that matters tonight."
An agent walked up to us. "Mr. Moretti, paramedics are upstairs. We need to get that cut looked at."
We walked upstairs into the chaotic lobby. Paramedics immediately tended to Luca and Paul, who was shaken but unhurt.
I stood near the glass doors, watching the rain wash the streets clean.
The nightmare was over.
But as I stood there, a heavy sadness settled over me.
Leo was a Moretti now. He would inherit millions. He belonged in the mansion on the hill.
And I... I was still Emma Sullivan. The maid who had just saved her adopted brother's life, only to lose him to a world I didn't belong in.
"Emma."
I turned. Luca was standing there, a small bandage over his eye.
"Thank you," he said.
"I just wanted to protect him," I replied, looking down at my worn shoes.
"You protected all of us," Luca corrected gently. "My mother would have loved you."
He reached into his jacket pocket.
"Vanessa handed this to me before the feds took her away," Luca said.
He opened his hand.
It was a delicate gold necklace with a small diamond pendant.
"My mother's necklace," Luca explained. "Arthur stole it the day she died. He gave it to Vanessa as a gift."
He held it out to me.
"I want you to have it."
I stepped back, shaking my head. "Luca, no. That's a family heirloom. I can't take that."
"You are family, Emma," Luca said firmly. "You raised my brother when my family couldn't. You are more Moretti than anyone else in that house."
Before I could argue, Paul the gardener shuffled over to us. He looked exhausted, leaning heavily on a cane a paramedic had given him.
"Mr. Moretti," Paul said, his voice raspy.
"Paul, you should be resting," Luca said, moving to help him.
Paul waved him off. "I need to tell you the rest of it, Luciano. Before my courage fails me."
Luca frowned. "The rest of what? We know what Arthur did."
Paul shook his head slowly.
"You know what he did to the boy," Paul said, glancing at Leo, who was talking to an agent across the room.
Paul looked back at Luca, his eyes brimming with tears.
"But you don't know what Arthur did to your mother."
A cold chill ran down my spine.
"My mother died of a sudden heart attack," Luca said, his voice tight.
May you like
"No, she didn't," Paul whispered. "Arthur poisoned her. She found out he had taken the baby, and she was going to the police. He poisoned her tea the morning she died. I saw him do it."
Cliffhanger: The mother's death was a murder, and the gardener had kept the secret for twenty years.
