Chapter 12 - THE RETURN
My legs gave out.
Luca caught me before I hit the floor, lifting me gently and setting me on the leather sofa.
“My father is alive?” I repeated, the words sounding foreign on my tongue. “But why? Why didn’t he come back for us?”
“Because Victor Bellini thought he was dead,” Luca said gently, kneeling in front of me. “If Arthur had come out of hiding, Victor would have realized the body in the car was a fake. He would have hunted him down, and he would have found you and your mother.”
Isabella covered her mouth. “He stayed dead to protect them.”
Tears spilled down my cheeks.
For twenty years, I thought my father had abandoned us in death. I thought he left my mother to struggle with crippling debt and manual labor.
But he had sacrificed his own life, his own identity, to keep us safe from the shadows.
“Where is he now?” I asked, grabbing Luca’s hands. “Do you know where he is?”
Luca smiled. It was a warm, beautiful smile that reached his dark eyes.
“Marcus traced the offshore account where the auction money for this necklace was deposited,” Luca said. “It led to a small fishing village in Italy.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out two first-class plane tickets.
He placed them on my lap.
“Pack your bags, Emma,” Luca said softly, leaning in to press a tender kiss to my forehead. “We leave for Rome tonight. It’s time to bring your father home.”
I looked at the tickets, then at Luca.
The man I had once feared as a ruthless mafia boss was now the man who was piecing my broken family back together.
I threw my arms around his neck, holding him tighter than I ever had before.
“Thank you,” I cried into his shoulder.
Luca wrapped his strong arms around me, burying his face in my hair.
May you like
“Anything for you,” he whispered. “Always.”
The nightmare was finally, truly over. And our new life was just beginning.
