Chapter 12 - MY FATHER WAS ALIVE
I did not go alone.
I wasn’t stupid anymore.
I was simply getting better at hiding backup.
The motel sat forty miles outside Chicago.
Dante stayed two blocks away with his men.
“You enter, you see Gabriel, you leave.”
“That’s the plan.”
“If Caruso appears—”
“I leave.”
“If anything feels wrong—”
“I leave.”
“If—”
“Dante.”
“What?”
“You’re doing the thing.”
“What thing?”
“The controlling thing.”
He looked annoyed.
“I’m trying to keep you breathing.”
“I know.”
That softened both of us.
I touched his hand.
It was the first voluntary contact between us since the warehouse.
His eyes dropped to our hands.
“Come back.”
It wasn’t an order.
That mattered.
“I will.”
Room 214.
I knocked.
The door opened.
And twenty-one years of anger vanished.
My father looked old.
Thin.
Scared.
“Elena.”
I hit him.
Not hard.
But enough.
He took it.
Then I hugged him.
I hated him while I did it.
I loved him while I did it.
People are complicated like that.
“You left us.”
“I know.”
“You let me think you were dead.”
“I know.”
“You knew where I was?”
“Yes.”
I stepped back.
“You watched me?”
“From far away.”
“That isn’t parenting.”
“No.”
At least he didn’t make excuses.
“Why now?”
“Because Caruso found me.”
He pulled a small drive from his pocket.
“The original.”
My pulse jumped.
“What’s on it?”
“Everything.”
Payments.
Kill orders.
Bribes.
Police.
Judges.
Businesses.
Decades of corruption.
Enough to destroy Caruso.
Enough to damage the Morettis.
“Dante knows?”
“No.”
“Will this hurt him?”
“Yes.”
I looked away.
My father noticed.
“You care about him.”
“That’s not your business.”
“It becomes my business when the man is a Moretti.”
I laughed bitterly.
“You abandoned me for twenty-one years. You don’t get fatherly opinions now.”
He accepted that.
Fair enough.
A car door slammed outside.
Gabriel went pale.
“They found me.”
I touched my earpiece.
“Dante.”
Static.
No answer.
The signal jammer.
Of course.
My father grabbed my arm.
“Bathroom window.”
“What?”
“Go.”
Gunshots erupted outside.
I pulled him toward the back.
“No. Both of us.”
“Elena—”
“I am done with men deciding they’re going to sacrifice themselves for me.”
We climbed through the bathroom window.
Hit the ground.
Ran.
A black SUV came around the corner.
Caruso’s men.
Then another SUV slammed into it.
Dante.
He stepped out firing.
His men spread through the parking lot.
“Move!”
We ran toward him.
My father stopped.
He stared at Dante.
Dante stared back.
Twenty years passed between them without a word.
Then Gabriel said, “You got old.”
Dante almost laughed.
“So did you.”
A bullet struck the wall beside us.
Dante shoved me behind the vehicle.
“Family reunion later.”
We escaped.
But as we drove back toward Chicago, my father looked at the flash drive.
Then at Dante.
“There’s something Elena needs to know.”
I groaned.
“No more secrets.”
Gabriel’s face became grave.
“Antonio Moretti knew Caruso planned to kill him.”
Dante went still.
“What?”
“He let it happen.”
“Why?”
Gabriel swallowed.
“Because he was protecting you.”
Dante stared ahead.
May you like
Then Gabriel delivered the final blow.
“And because the person who ordered Caruso to do it was inside your own family.”
