Chapter 7 - A FATHER'S WRATH
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Vanessa's voice failed her completely as Luca walked toward her with slow, measured steps.
She pressed her head back against the wooden chair, trembling so violently that the legs rattled against the stone.
"Luca... darling... please listen to me," she choked out through hysterical, ragged sobs.
"Julian blackmailed me! He threatened my family in Sicily! I had no choice!"
Luca stopped six inches from her face, leaning down until she could feel the cold heat of his breath.
"You stole my daughter's shoes so she couldn't run from an assassin."
"You told an innocent nine-year-old girl that nobody would ever come to save her."
"You bruised her little ribs because she kept a picture of her dead mother in her schoolbag."
"I did it for us!" Vanessa shrieked, losing every shred of sanity and composure.
"You never looked at me with love! You only looked at that dead ghost Elena!"
"Every time I saw Sophia's face, I saw the woman you actually wanted!"
"She deserved to walk in the mud! She deserved to freeze!"
Luca's expression did not change; he did not raise his hand or shout in fury.
Instead, he reached out and took the multi-million-dollar diamond wedding band off her trembling finger.
He tossed the heavy ring onto the floor and crushed it beneath the heel of his Italian leather shoe with a sharp crunch.
"You are no longer a Moretti," Luca declared, his voice echoing off the damp concrete walls.
"You are nothing more than a traitor who tried to murder an innocent child."
"Are you going to shoot me?" Vanessa cried, her eyes wide with unadulterated terror.
"Death would be far too merciful and far too quick for what you did to my daughter," Luca replied coldly.
"Matteo, call the federal prosecutor, Agent Miller."
Matteo raised an eyebrow in shock. "The feds, Boss? We never work with the FBI."
"Agent Miller has been trying to build a racketeering and attempted kidnapping case against Julian Russo for five years," Luca said.
"We are going to hand them Carlo, the burner phone, the surveillance footage, and my dear wife's signed confession."
"She will spend the next forty years of her miserable life in a maximum-security federal penitentiary in Indiana."
"She will wear orange paper scrubs, sleep on a metal slab, and never see the sunlight of Milan again."
Vanessa began screaming at the top of her lungs, thrashing wildly as Matteo stepped forward with a roll of heavy duct tape.
"No! Please! Luca! Kill me instead! Don't send me to prison! Luca!"
Her desperate cries were abruptly muffled as Matteo sealed her lips with the silver tape.
Luca turned his back on her, walking toward the heavy metal exit without a single backward glance.
"Prepare the perimeter guards, Matteo," Luca ordered as he climbed the concrete stairs.
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"When Julian Russo realizes Carlo didn't report back with Sophia, he will send a strike team to finish the job."
"Tonight, the Russo syndicate burns to the ground."
