Chapter 7 - Red Nails, Blackmail, and Blood
Alessandro lowered the flash drive onto the carpet.
Beatrice kept one arm locked around Emma.
“Kick it here.”
Sophia shook so violently Dr. Royce had to hold her upright.
“Please,” Sophia whispered. “Please don’t hurt her.”
Beatrice’s smile twisted.
“You should have taught your daughter not to speak out of turn.”
Something in Sophia changed.
Her fear did not vanish.
But beneath it, something older rose.
A mother’s rage.
“You killed my husband.”
Beatrice’s eyes flicked toward her.
“Your husband was a thief.”
“He was a father.”
“He was a night guard who touched things that did not belong to him.”
Sophia stepped forward.
Alessandro caught her arm.
Not to stop her.
To remind her Emma was still in danger.
Beatrice saw the movement and laughed.
“How touching. The billionaire and the maid. Grief makes people sentimental.”
Alessandro’s eyes remained on Emma.
“Emma,” he said gently, “remember what we talked about in the basement?”
The child blinked.
Beatrice’s grip tightened.
“What are you doing?”
Alessandro ignored her.
“You were very brave then. I need you to be brave one more time.”
Emma’s lower lip trembled.
Sophia whispered, “Baby, look at me.”
Emma looked at her mother.
In that tiny turn of the child’s head, Beatrice glanced away from Alessandro.
Only half a second.
That was enough.
Alessandro pressed the remote.
The fireplace alarm erupted.
A blast of white emergency foam shot from the ceiling above the hearth, not enough to fill the room, but enough to blind and startle.
Beatrice screamed.
Emma dropped.
Sophia lunged.
Alessandro crossed the room in two strides and slammed Beatrice’s wrist against the mantel. The letter opener clattered to the floor.
The officers rushed in.
Emma was already in Sophia’s arms, sobbing.
Beatrice fought like a cornered animal.
“You idiot!” she screamed at Alessandro. “Do you know what you’ve done? Do you know who else is involved?”
Alessandro held her against the wall while the officer cuffed her.
“Tell me.”
Beatrice laughed, breathless and wild.
“You think this ends with me? Your father thought that too.”
The room went silent.
Raffaele was still running somewhere in the mansion.
The police radio crackled.
“Suspect moving toward west garage.”
Alessandro turned.
“Lock it down.”
Matteo’s voice answered from the hallway. “Already done.”
A second later, the entire house heard the crash.
Metal.
Glass.
Then a scream.
Alessandro ran.
He found Raffaele in the west garage, pinned halfway inside a black SUV. He had tried to ram through the sealed interior gate. The airbag had deployed. Blood ran from his nose, but he was alive.
A security guard held him at gunpoint.
Raffaele laughed when he saw Alessandro.
“You always were dramatic.”
Alessandro approached slowly.
“Who else is involved?”
Raffaele spat blood onto the concrete.
“You’ll find out.”
Alessandro crouched beside him.
“You tried to kill me. You helped kill my father. You helped kill Marco Alvarez. And you let your aunt put a knife near a three-year-old child. So understand this clearly. There is no family left between us.”
Raffaele’s smile weakened.
“You need me.”
“No. I need the truth.”
Raffaele’s eyes shifted toward the SUV’s glove compartment.
Alessandro noticed.
He reached inside and opened it.
There was a phone.
Not Raffaele’s normal phone.
A burner.
One message glowed on the screen.
DID THE COFFEE WORK?
No name.
Only initials.
L.D.
Alessandro stared.
His blood turned cold.
There had been only one other Duca with those initials.
Lorenzo Duca.
His dead father.
For one impossible moment, the garage spun around him.
Then another message appeared.
ANSWER ME, RAFFAELE.
Alessandro looked at the screen.
May you like
His father was dead.
So who was using his name?
