Chapter 4 - THE NIGHT THEY CAME FOR ANNA
By six that evening, Nico had canceled the flight, frozen three corporate accounts, suspended six members of his own security staff, and sent men to retrieve every archived record containing Marco Santoro’s authorization codes.
By six fifteen, Anna hated him again.
“You are not moving me into your penthouse.”
She stood in the private fitting room with her coat over one arm while Luca’s men searched the atelier.
Nico leaned against the door.
“Yes, you are.”
“No.”
“Someone forged your signature to remove you from the country.”
“I heard.”
“Using my company.”
“I heard that too.”
“So you’re coming with me.”
“Your company is apparently how they planned to kidnap me.”
Nico’s jaw tightened.
“Which is why I need you somewhere I control personally.”
Anna laughed without humor.
“That sentence is exactly why I’m not going.”
Serena sat silently nearby, still wearing the simple slip used beneath her wedding gown. No one had remembered that she was half-dressed.
Finally she said, “He’s right.”
Anna stared at her.
Serena shrugged.
“I hate that too.”
Nico almost smiled.
Almost.
Anna rubbed her temples.
“This is insane.”
“Yes,” Nico said. “It is.”
“I have neighbors. A landlord. A job.”
“Your employer just gave you paid leave.”
Anna turned toward the atelier owner.
The woman looked guilty.
“He was persuasive.”
Nico corrected her.
“I bought the building.”
Anna’s mouth fell open.
“You what?”
“The landlord accepted an offer.”
“You bought an entire building because I work here?”
“I bought the building because someone entered it disguised as maintenance and photographed you.”
“You cannot solve every problem by purchasing the real estate beneath it.”
“Watch me.”
Serena actually laughed.
Anna glared at both of them.
For one brief second, the tension cracked.
Then the atelier lights went out.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Nico moved instantly.
“Down.”
He grabbed Anna and pulled her behind the platform as glass shattered somewhere near the front entrance.
Serena screamed.
A gunshot cracked through the dark.
Then another.
Luca shouted from the hallway.
“Contact!”
Nico drew the pistol from beneath his jacket.
Anna’s hand gripped his sleeve.
“Nico.”
“Stay down.”
Emergency lights flickered red along the baseboards.
Another burst of gunfire.
Footsteps.
Not one attacker.
Several.
Nico pressed Anna behind the thick platform.
“Do not move.”
“What about Serena?”
“I’ll get her.”
He moved low across the room.
Serena had fallen behind a sofa.
Nico caught her wrist and dragged her toward Anna.
A bullet punched through a mirror.
The glass exploded in silver fragments.
Serena covered her head.
Anna reached for her, pulling her behind the platform.
There was something almost absurdly human in the gesture.
The pregnant ex protecting the fiancée.
Nico would remember it later.
For now, survival consumed everything.
Luca fired twice from the hallway.
A body dropped.
Then silence.
Too much silence.
Nico listened.
One set of footsteps moved toward the service corridor.
He followed.
The attacker reached the stairwell.
Nico fired once.
The man stumbled but kept moving.
Nico chased him down one flight.
At the landing, the man spun with a knife.
Nico caught the wrist, slammed it against the wall, and drove his shoulder into the attacker’s chest.
The knife clattered away.
Nico punched him once.
Twice.
Then stopped.
Alive.
Marco had said things that needed answers.
Nico hauled the man upright.
“Who sent you?”
The attacker spat blood.
“You know.”
Nico hit him again.
“Name.”
The man smiled.
“Your wedding is going to be beautiful.”
Nico froze.
That was enough.
He dragged the attacker upstairs.
By the time he returned to the atelier, Luca had secured the building.
One attacker was dead.
Two had escaped.
The fourth was unconscious in Nico’s grip.
Anna sat against the platform, breathing too quickly.
Nico dropped the man.
“Anna.”
She looked up.
Her face was pale.
Too pale.
He crossed the room.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m fine.”
He crouched.
“You’re not.”
She tried to stand.
A sharp pain stopped her.
Her hand flew to her belly.
Nico’s blood turned cold.
“Anna?”
She inhaled slowly.
Then again.
“I think it’s a contraction.”
Nobody moved.
Serena whispered, “How far apart?”
Anna shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Another pain hit.
This one bent her forward.
Nico reached for her.
She grabbed his hand hard enough to hurt.
“Hospital.”
Luca was already moving.
The next twenty minutes became a blur of sirens, locked intersections, and Nico sitting beside Anna in the back of an armored SUV while she tried to breathe through contractions that might have been caused by stress.
At St. Catherine’s, doctors rushed her into obstetric triage.
Nico followed until a nurse blocked him.
“Sir, only family.”
“I’m the father.”
The words came without hesitation.
The nurse looked at Anna.
Anna was on the bed behind her.
For one second, Nico expected rejection.
Instead Anna nodded.
“Let him in.”
That permission meant more than it should have.
The baby’s heartbeat filled the room minutes later.
Fast.
Strong.
Alive.
Nico stared at the monitor.
He had never heard anything more terrifying.
Or beautiful.
The doctor examined Anna and explained that she was not in active labor. Stress had triggered uterine contractions, but the baby appeared stable.
Nico exhaled for what felt like the first time in an hour.
Anna closed her eyes.
The doctor continued.
“You need rest. And I mean actual rest.”
Anna nodded.
“No prolonged standing. No heavy lifting. And given what you’ve described about tonight, I’d strongly recommend you stay somewhere secure.”
Nico looked at her.
Anna opened one eye.
“Don’t.”
He said nothing.
That was somehow worse.
Twenty minutes later, Anna slept beneath a thin hospital blanket.
Nico sat beside her bed.
Serena had gone home under Luca’s protection.
For the first time all day, the room was quiet.
Anna’s face looked younger when she slept.
Nico remembered mornings when sunlight crossed their apartment and she would complain that he stared at her.
He had always denied it.
He had lied then too.
His phone buzzed.
Luca.
Nico stepped into the hallway.
“What?”
“We identified the guy you caught.”
“And?”
“Former Bellini soldier.”
Nico looked through the glass at Anna.
“Former?”
“Officially.”
“Unofficially?”
“He’s been doing freelance work for Marco.”
Nico’s expression hardened.
“Get him somewhere private.”
“Already done.”
“What else?”
Luca hesitated.
“Nico, I pulled the corporate authorization on Anna’s flight.”
“You said it came from my company.”
“It did.”
“Whose credentials?”
Another pause.
“Yours.”
Nico went still.
“Impossible.”
“I know.”
“Where was the authorization made?”
“Moretti headquarters.”
“Which terminal?”
Luca took a breath.
“Your private office.”
Nico stared down the hospital corridor.
Only four people had biometric access to his office.
Nico.
Luca.
Marco.
And Serena.
Before he could speak, a nurse hurried from Anna’s room.
“Mr. Moretti?”
He turned.
“What happened?”
“She woke up and asked for you.”
Nico entered.
Anna was sitting upright now.
But she was not looking at him.
She was looking at the television mounted on the wall.
The screen showed breaking news footage outside Moretti headquarters.
Police cars.
Federal vehicles.
Reporters.
The headline running beneath the anchor made Nico stop dead.
MORETTI GROUP CEO LINKED TO MONEY LAUNDERING, EXTORTION, AND MULTIPLE UNSOLVED HOMICIDES.
The reporter continued.
“Sources say investigators received thousands of internal documents earlier today from an anonymous whistleblower.”
Nico’s phone began ringing.
Then Anna’s.
Then every phone in the hallway.
Nico stared at the television.
Someone was not merely trying to keep him away from Anna.
May you like
Someone was dismantling his entire empire.
And they had started from inside his own office.
