Chapter 6 - THE WEDDING THAT BECAME A WAR
Nico reached Anna before the attacker could pull her toward the window.
He slammed the man into the wall.
The gun went off.
A bullet tore through the ceiling.
Anna screamed and dropped beside the bed.
Luca tackled the second intruder near the window while Serena crawled toward Anna.
“Can you move?”
Anna nodded.
Her breathing came fast.
Too fast.
Serena wrapped an arm around her.
“Then we move.”
The room filled with smoke from the corridor.
Nico drove his elbow into the attacker’s throat and tore the weapon from his hand.
The man collapsed.
“Roof!” Luca shouted. “They’re using the fire to clear the floor!”
Nico looked toward the door.
“Stairwell?”
“Compromised.”
“Service elevator?”
“Locked.”
Anna suddenly gasped.
Her hand clutched her belly.
Nico was beside her instantly.
“What?”
She shook her head.
“Nothing.”
“That wasn’t nothing.”
“Pressure.”
“Contraction?”
“I don’t know.”
Serena stared at her.
“Anna.”
“I said I don’t know.”
Another explosion sounded below.
The floor trembled.
Nico made a decision.
“Window.”
Luca looked at him like he had gone insane.
“We’re nine floors up.”
“The maintenance platform.”
Outside the broken glass hung the suspended window-washing rig the attackers had used.
One cable remained intact.
Nico checked it.
“Weight limit?”
Luca glanced at the plate.
“Eight hundred pounds.”
“Good.”
Anna stared.
“No.”
Nico looked at her.
“You prefer the burning hallway?”
“I prefer elevators that are not hanging outside buildings.”
“So do I.”
Within a minute, Luca had secured the platform.
Serena climbed first.
Anna followed, trembling.
Nico held her waist as she stepped over the broken frame.
For one second she looked down.
The street seemed impossibly far away.
“Nico.”
“Look at me.”
She did.
“Only me.”
Her breathing slowed.
“That’s it.”
He climbed out beside her.
Luca released the brake.
The platform descended.
Nine floors above Madison Avenue.
Wind whipped through Anna’s hair.
Serena clung to the rail.
Nico kept one arm around Anna.
Halfway down, a shot struck the metal frame.
Serena screamed.
Another bullet.
Nico looked up.
A shooter stood at the broken hospital window.
“Down!”
He covered Anna with his body.
Luca fired upward.
The shooter disappeared.
The platform continued descending.
When they finally reached the lower roof of an adjacent building, Moretti security rushed toward them.
Anna’s legs gave out.
Nico caught her.
This time she did not argue.
At another hospital under federal protection, doctors confirmed the baby was still stable.
Barely.
“Too much stress,” the obstetrician said. “If the contractions increase, we may have to deliver early.”
Nico stood beside the bed.
Anna looked at him.
“We cannot keep doing this.”
He knew she did not mean the hospital.
She meant the war.
“I know.”
“Then end it.”
Nico stared at her.
For years, he had believed power meant having enough men to answer violence with more violence.
Now his child’s heartbeat was being monitored because of the world that power had built.
“What do you want me to do?”
Anna’s eyes filled.
“Be different from them.”
Those words followed him all night.
By morning, Nico had made his decision.
He called Agent Reyes.
Then he called every capo still loyal to him.
Then his attorneys.
Then the board of Moretti Group.
By noon, the criminal portion of the Moretti empire had begun dismantling itself.
Smuggling routes were shut down.
Cash businesses were frozen.
Weapons caches were turned over through negotiated federal agreements.
Account books were surrendered.
Men who wanted to leave were paid.
Men who threatened retaliation were arrested before sunset.
Marco called six times.
Nico never answered.
Vittorio Bellini disappeared.
That worried him more.
Serena remained under federal protection.
Anna was moved to a safe residence outside the city—a country estate Nico’s mother had once owned.
For five days, nothing happened.
Then a cream envelope arrived.
No return address.
Inside was a wedding invitation.
SERENA BELLINI
AND
NICHOLAS MORETTI
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24.
ST. GABRIEL’S CHURCH.
Anna stared at it.
“This is sick.”
Nico stood beside the fireplace.
“It’s a message.”
Serena, seated across the room, looked pale.
“My father knows the wedding was scheduled there.”
“Why send invitations now?”
“Because he wants us there.”
Luca entered carrying a second envelope.
“This came with it.”
Inside was a photograph of Marco.
Alive.
Standing beside Vittorio Bellini.
And behind them was a woman tied to a chair.
Nico’s face changed.
Anna looked closer.
She did not recognize her.
Serena did.
Her knees nearly buckled.
“Mom.”
Serena’s mother, Elena Bellini, had supposedly been receiving cancer treatment in Switzerland for two months.
Instead she was somewhere in New York.
A note was written beneath the photograph.
THE WEDDING HAPPENS.
OR SHE DIES.
Serena covered her mouth.
Nico looked at the church invitation.
A trap.
An obvious one.
Which meant refusing it would accomplish nothing.
Anna rose from the sofa.
“No.”
Nico looked at her.
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”
“Yes, I do.”
She pointed at the invitation.
“You’re thinking about going.”
“I am.”
“You’ll be walking into a church controlled by two men who murdered your parents and tried to kidnap me.”
“Yes.”
“That is insane.”
“It’s also where they expect the final transfer.”
Serena looked up.
“What transfer?”
Nico held up the copied ledger.
“Bellini can’t access the trust until the marriage documents are filed or my son is born.”
Anna went still.
“So he wants one of two things.”
“A wedding.”
Nico looked at her belly.
“Or the baby.”
Serena’s face hardened.
“Then give him the wedding.”
Everyone looked at her.
She stood.
“We walk into St. Gabriel’s exactly like he expects.”
Anna stared.
“You want to marry Nico?”
“No.”
Serena removed the engagement ring she had carried in her coat pocket.
She placed it on the table.
“I want my mother alive.”
The plan formed over the next three hours.
Federal agents would surround the district.
Nico’s remaining loyal men would enter disguised as guests.
Serena would walk down the aisle.
The marriage license would be fake.
Nico would force Bellini and Marco to expose themselves long enough for federal agents to move.
Anna would remain at the safe house.
That part was nonnegotiable.
At least to Nico.
Anna disagreed.
“You expect me to sit here?”
“Yes.”
“While you possibly get killed?”
“Yes.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.”
She stared at him.
“You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Deciding what’s best for me without letting me choose.”
Nico flinched.
She continued.
“You did it when you believed that photograph instead of asking me for the truth. You’re doing it now.”
“This is different.”
“Why? Because this time you’re frightened?”
He looked at her belly.
“Yes.”
That stopped her.
Nico’s voice dropped.
“I am terrified.”
Anna had never heard him say those words.
“I’m terrified they’ll hurt you. I’m terrified they’ll hurt him. I’m terrified I’ll make one wrong decision and lose the only two people who ever made me want to become something other than what Marco raised me to be.”
Her anger weakened.
Nico stepped closer.
“I cannot lose you twice.”
Anna’s eyes filled.
“You already did.”
“I know.”
“And you don’t get those eight months back.”
“I know.”
“You don’t get to erase what happened because now you know the truth.”
“I know.”
She looked at him for a long time.
Then whispered, “I still love you.”
Nico stopped breathing.
Anna wiped a tear angrily.
“I hate that I do.”
He took one step toward her.
She did not move away.
When he kissed her, it was not desperate.
It was careful.
Almost frightened.
Eight months of anger, regret, longing, and grief collapsed into one quiet touch.
Then Anna pulled back.
“Come home.”
“I will.”
“Promise me.”
Nico rested his forehead against hers.
“I promise.”
Saturday morning arrived cold and bright.
St. Gabriel’s Church filled with flowers, guards, federal agents, hidden weapons, and people pretending to celebrate.
Serena wore the unfinished ivory dress Anna had completed herself two nights earlier.
Not because Serena planned to marry Nico.
Because she wanted her father to believe she did.
Nico stood at the altar.
Marco sat in the first pew.
Vittorio Bellini stood beside him.
Nico had not seen either man since the betrayal surfaced.
Marco smiled.
“Your father would be proud.”
Nico looked at him.
“My father would shoot you.”
Marco’s smile faded.
The music began.
Serena walked down the aisle.
Behind the altar, hidden federal agents waited for the signal.
Vittorio touched his cuff.
Nico noticed.
Signal device.
He scanned the church.
Something was wrong.
Then his phone buzzed inside his jacket.
A message.
Unknown number.
He opened it.
A live video appeared.
Anna.
Inside the country house.
Standing in the nursery.
Behind her, a man raised a gun.
Vittorio leaned toward Nico and whispered, “Smile.”
Nico’s blood turned to ice.
“You thought the wedding was the trap?”
Bellini smiled.
“The wedding was the distraction.”
On the phone, Anna turned.
The gunman stepped toward her.
Then she doubled over suddenly, clutching her stomach.
Water spread across the floor beneath her.
Anna looked directly into the hidden camera.
May you like
Her face filled with fear.
The baby was coming.
