Chapter 5 - THE BULLET BETWEEN US
The gunshot deafened me.
I screamed and threw myself over Emma.
For one impossible second, I thought Luca had been hit.
Then Jake crashed backward through the balcony doorway.
His gun skidded across the floor.
Dante and two guards stormed into the room.
“Stop!”
I scrambled toward Jake.
Blood spread across his shoulder.
Luca remained standing.
His gun smoked.
Jake’s shot had buried itself in the wall inches from Luca’s head.
“You shot him.”
“He was aiming at me.”
“He has answers!”
“He’s alive.”
Barely.
Emma began crying.
That sound ended everything else.
I rushed to her.
“Mama!”
“I’m here.”
Luca lowered his weapon instantly.
His entire expression changed when he saw her.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
Emma stared at the gun.
Luca handed it to Dante.
Then he left the room without another word.
That mattered.
I didn’t know why yet.
Jake survived.
A private surgeon removed the bullet while Luca’s men locked down the estate.
At sunrise, I found Luca alone on the terrace.
“You could have killed him.”
“Yes.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
He looked at me.
“Because you need answers more than I need revenge.”
The cold November air bit through my borrowed sweater.
“Jake said Matteo hired him.”
“I heard.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I believe dying men sometimes tell the truth.”
“He wasn’t dying.”
“He didn’t know that.”
I almost smiled.
Almost.
“What happens now?”
“We talk to Matteo.”
Matteo arrived voluntarily.
When Luca accused him, he didn’t deny knowing Jake.
Instead he poured himself coffee.
“Yes. I hired him.”
My anger exploded.
“You destroyed my life.”
“No.”
“You hired the man who stole from me.”
“I hired him to find you.”
“Why?”
Matteo placed an old envelope on the table.
“Because your grandfather wrote to me.”
Inside was a letter dated six years earlier.
Samuel Carter claimed someone inside the Castellano family had begun searching for Evelyn and Ava.
He trusted Matteo to find us first.
“Why you?” I asked.
“Because Samuel didn’t trust Antonio.”
Luca looked at his brother.
“You never told me.”
“You were twenty-six and desperate to prove yourself to Father.”
Matteo’s words landed like an insult.
“You would have told him.”
Luca didn’t deny it.
Matteo continued.
“I hired Jake because he had access to Ava without alarming her.”
“You chose my boyfriend?”
“He approached me.”
That hurt worse.
“He already knew about the trust?”
“Not initially.”
Matteo’s jaw tightened.
“He became curious. Then greedy.”
I thought about the missing money.
The lies.
Eighteen months of wondering whether I had imagined the man I loved.
“Who is Caleb?”
Both brothers went still.
Matteo recovered first.
“Caleb Sloane.”
Victor’s son.
The name from my mother.
“He runs a private investment company,” Luca said. “Legitimate on paper.”
“And not legitimate?”
“No.”
Matteo pushed another folder toward me.
Caleb had been buying waterfront parcels surrounding North Sound for seven years.
There was only one obstacle left.
My twenty-two percent.
“What’s at Pier 47?”
Matteo looked confused.
Luca didn’t.
“What did Jake tell you?”
I showed him the brass key.
“No.”
The speed of his answer made me angry.
“I’m going.”
“It could be a trap.”
“So could your house.”
That silenced everyone.
We went after dark.
Pier 47 had been abandoned for years.
Luca insisted on twelve armed men.
I insisted on coming.
Storage room twelve contained one metal cabinet.
The brass key opened it.
Inside were ledgers, photographs, contracts, and a cassette recorder.
My grandfather’s handwriting covered the folders.
Luca picked up one ledger.
His face changed.
“What?”
“These are payments.”
“To who?”
“Judges. Police. Port officials.”
“From whom?”
He looked at me.
“My father.”
The documents connected Antonio Castellano and Victor Sloane to decades of bribery.
Then I found a birth certificate.
My name.
Ava Elizabeth Carter.
Father:
Antonio Castellano.
The room stopped spinning because I grabbed the cabinet.
“No.”
Luca took the paper.
His face emptied.
“No.”
“My father was Daniel Carter.”
The certificate said otherwise.
Matteo stared at me.
Then at Luca.
If the document was real, Luca and I shared a father.
The attraction I had barely admitted became instantly horrifying.
“This is fake.”
Luca sounded certain.
“How do you know?”
“Because my father had a vasectomy after Matteo was born.”
Matteo blinked.
“You know that how?”
“Our mother told me during one of their fights.”
Under different circumstances, I might have laughed.
Instead, Luca examined the paper.
“Someone wanted this found.”
“Why?”
“To make us distrust each other.”
A slow clap came from the doorway.
We turned.
Caleb Sloane stood there.
I recognized him from business magazines.
Elegant.
Forty.
Smiling.
Twenty armed men surrounded our security team.
“You always were smarter than Antonio gave you credit for, Luca.”
Luca moved in front of me.
Caleb smiled.
“Relax. If I wanted Ava dead, she’d be dead.”
“Comforting,” I said.
His gaze shifted to me.
“You look like Evelyn.”
“Stay away from my mother.”
“Oh, I intend to.”
He glanced at the ledgers.
“I only need one thing.”
“My shares.”
“Your signature.”
“No.”
Caleb sighed.
“Everyone says that before consequences become personal.”
He lifted his phone.
A live video appeared.
Emma.
Sleeping.
In Luca’s mansion.
My heart stopped.
Rosa lay unconscious on the floor beside her bed.
Caleb smiled.
“You really should stop trusting locked doors.”
I lunged.
Luca caught me.
“If you touch her—”
“She’s perfectly safe.”
“For now.”
Then another figure entered the video frame.
A man I recognized from the photograph beside my grandfather.
Older now.
But unmistakable.
Antonio Castellano.
Luca’s imprisoned father.
Except he wasn’t in prison.
He stood beside my daughter’s bed.
And smiled into the camera.
May you like
“Hello, son.”
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