Chapter 10 - My Brother’s Last Chance
Rain began before I reached the bridge.
Not the gentle rain of the morning Emma entered the garden.
This rain came hard, driven sideways by wind, turning the road silver beneath my headlights.
The old bridge emerged from darkness like the spine of a dead animal.
Three years earlier, police lights had covered the roadway. Fire crews stood near the broken guardrail. Below, the vehicle burned in the ravine while men prevented me from climbing down.
I had screamed Isabella’s name until my voice failed.
That night, the bridge was silent.
I parked fifty yards from the maintenance station.
The ledger case sat on the passenger seat.
A message arrived from Nina.
TEAM IN POSITION. WAIT FOR SIGNAL.
I deleted it.
Waiting had cost enough.
The maintenance station door opened as I approached.
Matteo stood inside.
He had lost weight. His expensive coat hung loosely from his shoulders. A pistol rested in his right hand.
Emma stood beside him.
Her wrists were tied with a plastic restraint.
She looked at me, then at the case.
“You came.”
“I promised.”
Matteo’s face twisted.
“You make promises to strangers’ children now?”
“I try to keep the ones I make.”
The insult landed.
He stepped aside.
Inside, Sophia was tied to a concrete support. Adrian stood behind her. Two armed men guarded the rear tunnel hatch.
“Place the case on the floor,” Adrian said.
“Release them.”
“You continue to negotiate as if you possess leverage.”
“I possess the only complete copy.”
“That is not true.”
“Isabella kept records better than you believed.”
Adrian’s eyes sharpened.
He had spent three years searching because he did not know what Isabella had preserved.
Uncertainty was my leverage.
I set the case down but kept one hand on the handle.
“Why did you kill her?”
Adrian almost smiled.
“Isabella was going to destroy a structure that protected your family for forty years.”
“She was protecting the company from thieves.”
“The company was built by thieves.”
“My father is dead.”
“Yes. And he died believing you would dismantle everything he created.”
“So you continued it.”
“I improved it.”
“By feeding my brother scraps?”
Matteo raised the gun.
“Do not speak about me as though I am not here.”
I turned toward him.
“You approved the vehicle sabotage.”
His hand shook.
“You were supposed to be in the car.”
The room went still.
Adrian looked at him.
Matteo continued.
“The schedule said you would leave for the airport with Isabella. Adrian said the vehicle would fail near the lower curve. No explosion. No child.”
“Yet Arya was in the car.”
“I did not know.”
“You made the school call possible.”
“I gave Claire your code. I thought it was to redirect your driver.”
“You never asked why.”
“I wanted you gone!”
The confession burst from him.
Rain hammered the metal roof.
Matteo’s face collapsed beneath years of hatred.
“Father gave you everything. The company. The house. His respect. Even when I did exactly what he asked, he looked through me to find you.”
“So you decided to kill me.”
“I decided to take what should have been mine.”
“And Isabella?”
“She discovered the accounts.”
“You were willing to kill her too.”
His eyes moved toward the floor.
“Yes.”
Emma stared up at him.
“You killed Arya?”
Matteo flinched.
“No.”
“You made the bad car.”
“I did not know she was inside.”
The child considered his answer.
“Papa said not knowing does not fix hurting.”
Sophia closed her eyes.
Adrian’s patience ended.
“Enough.”
He pressed the gun against Sophia’s head.
“The ledger.”
I released the handle.
One guard collected the case and opened it on a table.
Adrian flipped through the first pages.
“These are incomplete.”
“You expected me to bring everything?”
He struck Sophia with the pistol.
Emma screamed.
Matteo pulled her backward.
“Stop,” he said.
Adrian turned.
“What?”
“She has nothing to do with this.”
“Neither did Arya, according to you. Yet here we are.”
Something changed in Matteo’s face.
The sentence revealed more than cruelty.
It revealed contempt.
Adrian had never considered my brother a partner.
Only a tool.
“You told me the explosive was Vale’s mistake,” Matteo said.
“Vale followed instructions.”
“You said it was not supposed to detonate until after Luca entered the car.”
“Plans adapt.”
“You knew Arya was inside.”
Adrian smiled.
“I knew Isabella would never leave her daughter behind once the school released her.”
Matteo lowered his weapon.
For the first time in three years, my brother understood the entire shape of his betrayal.
“You used me.”
“I educated you.”
Matteo looked at Emma.
The child stood rigid beside him, trying not to cry.
Perhaps he saw Arya.
Perhaps guilt finally found a door inside him.
He cut Emma’s restraint with a knife from his pocket.
Adrian raised his gun.
Matteo pushed Emma toward me.
The shot struck him in the back.
He fell.
I caught Emma and pulled her behind the concrete support.
Gunfire erupted.
The rear guards fired toward us.
Sophia threw herself sideways, dragging the chair with her and knocking one man’s legs from beneath him.
I drew the pistol taped inside the ledger case.
I shot the second guard.
The first recovered and aimed at Sophia.
Matteo, bleeding on the floor, grabbed his ankle.
The guard turned and fired twice into him.
I killed the guard.
Adrian fled through the tunnel hatch.
“Go,” Matteo whispered.
I crouched beside him.
Blood spread beneath his chest.
“Why did you help her?”
His eyes found Emma.
“I carried Arya’s coffin.”
The words were barely audible.
“I feel the weight every night.”
Sophia called from the support beam.
“Luca, Adrian has the ledger.”
I cut her free.
Emma remained beside Matteo.
He looked at her.
“I’m sorry.”
She touched his hand.
“For me?”
“For every little girl who trusted a grown man.”
His breathing broke.
Then stopped.
My brother died beneath the bridge where his jealousy had killed my family.
There was no forgiveness in me.
Only grief for the boy he might have been before men like my father and Adrian taught him to measure love as inheritance.
A blast sounded beneath the floor.
The service tunnel shook.
Adrian was destroying the certificates.
I opened the hatch.
Smoke rose from the darkness.
Nina’s voice came through my hidden transmitter.
“State team entering from the south tunnel.”
Too late.
Adrian had the ledger and an escape route toward the ravine.
I handed Emma to Sophia.
“Stay here.”
Emma grabbed my coat.
“He has Arya’s book.”
I looked down the tunnel.
“What?”
“When he took the ledger, the little sunflower book fell out. He picked it up.”
The wooden box contained Isabella’s earring and note.
But Emma called it a book.
“Did you see something else?”
She nodded.
“There was paper under the bottom. I saw the corner.”
A hidden compartment inside Arya’s box.
Adrian had taken more than he understood.
And whatever Isabella had hidden there was important enough for a child to notice.
I entered the smoke.
Behind me, Emma shouted the words my daughter had spoken on the final recording.
May you like
“Papa will find us.”
This time, I intended to prove her right.
