Chapter 6 - The Price of a Daughter
Adrian did not defend himself.
That frightened Lorenzo more than denial.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Adrian closed the music box.
“I had people watching Isabella.”
Lorenzo raised the gun again.
“To protect her.”
“Everyone who lies to me uses that word.”
“I didn’t know where she was until tonight.”
“You had a tracker?”
“No.”
“Then how?”
“A man named Elias Crane.”
Lorenzo recognized the name vaguely.
“Former military?”
“Former everything.”
“Yours?”
“Once.”
“And now?”
Adrian looked sick.
“I thought he still was.”
Lorenzo grabbed his jacket.
“Where would he take them?”
“If Crane betrayed me, then Sanz already knows about the vault.”
“Where?”
“Zurich eventually.”
“Tonight.”
Adrian thought.
“There’s a private airstrip north of the city.”
Lorenzo headed for the door.
Marco joined them.
Adrian said, “We need the key.”
Lorenzo pocketed it.
“You need nothing.”
“Lucia does.”
Lorenzo turned.
“If my daughter gets near a vault because you want leverage, I’ll bury you in the grave you abandoned.”
Adrian nodded.
“Fair.”
They drove like men racing time itself.
Marco coordinated two teams despite Lorenzo’s order for secrecy.
This time Lorenzo allowed it.
The airstrip sat behind an industrial storage complex.
One private jet waited on the runway.
Engines running.
Lorenzo’s chest tightened.
They parked beyond the perimeter.
Marco examined binoculars.
“Six armed men outside. Maybe more inside.”
Adrian looked at the jet.
“That’s Sanz’s aircraft.”
“Can we block the runway?”
“Too late if they start moving.”
Lorenzo checked his weapon.
“Then we move first.”
Adrian grabbed his arm.
“Crane won’t hurt Lucia.”
Lorenzo looked at him with deadly calm.
“You don’t know that.”
“He has a daughter.”
“So?”
“So some lines survive even bad men.”
Lorenzo thought of himself.
He hoped Adrian was right.
They approached through a maintenance hangar.
One guard went down silently.
Then another.
Marco’s team cut power to the runway lights.
The jet engines continued.
A door opened.
Elias Crane emerged.
He held no weapon.
“Lorenzo.”
“Where is my family?”
“Inside.”
“Bring them out.”
“I can’t.”
“Then I’ll go through you.”
Crane glanced at Adrian.
“You weren’t supposed to come.”
Adrian stepped forward.
“You took Isabella.”
“I moved her.”
“Without telling me.”
“Because Sanz discovered the villa.”
“You work for him?”
Crane laughed.
“No.”
Lorenzo’s patience snapped.
“Then what is this?”
“A negotiation.”
“With my daughter?”
“With the only leverage Sanz will respect.”
Lorenzo pointed his gun.
“Open the plane.”
Crane did.
Inside, Isabella sat beside Lucia.
Neither was restrained.
Lorenzo climbed aboard.
Lucia ran to him.
He caught her.
“Daddy.”
The word.
For the first time.
He nearly stopped functioning.
He held her tight.
“I’m here.”
Isabella stood.
“You shouldn’t have come.”
Lorenzo looked almost offended.
“Apparently you forgot who you married.”
A tired smile passed across her face.
Then vanished.
“Crane says Sanz contacted him.”
“He did,” Crane said from the doorway.
“He wants the key and Lucia in exchange for everyone walking away.”
“No.”
Crane nodded.
“That was my answer.”
Lorenzo looked at him.
“Then why bring them here?”
“Because Sanz has surveillance on every known safe house.”
“And not this airfield?”
“This place belongs to a shell company Adrian created fifteen years ago. Sanz doesn’t know he still controls it.”
Adrian climbed aboard.
“I barely remembered.”
Crane shut the door.
“We have perhaps twenty minutes.”
“To do what?” Isabella asked.
“Make Sanz believe Lucia is on this plane.”
Lorenzo’s eyes narrowed.
“She is.”
“For the moment.”
Crane opened a storage compartment.
Inside sat passports.
Cash.
Two satellite phones.
And explosives.
Lorenzo looked at him.
“No.”
Crane nodded.
“The plane takes off remotely.”
“Without us?”
“Yes.”
“Sanz follows it.”
“And when it reaches international water?”
Crane looked at the explosives.
“It disappears.”
Lucia squeezed Lorenzo’s hand.
He moved her behind him so she could not see.
“No.”
Crane frowned.
“You object to destroying a plane?”
“I object to making my daughter watch adults discuss blowing things up.”
Isabella almost laughed.
It was the first trace of the woman Lorenzo remembered.
Crane closed the compartment.
“Fair.”
They moved Lucia into the hangar with Marco.
Emma’s humming came through a phone call from Jeppe.
Maria was awake.
Safe.
Matteo was being treated.
For one minute, the world seemed manageable.
Then Isabella looked at Lorenzo.
“We still need to finish this.”
“Sanz?”
“The ledger.”
“We destroy it.”
“We can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because it contains evidence that could free people he framed and expose people still working for him.”
Lorenzo looked at Adrian.
“Is that true?”
“Yes.”
“So we open it without bringing Lucia anywhere near Sanz.”
Isabella nodded.
“The vault requires her genetic confirmation in person.”
“No.”
“Lorenzo.”
“No.”
Lucia walked over.
“What’s a vault?”
Everyone became silent.
Lorenzo crouched.
“A very boring room grown-ups are arguing about.”
“Does it have treasure?”
Adrian almost smiled.
“Mostly paperwork.”
Lucia looked disappointed.
Lorenzo touched her hair.
“You are not going there.”
“Okay.”
Simple.
Trusting.
He wished adults were as easy.
Crane checked his watch.
“We need to launch.”
They boarded a small maintenance vehicle and moved behind the hangar.
Crane activated the jet remotely.
It began taxiing.
A few minutes later it lifted into the night.
Lorenzo watched it disappear.
“So now Sanz believes we’re leaving.”
“For perhaps an hour,” Crane said.
Lorenzo looked at Isabella.
“Then we use that hour.”
“How?”
“To make him stop chasing us.”
Adrian frowned.
“You can’t threaten Sanz conventionally.”
“I don’t intend to.”
Lorenzo took out the cracked phone.
He called a journalist.
Adrian stared.
“What are you doing?”
“Something our family should have done thirty years ago.”
The journalist answered.
“Mr. Duca?”
“I have information concerning Viktor Sanz.”
Everyone looked at him.
Isabella slowly understood.
“You’re going public.”
“Not everything.”
Adrian stepped closer.
“You’ll expose us too.”
“Yes.”
“You could destroy the Duca organization.”
Lorenzo looked at Lucia.
“Then it gets destroyed.”
Adrian stared.
“You’d give up everything?”
Lorenzo’s answer came without hesitation.
“I already learned what everything looks like in a coffin.”
Silence.
Isabella’s eyes filled.
He continued speaking to the journalist.
“I will send you documents. You publish them if anything happens to my family.”
“Documents proving what?”
“Murders. Bribery. trafficking through shell companies. Political corruption.”
Adrian’s face tightened.
“You don’t have those yet.”
Lorenzo ended the call.
“No.”
He looked at the key.
“But Sanz doesn’t know that.”
Crane smiled faintly.
“A bluff.”
“A deadline.”
They sent Sanz a message.
Stand down or the ledger becomes public.
The reply came thirty seconds later.
You don’t have the ledger.
Lorenzo typed:
Not yet.
Another reply.
Then you still need the girl.
Lorenzo’s jaw tightened.
A third message appeared.
Bring Lucia to Zurich by noon tomorrow.
Or ask Isabella what happened to your father.
Lorenzo looked at his wife.
She went pale.
“What?”
Isabella stared at the screen.
“Lorenzo…”
“What happened to my father?”
She closed her eyes.
“You were told he died of a heart attack.”
“Yes.”
“He didn’t.”
Adrian stepped backward.
“No.”
Lorenzo looked between them.
“What?”
Isabella whispered.
“Your father found out who Sanz was.”
“And?”
“He tried to expose him.”
Lorenzo’s pulse slowed.
“Sanz killed him?”
Isabella did not answer.
Adrian did.
“No.”
Lorenzo turned.
May you like
His brother’s eyes were wet.
“I did.”
