Chapter 5 - My Fiancé Came to Take Me Home
Daniel arrived at noon carrying no weapon.
Luca still had six guns pointed at him.
Hazel stood behind the glass doors of the Moretti penthouse.
Daniel looked exhausted.
He held up a flash drive.
“Proof.”
Luca wanted him searched.
Hazel agreed.
Daniel was brought inside.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Daniel saw Luca’s ring was no longer on Hazel’s finger.
Relief flashed across his face.
“Hazel.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Which part?”
His face tightened.
“All of it.”
Daniel admitted stealing her identity.
He admitted creating the shell company.
He admitted feeding information to Salerno.
But he denied ordering the car bomb.
“Evelyn did that.”
Hazel’s mother flinched.
Daniel placed the flash drive on the table.
It contained security footage from October seventeenth, five years earlier.
Hazel’s father entered a warehouse.
Antonio Moretti followed.
Minutes later, Luca arrived.
Then gunfire.
Thomas never came out alive.
Hazel stared at Luca.
“You were there.”
“Yes.”
“You lied.”
“I withheld it.”
“That is lying with better tailoring.”
Sofia almost choked.
Luca ignored her.
“My father asked me to come because Thomas had discovered a traitor.”
“Evelyn?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Someone fired from the upper level. Thomas pushed my father aside.”
Hazel stared.
“My father saved Antonio?”
“Yes.”
“And died?”
Luca nodded.
“Why hide it?”
“Because Thomas’s last request was that nobody tell you the truth until Evelyn was caught.”
Hazel turned toward her mother.
She nodded tearfully.
Daniel looked frustrated.
“There’s more footage.”
A second clip showed a shadow above the warehouse.
The shooter.
Not Antonio.
Evelyn.
Hazel closed her eyes.
Daniel approached.
“I wanted to tell you.”
“Before or after framing me?”
He stopped.
“I loved you.”
“Don’t.”
“I still do.”
Hazel looked at him.
“Love doesn’t forge someone’s signature.”
Daniel’s face collapsed.
“Salerno said he would kill me.”
“So you gave him me instead.”
Daniel could not answer.
That was answer enough.
Luca stepped forward.
“Meeting over.”
Daniel looked at Hazel.
“Come with me.”
She almost laughed.
“Where?”
“Away from all this.”
“You tried to make me disappear.”
“I was trying to get you out.”
“With a bomb waiting for me?”
“I didn’t know about the bomb!”
Luca grabbed Daniel.
Hazel shouted.
“Stop!”
Luca released him.
Daniel stumbled.
Then the windows shattered.
Gunfire erupted.
Luca threw Hazel to the floor.
His men returned fire.
Daniel crawled toward the hallway.
Sofia screamed.
Hazel looked up.
A laser sight moved across Luca’s back.
She reacted without thinking.
“Luca!”
She shoved him.
The shot fired.
Luca fell.
Blood spread across his white shirt.
Hazel screamed his name.
Daniel reached the exit.
For one second, he looked back.
Then he ran.
But before the elevator doors closed, someone inside grabbed Daniel by the throat and dragged him backward.
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Hazel saw only a woman’s hand.
On her finger was Hazel’s old engagement ring.
