Chapter 11 - Eleven Minutes Before the Vows
“Put the gun down, Carlo.”
My voice carried through the cathedral.
Carlo smiled.
“Your father said the same thing once.”
Agents shifted.
Carlo pressed the weapon toward Sophie.
“No heroes.”
Sophie remained still.
Lucia reached for her.
Carlo laughed.
“Look at this. Thomas Bennett's daughter sitting beside a Moretti.”
“You killed my father,” Sophie said.
“Yes.”
Her face changed.
Not fear.
Grief becoming anger.
Carlo continued.
“He should have minded his business.”
“You cut his brakes.”
“He forced my hand.”
“No,” Sophie said. “You made a choice.”
The cathedral went silent.
Carlo's smile faded.
That was Sophie's gift.
She could strip a powerful man's excuses down to one sentence.
I stepped forward.
“Take me.”
“Massimo,” Marco warned.
Carlo pointed the weapon at me.
“You were always your father's favorite.”
“I was his son.”
“Exactly.”
Damian stared upward.
“Dad?”
Carlo looked at him.
Something almost human crossed his face.
“Hello, son.”
Damian's confidence collapsed.
“You told me you couldn't come.”
“I lied.”
“You used me.”
Carlo laughed.
“Don't become sentimental now.”
Vivian looked between them.
“You said Damian would control everything.”
Carlo ignored her.
That was when she understood.
She had never been a partner.
Neither had Damian.
They were tools.
Carlo descended from the choir loft through the side stairs.
Agents couldn't get a clear shot.
He kept Sophie aligned between himself and them.
When he reached the nave, he grabbed her arm.
I moved.
“Stop.”
The gun pressed against her side.
I stopped.
Sophie looked at me.
Her expression said don't.
Carlo dragged her toward the sacristy.
“Account 714,” he said to Lucia. “Transfer it.”
Lucia lifted her chin.
“No.”
“I'll kill her.”
“No, you won't.”
Carlo smiled.
“Try me.”
Lucia's hands trembled.
But her voice didn't.
“The account is gone.”
Carlo froze.
“What?”
“Transferred this morning.”
“To where?”
“The Thomas Bennett Restitution Foundation.”
Sophie stared at her.
Lucia smiled through tears.
“Your father's name is on every dollar.”
Carlo's face twisted.
“No.”
“Forty million dollars,” Lucia continued. “Every victim. Every family. Every person you stole from.”
Carlo fired.
The shot shattered stone above the altar.
People screamed.
Agents moved.
Sophie drove her heel into Carlo's foot and twisted free.
I reached her.
Marco tackled Carlo.
The gun slid across marble.
Damian lunged for it.
An agent kicked it away.
Within seconds, Carlo was facedown.
Handcuffed.
Damian too.
Cole.
Vivian.
All of them.
It should have ended there.
But Vivian began laughing.
Everyone looked at her.
“You idiots.”
She was crying and laughing simultaneously.
“You think Carlo was the only one?”
I walked toward her.
“What does that mean?”
She smiled.
“There was another syringe.”
My stomach dropped.
I turned toward Lucia.
Her hand went to her chest.
Sophie caught her as she collapsed.
“Lucia!”
I ran.
My mother's face had gone gray.
Sophie searched her neck.
A tiny puncture mark.
Someone had injected her during the chaos.
Dr. Cole was already restrained.
Carlo was across the room.
Damian had never approached her.
I looked around the cathedral.
May you like
Then I saw an empty seat in the front pew.
Someone who had been there eleven minutes earlier was gone.
