Chapter 6 - Someone Wanted Kate Gone
Luciano had no intention of going alone.
Kate knew that before he spoke.
“You'll walk into a trap.”
“Yes.”
“That wasn't permission.”
“I wasn't asking.”
She glared at him.
“This is exactly what I mean.”
“What?”
“You decide. Everyone else lives with it.”
Luciano stopped.
She had struck precisely where she intended.
“Then tell me what you want.”
“I want you not to die before our son is born.”
The sentence silenced both of them.
Luciano approached the bed.
“Then I won't.”
“You can't promise that.”
“I can promise I'll try.”
“That isn't enough.”
“No. But it's honest.”
Kate looked at him for a long time.
“Take Marco.”
“I will.”
“And tell me where you're going.”
“I will.”
“No lies.”
“No lies.”
It was a small agreement.
But after seven months built from lies, it felt enormous.
The address led to an abandoned church thirty miles away.
Luciano and Marco arrived before dawn with security positioned out of sight.
Inside, candles burned.
A man stood at the altar.
Silver-gray hair.
Luciano stopped.
The resemblance was not exact.
It was worse.
It was familiar.
Like looking at a version of himself shaped by another life.
“Matteo?”
The man smiled sadly.
“Nobody has called me that since I was a baby.”
Luciano approached.
“You're Michael.”
“I became Michael.”
“You died six years ago.”
“Vittorio needed to believe that.”
“Why contact me now?”
“Because your wife is going to die if you don't stop him.”
Luciano's hand tightened.
“Explain.”
Matteo told him Vittorio had spent decades consolidating control of the Aruri trust.
Luciano's marriage had threatened that control.
A legitimate heir would end it permanently.
At first, Vittorio planned only to break the marriage.
Then Kate became pregnant.
“When did he find out?”
“Before you did.”
Luciano thought of the intercepted ultrasound.
“What does he want now?”
“The baby born before the divorce is finalized gives your bloodline control.”
“So he wants Kate dead.”
“No.”
Matteo looked directly at him.
“He wants the baby.”
Luciano went cold.
Matteo explained the trust clause more precisely.
If Luciano died without custody of his legitimate heir, guardianship authority could temporarily fall to the senior surviving Aruri trustee.
Vittorio.
Luciano understood.
“He takes my son.”
“And controls everything through him.”
“Why keep Kate alive?”
“Because killing a pregnant woman attracts attention. A premature delivery caused by medical complications doesn't.”
Changed medication.
Stress.
Surveillance.
A missing doctor.
Everything connected.
Luciano wanted Vittorio dead.
Matteo saw it.
“If you kill him, you give him what he wants.”
Luciano looked at him.
“He has records prepared. Evidence making you appear unstable, violent, responsible for Kate's medical complications. If you murder him, those records become believable.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Expose him.”
Matteo handed him a drive.
Financial records.
Payments.
Recorded conversations.
Enough to begin dismantling Vittorio's network.
“Why help me?”
Matteo laughed without humor.
“Because he killed the woman who raised me.”
Luciano stared.
“Evelyn?”
“No. My adoptive mother. Evelyn arranged the adoption.”
Matteo looked away.
“Vittorio found her six years ago. That's when Michael Ward officially died.”
Luciano finally understood.
Matteo had faked his death to survive.
“Why didn't you come to me?”
“I didn't know whether you were him.”
“Meaning?”
“Whether you had become Vittorio.”
That hurt because Luciano could not immediately deny it.
He had inherited violence.
Power.
Fear.
Perhaps Vittorio had shaped him more than he wanted to admit.
His phone rang.
Kate.
Luciano answered instantly.
“Kate?”
No response.
Then a crash.
“Kate!”
A whisper.
“Luciano.”
Her voice sounded weak.
“Someone's in the house.”
He was already running.
“Lock the door.”
“I can't.”
“Why?”
“The nurse—”
A scream.
The call disconnected.
Luciano reached the car.
Marco was behind him.
Matteo followed.
“You stay.”
“She's my family too.”
Luciano looked at the brother he had known for less than an hour.
Then nodded.
They drove toward Hawthorne Ridge.
Inside the mansion, Kate forced herself out of bed.
Margaret lay unconscious near the bathroom.
One nurse was missing.
The other two had been locked downstairs.
Kate held her stomach.
“Please.”
Not now.
She reached the hallway.
A figure in medical scrubs disappeared around the corner.
Kate recognized the walk.
Celia Ward.
Her mother's nurse.
“Celia?”
The woman stopped.
Turned.
Older now.
But unmistakable.
“You shouldn't be walking.”
Kate backed away.
“What did you do to Margaret?”
“She'll wake.”
“Why are you here?”
“To correct something your mother should have corrected years ago.”
Celia approached.
Kate saw a syringe.
She ran.
Pain tore through her abdomen.
She nearly fell.
Celia followed.
“You don't understand what that child will inherit.”
“He's my son.”
“He's an Aruri.”
“He's a baby.”
Celia’s expression flickered.
For one second, grief.
Then hardness.
Kate reached the nursery Luciano had prepared years ago, before either of them admitted they wanted children.
She locked the door.
Celia struck it from outside.
Kate grabbed her phone.
No signal.
The lights went out.
She heard the front doors downstairs burst open.
Luciano.
Then gunfire.
One shot.
Two.
Silence.
Kate held her breath.
Someone climbed the stairs.
Slowly.
The nursery handle moved.
Kate backed against the crib.
“Luciano?”
No answer.
The lock clicked.
May you like
The door began to open.
And the person standing outside whispered, “Kate, don't scream.”
