Chapter 9 - The Father Who Refused to Die
We left Samuel restrained inside the vault with two guards.
He remained useful.
That kept him alive.
Victor prepared the estate helicopter, but the storm made flight impossible. The only route to Saint Orison was by sea.
My private harbor held an armored yacht built for emergencies.
Luca objected to taking Mia.
I agreed.
For the first time that night, we stood on the same side without hesitation.
Evelyn warned that Antonio’s system could activate the implant remotely if the boat changed course.
The signal used military satellites.
We could not block it.
Mia listened from the doorway.
“You are talking like I am not here.”
Luca knelt.
“You are not going.”
“Then I die.”
“I will find another way.”
“You already had seven years.”
He closed his eyes.
She continued.
“Roman came to the door when I brought the baby. You watched from the van.”
Luca looked toward me.
Shame filled the room.
Mia had chosen her uncle not because she trusted me completely, but because I had opened the door.
“I am going,” she said. “But the baby stays.”
Mrs. Harlow agreed to remain with the newborn inside the secured vault level.
Evelyn needed surgery for the gunshot wound, yet she refused to stay.
“Antonio will expect me.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I helped him fake his death.”
Luca looked at her as if he had been struck.
Evelyn admitted that twelve years earlier, before the warehouse explosion, she worked inside Antonio’s medical network. She believed he planned to expose corrupt officials and leave his sons a clean empire.
Instead, he used her to stage his death and move money offshore.
When she discovered the truth, she sided with Luca.
Antonio ordered the explosion.
Everything began with her mistake.
“You loved Roman while working for his father,” Luca said.
“I loved Roman after I learned what his father was.”
I looked away.
The woman I mourned had been built from both love and deception.
We boarded the yacht at 3:20 a.m.
The ocean rose violently beyond the breakwater.
Mia sat inside the main cabin with a blanket around her shoulders. She held Luca’s hand but looked toward me whenever the boat struck a wave.
Evelyn monitored the implant signal.
At 4:11, a second vessel appeared behind us without lights.
Victor identified it as a coast guard cutter reported stolen six hours earlier.
Samuel’s council had followed.
Gunfire struck the yacht’s rear armor.
Victor returned fire while Luca moved Mia below deck.
Evelyn accessed the vault files remotely and transmitted the council member list to federal authorities.
If we died, the names would still escape.
The cutter rammed us near the engine compartment.
Smoke filled the lower passage.
The yacht lost speed.
Saint Orison appeared ahead as a dark shape beneath lightning.
A lighthouse flashed from the cliffs.
Antonio knew we were coming.
The stolen cutter prepared to strike again.
Luca took control of the rear gun.
I joined him.
For twelve years, I had imagined fighting my brother.
Instead, we stood back to back defending his daughter.
“Do you still think I killed you?” I asked.
He fired toward the cutter.
“No.”
“Do you trust me?”
“No.”
I almost laughed.
“Better than before.”
We disabled the cutter’s engine, but not before one attacker boarded our lower deck.
He reached Mia’s cabin.
She struck him with a fire extinguisher before Luca arrived.
The child stood over the unconscious man, breathing hard.
“I am tired of people taking me.”
Luca pulled her into his arms.
“I know.”
“No, you do not.”
He held her anyway.
We reached Saint Orison with forty minutes remaining.
The island contained an abandoned monastery surrounded by black cliffs. Lights glowed behind every window.
No guards waited at the dock.
No weapons.
Only an old man in a white coat standing beneath the stone arch.
Antonio DeLuca.
My father.
He looked older, but not weak.
His eyes moved from Luca to me and finally to Mia.
“My blood came home.”
Mia stood between us.
“I am not yours.”
Antonio smiled.
May you like
“That is what both my sons once believed too.”
Continue to the next part: Roman and Luca confront the father who engineered their children, their betrayals, and his own death.
