Chapter 15 - LABOR UNDER LOCKDOWN
The threat forced Julian to move Elena and Luca again.
Elena had spent enough time being hidden.
She refused another secret facility.
“I will not raise my son inside locked rooms,” she said.
“Matteo is free.”
“He wants us afraid.”
“He wants you dead.”
“He wanted me silent before.”
“I survived because I ran.”
“And did running make me free?”
Julian had no answer.
Elena chose the lake house.
It stood on open land with only one access road.
Marcus installed security at a distance so the property would not feel like a prison.
Federal agents monitored the surrounding forest.
Julian stayed in a guest room.
Elena took the room facing the lake.
Luca slept in a cradle between them during the day.
At night, Elena kept him beside her bed.
Julian woke whenever the baby cried.
He learned to prepare bottles.
He learned how to change diapers.
The first time Luca spit milk across Julian’s expensive shirt, Elena laughed so hard she had to sit down.
Julian looked at the stain.
“I have negotiated with hostile governments.”
“And yet you were defeated by six pounds of baby.”
“Seven pounds now.”
“You remembered.”
“I remember everything about him.”
Elena’s laughter faded into something gentler.
For several days, they experienced fragments of the life they might have had.
Quiet breakfasts.
Walks near the water.
Exhausted conversations after midnight.
Julian did not ask Elena to return to him.
That restraint became its own apology.
One evening, Elena found him assembling a crib.
The instructions lay upside down.
“You placed the side panel backward,” she said.
“No.”
“Yes.”
Julian examined it.
“Yes.”
She sat beside him.
“You could hire someone.”
“I did.”
“What happened?”
“I sent him away.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to build one thing for my son with my own hands.”
Elena touched the wood.
“It may collapse.”
“That appears to be a family tradition.”
She looked at him sharply.
Julian’s face remained serious.
Then Elena began laughing.
He joined her.
The moment ended when Marcus entered.
A camera had detected movement near the eastern woods.
Agents searched the area.
They found a phone attached to a tree.
A live video appeared on the screen.
Matteo stood inside an unknown room.
Behind him were photographs of Elena, Julian, Luca, Clara, Marcus, and Camila.
“You always wanted to save everyone,” Matteo said.
“You should have learned from Father.”
“Saving one person requires sacrificing another.”
Julian spoke into the phone.
“What do you want?”
Matteo smiled.
“A conversation.”
“Then speak.”
“Not with you.”
His gaze shifted toward Elena.
“With my sister-in-law.”
Elena stepped closer.
“I am listening.”
“You destroyed my life.”
“No.”
“You did.”
“You opened files that were never yours.”
“You turned Julian against his blood.”
“You took the trust.”
Elena’s expression remained calm.
“You destroyed your life long before I found the accounts.”
Matteo’s smile vanished.
“You sound like Sofia.”
“No.”
“I sound like someone who is no longer afraid of you.”
Matteo leaned toward the camera.
“You should be.”
The video feed changed.
Clara appeared tied to a chair.
Julian turned toward Marcus.
“She was supposed to be under protection.”
Marcus was already contacting agents.
Matteo returned to the screen.
“Bring the original ledger to the abandoned Rossi shipyard.”
“Midnight.”
“No federal agents.”
“No Marcus.”
“Elena brings it alone.”
Julian stepped forward.
“That will not happen.”
Matteo smiled.
“Then Clara dies with every secret your father trusted her to protect.”
The screen went dark.
Elena looked at Julian.
“I am going.”
“No.”
“We need Clara alive.”
“We need you alive.”
“There is more than one life that matters.”
Julian’s expression hardened.
“You are Luca’s mother.”
“And Clara risked everything to protect him.”
Marcus found evidence Matteo had infiltrated the lake security network through old Rossi codes.
The shipyard had multiple underground entrances.
A direct assault could put Clara at risk.
Elena proposed carrying a false ledger.
Julian proposed taking her place.
Neither trusted the other’s plan.
Their argument continued until Luca cried.
Elena lifted him from the cradle.
The sight stopped both of them.
“This is what Matteo wants,” she said.
“He wants us to believe protecting one person requires abandoning another.”
Julian looked at his son.
“Then we refuse the choice.”
They developed a different plan.
Elena would enter the shipyard visibly.
Julian would remain hidden inside the delivery vehicle.
Marcus and federal agents would approach through underwater maintenance tunnels.
Camila provided Matteo’s emergency communication codes.
At midnight, Elena walked into the shipyard carrying the ledger case.
Rain moved across the empty docks.
Matteo’s voice came through loudspeakers.
“Place it on the ground.”
“Show me Clara.”
A light activated inside the main warehouse.
Clara sat in a chair beside an open fuel line.
Matteo stood behind her.
He held a flare.
“One spark,” he said.
“And every Rossi secret burns.”
Elena placed the case down.
Matteo ordered her closer.
She walked toward him.
Julian watched through a narrow gap inside the delivery truck.
Something felt wrong.
Matteo was not looking at the ledger.
He was looking toward the water.
“He knows,” Julian whispered.
A second later, explosions collapsed the underwater tunnel entrances.
Marcus’s team was trapped.
Matteo smiled.
“Did you really believe I would not anticipate my brother?”
He raised the flare.
Then he looked at Elena.
“Now Julian will choose.”
The warehouse doors opened.
Two armed men dragged Luca’s medical nanny inside.
She carried an empty infant carrier.
Elena’s face went white.
May you like
Matteo laughed.
“Your son is no longer at the lake house.”
