Chapter 13 - NINE MINUTES
Matteo had been missing nine minutes.
That number became everything.
Not ten.
Not an hour.
Nine.
Rosa had stepped into the laundry room.
Two guards stood downstairs.
The nursery window alarm never triggered.
The hallway camera looped old footage.
Inside access.
Again.
Luca became terrifyingly calm.
Emma had seen the pattern.
The quieter he became, the closer he stood to something violent.
She grabbed his arm.
“Look at me.”
“No.”
“Luca.”
“He took my son.”
“I know.”
“I will kill him.”
“Later.”
His eyes snapped toward her.
She did not blink.
“First we find Matteo.”
That sentence pulled him back.
Marco discovered a service tunnel beneath the old east wing.
Built during Prohibition.
Only family knew.
Vittorio knew.
Gianni knew.
Stefano had learned from either.
The tunnel exited beyond perimeter sensors.
A vehicle waited.
Traffic cameras found it.
Heading south.
Federal agents joined immediately.
Luca no longer resisted.
The old Luca would have handled it privately.
The new Luca wanted his son alive more than he wanted control.
Stefano called.
Matteo cried in the background.
Emma almost collapsed.
“Put him on video.”
Stefano laughed.
“Why?”
“Because if he’s injured, your leverage changes.”
Luca looked at her.
Smart.
Stefano turned on video.
Matteo.
Alive.
Red-faced.
Crying.
Emma watched closely.
Breathing okay.
No visible blood.
Moving arms.
Diaper bag beside him.
Stefano had taken supplies.
“He needs feeding soon,” Emma said.
“I know how babies work.”
“No, you don’t.”
Even now.
“You need to keep him warm.”
“He is.”
“Support his head.”
Stefano swore.
But adjusted him.
Luca stared at Emma like she was insane.
She shrugged.
Enemy or not, Matteo needed proper handling.
Stefano demanded the original Bianchi hard drive.
Emma said yes.
Luca turned.
“No.”
“We give it.”
“It can destroy Charles.”
“We copied it.”
Stefano could verify cryptographic signatures.
A fake drive would fail.
So they prepared the real one.
Federal agents tracked the call imperfectly.
South-side industrial district.
Then signal moved.
Stefano was using relays.
Time.
Emma remembered Matteo’s new baby monitor tag.
Rosa had attached a small Bluetooth temperature sensor to the diaper bag because Luca’s mansion was apparently incapable of owning ordinary objects.
The sensor synced automatically with Emma’s phone when nearby.
Could it help?
Only within short range.
Unless it had pinged connected devices along the route.
The app showed last known data.
A gas station.
Then another.
Digital crumbs.
Agents combined traffic cameras.
Vehicle found.
An old children’s clinic near St. Catherine’s.
Abandoned.
Emma went pale.
Noah had been treated in the building’s old cardiac wing before the new center opened.
Stefano had chosen it intentionally.
Psychological warfare.
Luca said,
“You’re staying behind.”
Emma answered,
“No.”
This time he did not argue long.
They arrived with federal tactical teams.
Emma remained outside perimeter.
Luca too, under protest.
Agents entered.
Empty.
One bassinet.
One phone.
Matteo’s blanket.
No baby.
Then Emma noticed the chapel door.
Same old chapel.
Where Sofia had given her the medal.
She ran.
Luca followed.
Inside, Stefano stood near the altar.
Matteo in his arms.
A gun in his other hand.
Emma stopped.
Luca did too.
Stefano smiled.
“Perfect.”
He had wanted them both.
Not just the drive.
Emma understood.
“You killed Sofia because she chose me.”
Stefano laughed.
“No.”
“I killed Sofia because Gianni was too weak to finish what he started.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“What did Gianni start?”
“Replacing you.”
Stefano wanted the family.
Gianni wanted legitimacy.
Vittorio wanted control.
Charles wanted Bianchi.
Every man had used the same conflict for a different dream.
Stefano alone wanted war.
Because war made men like him necessary.
Emma looked at Matteo.
“He’s hungry.”
“Shut up.”
“He’s been crying.”
“Emma.”
Luca warned softly.
She ignored him.
“You’re holding him too tight.”
Stefano looked down instinctively.
That was all Luca needed.
He moved.
But Emma screamed,
“NO!”
Because a gun and a baby do not tolerate heroics.
Luca stopped.
Good.
Emma kept speaking.
“Give me Matteo.”
Stefano laughed.
“Why?”
“Because he doesn’t know you.”
“He knows me enough.”
“No.”
“He knows fear.”
Something changed in Stefano’s face.
Emma continued.
“You keep telling everyone your family abandoned you.”
“You know what that feels like.”
“Don’t make a five-week-old child feel it because you need Luca to hurt.”
Stefano’s gun shifted.
“Don’t psychoanalyze me.”
“I’m a waitress.”
“Remember?”
That almost distracted him.
Sirens outside.
Stefano panicked.
Bad.
Emma took one step.
Luca whispered,
“Emma.”
She held out her arms.
“Matteo.”
The baby cried.
Then turned toward her voice.
Searching.
Just like in the restaurant.
Stefano looked down.
For half a second, the gun lowered.
Federal agents entered through the side door.
Commands.
Stefano froze.
Luca did not move.
That mattered.
He could have attacked.
He chose Matteo.
Stefano surrendered after a long, shaking minute.
Emma took the baby.
Matteo screamed into her chest.
Luca wrapped both of them in his arms.
For the first time, Emma let him.
No guards cared.
No one looked away.
Luca kissed his son’s head.
Then Emma’s.
“You’re both alive.”
It sounded like prayer.
Stefano was taken away.
The war should have been over.
Then an agent approached.
“Mr. Romano.”
Luca looked up.
“There’s a federal warrant for you.”
Emma froze.
“For what?”
Luca did not ask.
He already knew.
May you like
Cooperation had not erased his own crimes.
The moment he saved his son was also the moment the law came to collect what Luca Romano still owed.
