Chapter 7 - NAVY PIER
At nine fifty-seven, Lake Michigan looked black enough to swallow the city.
Wind cut through my coat.
Navy Pier was nearly empty.
October tourists had gone home, restaurants were closing, and the Ferris wheel turned slowly against the night.
I walked alone.
At least that was what Matteo was supposed to believe.
Marco had trackers in my coat lining and boot.
Luca had argued for a wire.
I refused.
“If Matteo searches me, it’s over.”
“If Matteo touches you—”
“What?”
Luca had stopped.
We were standing in the mansion garage then, surrounded by security men.
“What happens if he touches me?”
His jaw tightened.
“Nothing good.”
That answer stayed with me as I approached the end of the pier.
A man stood beside the railing.
Matteo.
No Victor.
No Dad.
“You came,” he said.
“You sound surprised.”
“I thought Luca might lock you in a room.”
“He considered it.”
Matteo smiled.
“He was always controlling.”
“You kidnapped my father.”
“Temporarily.”
“Where is he?”
“Safe.”
“Victor?”
“Also safe.”
“You have a flexible definition of safe.”
He turned toward the water.
“Your mother was like you.”
I stopped.
“Don’t.”
“Direct. Annoying.”
“Did you kill her?”
“No.”
“Your father said you did.”
“My father blamed me because he couldn’t accept what Luca had done.”
The world seemed to stop.
“What?”
Matteo looked at me.
“You heard me.”
“Luca was what, sixteen?”
“Seventeen.”
“You expect me to believe a teenager ordered my mother killed?”
“No.”
“Then what did he do?”
“He was driving.”
I stared.
“Driving what?”
“The car that hit her.”
My stomach turned.
“No.”
“He doesn’t remember.”
“That’s convenient.”
“It’s true.”
Matteo pulled a photograph from his coat.
A wrecked black sedan.
Front end crushed.
Beside it stood a teenage boy.
Luca.
I grabbed the picture.
“This proves nothing.”
“Look at the date.”
The date matched my mother’s death.
My hands shook.
“What happened?”
“Victor wanted Emily frightened. Not killed. Luca had taken one of our father’s cars without permission. Wrong place. Wrong time.”
“You’re lying.”
“Ask him.”
A vehicle approached behind us.
Black SUV.
The door opened.
Dad was pushed out.
Alive.
I ran to him.
“Dad!”
He hugged me.
“I’m okay.”
“Did they hurt you?”
“No.”
Matteo said, “I keep promises.”
Dad looked at him with hatred.
“You threatened a child.”
“You lied to Antonio.”
“To protect her.”
Matteo shrugged.
“Everyone has reasons.”
“Where’s Victor?” I asked.
“Different location.”
“You said—”
“I said your father would come first.”
I wanted to hit him.
Instead I said, “The envelope.”
Matteo held it up.
Yellow paper.
My name.
Mom’s handwriting.
“Sign the transfer.”
“No.”
His smile faded.
“We negotiated.”
“You kidnapped Dad after we negotiated.”
“Business changed.”
“So did my terms.”
Dad whispered, “Emma, don’t.”
Matteo looked toward the Ferris wheel.
“You think Luca is coming?”
I said nothing.
“He is.”
Still nothing.
“Of course he is.”
Matteo smiled.
“He was never good at staying away from things he wanted.”
Headlights appeared at the far end.
A black sedan stopped.
Luca stepped out.
Alone.
I should have been angry.
Instead relief hit so hard it almost hurt.
Matteo applauded slowly.
“Perfect.”
Luca approached.
“Let them go.”
“Which one?”
“Both.”
Matteo laughed.
“You don’t even know what she knows yet.”
Luca looked at me.
“What did he tell you?”
I held up the photograph.
His face changed.
That was enough.
“You know this car.”
Luca stopped.
“Emma—”
“Do you know it?”
“Yes.”
Dad stared at him.
“No.”
Luca’s eyes remained on mine.
“I stole it from my father’s garage when I was seventeen.”
“Were you driving the night my mother died?”
Wind whipped between us.
“Yes.”
My chest tightened.
Dad lunged.
Marco’s hidden security men appeared from the shadows.
Luca raised both hands.
“Wait.”
Dad shouted, “You killed her?”
“No.”
“You just said—”
“I was driving earlier that night. I left the car near Wacker after I hit a barrier.”
Matteo laughed.
“Here comes the revised history.”
Luca ignored him.
“I was drunk. I panicked. Matteo picked me up.”
I looked at Matteo.
He smiled.
“I told you he was driving.”
“You didn’t say he left the car.”
“Details.”
Luca stepped closer.
“The police report said the vehicle that hit Emily was stolen.”
Dad’s face changed.
“You never told Antonio.”
“I did.”
“When?”
“The next morning.”
“And?”
“He sent people to find the car. It was gone.”
Matteo clapped again.
“What a touching memory.”
Luca turned on him.
“You took it.”
Matteo’s smile vanished.
“You picked me up. You knew where I left it.”
Silence.
Luca’s eyes widened.
“You used my car.”
Matteo stepped backward.
Dad understood before I did.
“You framed your own brother.”
Matteo reached inside his coat.
A gun appeared.
Everything happened at once.
Luca moved toward me.
Marco’s men shouted.
Matteo grabbed Dad and pressed the gun beneath his jaw.
“Everybody stop.”
We stopped.
He backed toward the railing.
“Sign the transfer, Emma.”
“No.”
“Your father dies.”
Dad whispered, “Don’t.”
I looked at the envelope in Matteo’s other hand.
“My mother’s letter first.”
“You’re unbelievable.”
“Letter.”
He threw it.
It landed near my feet.
I picked it up.
The seal was intact.
I opened it.
Inside was one page.
My mother’s handwriting.
Emma,
If you are reading this, then Antonio was right and the past came back.
I need you to know something before anyone tells you who to hate.
The night I died, I was meeting Antonio because I had discovered Victor Bellini was stealing from both families.
Matteo helped him.
But someone else helped me.
Someone who risked everything to copy the records.
His name was Luca.
I looked up.
Luca stared at the letter.
I kept reading.
He was only seventeen. He found papers in his father’s office and gave them to me because he believed they proved Matteo was dangerous.
If anything happens to me, do not blame Luca.
He tried to save me.
My eyes filled.
Matteo’s face twisted.
“Sentimental garbage.”
“No,” I said.
I looked at Luca.
“It’s evidence.”
Matteo tightened his grip on Dad.
“Sign.”
I folded the letter.
“No.”
His gun moved.
Then Dad stomped backward onto Matteo’s foot.
The shot exploded.
I screamed.
Luca tackled me to the ground.
Marco’s men fired.
Matteo disappeared over the railing.
For one horrifying second, nobody moved.
Then I crawled toward Dad.
Blood covered his coat.
“Dad!”
He groaned.
“Shoulder.”
Not chest.
Shoulder.
Alive.
I laughed and cried at the same time.
Luca reached the railing.
Below us, black water churned.
No Matteo.
No body.
Again.
Marco looked down.
“He planned an escape.”
A small speedboat was already racing into the darkness.
Luca cursed.
I held Dad’s hand until the ambulance came.
As paramedics loaded him inside, Vanessa called.
Luca answered.
Her voice was hysterical.
“Luca, I found my father.”
“Where?”
“At my apartment.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
Then she began crying harder.
“But he left something.”
“What?”
“A confession.”
Luca looked at me.
Vanessa whispered through the phone:
“He says Matteo didn’t kill Emma’s mother.”
I froze.
“Then who did?”
Vanessa sobbed.
May you like
“My father says he did.”
At the hospital, Dad refused pain medication until I threatened to ask Mrs. Caruso to supervise him. He accepted immediately. Luca sat in the corridor with blood on his cuff that was not his. For the first time since Navy Pier, we were alone. I handed him Mom’s letter again and asked whether he remembered giving her the records. He did. He had found invoices in Matteo’s desk while searching for cash he had stolen from Antonio. The invoices showed payments to shell companies. Teenage Luca had not understood the scheme, but he understood his brother was hiding something. Emily had once been kind to him at Caruso’s, so he slipped copies into her bag. “I thought I was getting Matteo in trouble,” he said. “I didn’t know I was putting her in danger.” I told him guilt likes to rewrite cause and effect. Matteo and Victor chose what happened afterward. He looked at me as if nobody had ever allowed him that distinction. Then Vanessa arrived carrying her father’s confession and a second surprise: Victor had named the man who actually drove Luca’s abandoned car. Raymond Crane, Harold Crane’s younger brother. Raymond died in 2019. Harold had paid him through Lake Meridian Storage. The conspiracy had roots inside Moretti Holdings deeper than any of us knew. Victor’s confession also said Matteo had discovered the plan after Emily died and used it to blackmail Victor for years. That was why Victor helped him disappear in 2014. Not loyalty. Fear. Luca leaned back against the hospital wall and laughed once. “Everybody was blackmailing everybody.” Vanessa said that was the Bellini family motto, just never printed on stationery. Her joke died quickly. She asked me whether I hated her. I told her I had not scheduled that emotion yet. There were too many others ahead of it. She accepted the answer. Before dawn, Marco brought news from the lake patrol. They found Matteo’s abandoned speedboat near a marina. Inside was a waterproof bag containing fake passports, cash, and one page torn from the red ledger. On that page, beside Harold Crane’s name, was a handwritten notation: BOARD VOTE — EMERGENCY CONTROL. Luca stared at it. Matteo’s next attack would not be another kidnapping. It would be corporate, public, and designed to make Luca look incapable of leading. We had survived the pier. Now we had to survive daylight.
