Chapter 6 - One Night Against an Empire
The federal agents took Vittorio DeLuca out of Saint Catherine’s Library in handcuffs.
He walked between them with his silver hair wet from the sprinklers, blood darkening one corner of his mouth, and the same calm expression he had worn when he entered.
As he passed Matteo, he slowed.
“You think one arrest changes anything?” Vittorio asked.
Matteo stood beside me, soaked through, his white shirt clinging to his shoulders beneath his open jacket.
“No,” Matteo replied. “The evidence changes everything.”
Vittorio smiled.
“Evidence disappears.”
“Not when forty-three copies exist.”
The smile vanished.
Luca leaned against a bookshelf with a cloth pressed to the cut above his eyebrow.
“Forty-six,” he corrected. “Tessa sent three more while everyone was fighting.”
Matteo looked at me.
“You sent copies during the fight?”
“I sent them before the fight.”
“To whom?”
“A senator, two newspapers, a federal prosecutor, three nonprofit watchdog groups, and a woman who makes investigative videos from her basement.”
Luca frowned.
“The last one sounds unreliable.”
“She has four million subscribers.”
He considered that.
“Then she may be the most dangerous.”
Vittorio was pushed toward the main doors.
He turned his head one last time.
“You have no idea what you have started, Matteo.”
Matteo’s voice remained even.
“I do.”
Vittorio looked at me.
“And you, Miss Romano, have just made yourself famous to every man whose name appeared in those files.”
Before I could answer, the agents led him outside.
The library settled into a strange silence.
Water dripped from the shelves. Broken glass glittered beneath the stained-glass windows. Mrs. Park stood behind her front desk, inspecting the damage with the expression of a woman deciding whom to invoice first.
A federal agent approached Matteo.
“Mr. Moretti, we need you to come with us.”
“For questioning?”
“For several questions.”
Matteo nodded.
The agent turned toward me.
“Ms. Romano, you too.”
Mrs. Park cleared her throat.
Everyone looked at her.
“You may question them after someone helps me move the wet books.”
The agent blinked.
“Ma’am, this is an active crime scene.”
“And those are first editions.”
Matteo removed his suit jacket and handed it to Luca.
Then he began lifting books from the flooded floor.
The federal agent stared at him.
“You understand that you may be arrested tonight.”
Matteo placed a dripping collection of poems onto a dry cart.
“Yes.”
“And you are moving books?”
“The lady asked.”
Mrs. Park gave the agent a satisfied nod.
For ten minutes, armed federal officers, mafia soldiers, librarians, and one exhausted waitress worked together to save water-damaged books.
It was the strangest thing I had ever seen.
And my day had begun with taped shoes.
When we finally stepped outside, news cameras were already gathering beyond the police barriers.
Apparently one of the reporters had opened the files immediately.
The story was spreading.
Hospital fraud.
Illegal shipping networks.
Judicial bribery.
Names of city officials.
Names of police officers.
Names connected to the Moretti companies.
Luca checked his phone.
“Three of our warehouses have already been sealed.”
Matteo’s expression did not change.
“How many captains are calling?”
“All of them.”
“What are they saying?”
“The polite ones are asking whether you have lost your mind.”
“And the others?”
“Less polite.”
Matteo held out his hand.
Luca gave him the phone.
Matteo dialed one number.
“Gather everyone at the river office,” he said. “No weapons inside. No one leaves Philadelphia.”
He ended the call.
I looked at him.
“You are calling a mafia meeting while federal agents are waiting to question you?”
“I am preventing a war.”
“That sounds ambitious.”
“It is Tuesday.”
I stared.
“What does Tuesday have to do with anything?”
“Nothing. But you make irrelevant comments when you are nervous.”
“I am not nervous.”
“You sent evidence to a woman in a basement.”
“She has excellent lighting.”
The federal agent opened the rear door of a government vehicle.
Matteo turned to Luca.
“Take Tessa somewhere secure.”
“No,” I said.
Matteo looked at me.
“We have done this conversation.”
“And you lost.”
“Repeatedly.”
“I’m going with you.”
“To federal custody?”
“You are being questioned, not imprisoned.”
“You do not know that.”
“Neither do you.”
The agent cleared his throat.
“Ms. Romano has also been asked to come.”
I smiled.
Matteo did not.
We spent four hours in separate interview rooms.
The agents asked about Florence, my mother, the flash drive, the Red Lily, Vittorio, and everything Matteo had said since entering the restaurant.
I told the truth.
Mostly.
I left out the part where Matteo held a gun beneath Vittorio’s jaw.
Federal agents had already seen enough broken furniture to form their own theories.
By the time they released me, it was after two in the morning.
Matteo was waiting in the hallway.
His wet clothes had been replaced with a dark shirt and trousers someone had brought him. A bruise had formed along his jaw.
He stood when he saw me.
“Did they threaten you?”
“They offered coffee.”
“Did you drink it?”
“Yes.”
“That was careless.”
“It was federal coffee, not poison.”
“Those are not mutually exclusive.”
We walked toward the exit.
Luca waited outside with a black sedan.
The street was crowded with reporters.
Microphones lifted as soon as the doors opened.
“Mr. Moretti, did you knowingly allow criminal activity through your shipping companies?”
“Are you cooperating with the investigation?”
“Did your family control the Red Lily network?”
“Ms. Romano, are you in a relationship with Matteo Moretti?”
I stopped.
Of all the questions, that one caught me off guard.
Matteo placed one hand lightly against my back and guided me toward the car.
The reporters followed.
“Ms. Romano, did Mr. Moretti threaten you?”
I turned.
“No.”
Matteo looked at me.
I continued.
“He did insult my shoes.”
Several reporters shouted follow-up questions.
Luca opened the rear door.
I slid inside.
Matteo followed.
As the car pulled away, he looked at me.
“You told the press about the shoes.”
“They asked if you threatened me.”
“You could have said no.”
“I did.”
“And then discussed footwear.”
“The public deserves context.”
Luca glanced at us in the mirror.
“You two sound married.”
Matteo and I answered at the same time.
“No.”
Luca smiled and returned his attention to the road.
We did not go to Matteo’s mansion.
We went to the Moretti river office.
It occupied the upper floor of a converted warehouse overlooking the Delaware River. By the time we arrived, more than thirty men were waiting around a long conference table.
Some wore suits.
Others wore work jackets.
Every conversation stopped when Matteo entered.
Then they saw me.
The room grew colder.
A thickset man near the end of the table stood.
“Why is she here?”
Matteo removed his coat.
“Because she found the evidence.”
“She destroyed us.”
“She exposed Vittorio.”
“She gave our records to the government.”
“The records proved our companies were being used by traitors.”
The man slammed one hand against the table.
“And now the government will take everything.”
Matteo walked toward him.
The room went silent.
“What is your name?” I whispered to Luca.
“Carlo Bianchi.”
“Does he always shout?”
“Only when breathing.”
Carlo pointed at me.
“This waitress has no place in our business.”
I looked at him.
“I am standing six feet away. You can say waitress directly to me.”
His face darkened.
Matteo stopped beside the head of the table.
“Tessa stays.”
Carlo laughed once.
“So the rumors are true.”
“What rumors?”
“That a girl in a fast-food uniform has made Matteo Moretti weak.”
Nobody moved.
Matteo’s expression remained calm.
That was when I began to understand something about him.
His anger did not rise.
It narrowed.
“What would strength look like to you?” Matteo asked.
Carlo lifted his chin.
“Vittorio disappears. The witnesses disappear. We close ranks and protect the family.”
“By murdering a librarian?”
Carlo hesitated.
“By doing what is necessary.”
Matteo looked around the room.
“For years, Vittorio used our docks to move narcotics without authorization. He bribed judges, stole from medical charities, arranged kidnappings, and turned our family name into protection for men I would never allow at my table.”
Several captains looked down.
Others watched him carefully.
Matteo continued.
“Some of you knew.”
No one spoke.
“Some of you profited.”
Still silence.
“And some of you were too frightened to ask questions.”
Carlo folded his arms.
“What do you want?”
“The illegal operations end tonight.”
Murmurs spread through the room.
One man stood.
“That is half our income.”
“Then you should have learned legitimate business.”
“We will look weak.”
Matteo placed both hands on the table.
“We were weak.”
The room quieted.
“We allowed one old man to use fear, tradition, and my father’s memory to control us. We called that loyalty because admitting the truth would have embarrassed us.”
Carlo shook his head.
“You are dismantling your own empire for her.”
Matteo looked at me.
“No.”
Then he turned back to the men.
“She forced me to look at it honestly.”
I held his gaze for a second.
The room seemed to disappear.
Then Carlo reached inside his jacket.
Luca moved first.
So did half the men around the table.
Weapons appeared.
Chairs scraped.
Matteo did not move.
“Take your hand out slowly,” he told Carlo.
Carlo’s eyes shifted around the room.
“You gave up our future.”
“No,” Matteo said. “I gave up yours.”
Carlo pulled a gun.
The shot exploded before anyone could stop him.
Matteo jerked backward.
Blood spread across his left side.
For one second, nobody understood what had happened.
Then the room erupted.
Luca fired.
Carlo collapsed against the table.
Men shouted.
I reached Matteo as his knees hit the floor.
“Matteo!”
He pressed one hand against his side.
Blood pushed between his fingers.
“I am fine.”
“You have been shot.”
“I noticed.”
“Then stop saying you’re fine.”
His face had gone pale.
I pulled off my jacket and pressed it against the wound.
He hissed through his teeth.
Luca kicked Carlo’s weapon away.
“Call the doctor!”
“Call an ambulance,” I shouted.
Matteo grabbed my wrist.
“No hospital.”
I stared at him.
“You are not dying in a warehouse because hospitals make you uncomfortable.”
“They will arrest half the room.”
“Then half the room should not have brought guns.”
“Tessa.”
I pressed harder against the wound.
He closed his eyes briefly.
“You are hurting me.”
“Good. Stay awake.”
His hand moved from my wrist to my fingers.
Despite the chaos, he held them.
“Tessa.”
“What?”
“If this goes badly—”
“Do not finish that sentence.”
“There are documents in my office.”
“Matteo.”
“Ownership transfers. Financial accounts. Protection for Jenna and her son.”
I froze.
“What?”
“I had Luca prepare them.”
“Why?”
“Because someone was watching your friend too.”
My stomach dropped.
“Is she safe?”
“Yes. I moved her and the boy an hour ago.”
“You did not tell me.”
“You were speaking to federal agents.”
“You could have told me afterward.”
“You were discussing shoes with reporters.”
His breathing became shallow.
I looked at Luca.
“Where is the ambulance?”
“Four minutes.”
Matteo tightened his fingers around mine.
“You corrected me.”
“What?”
“In the restaurant.”
“I remember.”
“No one had done that in years.”
“Your men must be poorly educated.”
He laughed once, then winced.
“You were terrified.”
“I was angry.”
“Both.”
“Both,” I admitted.
His eyes opened.
“You still did it.”
“So?”
“So I knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That you would either destroy my life or save it.”
Tears burned behind my eyes.
I leaned closer.
“I can do both. Stay alive and find out.”
The ambulance arrived three minutes later.
Matteo lost consciousness before they carried him out.
I rode beside him to the hospital, holding his blood-soaked hand while paramedics worked over him.
For the second time in one night, reporters gathered outside a building.
This time I did not answer questions.
I sat in a private waiting room with dried blood on my shirt and Matteo’s ring pressed into my palm.
A nurse had removed it before surgery and handed it to me without asking who I was.
Luca stood near the window.
“He transferred controlling interest in three legitimate companies yesterday,” he said.
I looked at him.
“To whom?”
“You.”
I stared.
“No.”
“He expected you to refuse.”
“He was right.”
“That is why the documents include a clause preventing you from transferring them back for one year.”
I stood.
“I am going to kill him.”
Luca looked toward the operating room doors.
“That would make the surgeon’s work unnecessary.”
I sat again.
“Why would he do that?”
“Because Matteo does not know how to give flowers.”
“That is not romantic. It is financial kidnapping.”
“He also bought flowers.”
I looked at him.
“They are in your apartment.”
“My apartment was destroyed.”
“He had it repaired.”
“When?”
“While we were at the library.”
“Of course he did.”
Luca sat across from me.
“For what it is worth, he has changed.”
“In twenty-four hours?”
“No.”
He looked down at the blood on his cuff.
“He has been trying to change for years. He simply needed someone who was not afraid to tell him when he failed.”
I closed my fingers around Matteo’s ring.
“Carlo said I made him weak.”
Luca shook his head.
“Carlo confused cruelty with strength.”
The surgeon entered nearly two hours later.
I stood so quickly the chair struck the wall.
“The bullet missed his major organs,” she said. “He lost significant blood, but he is stable.”
My knees almost gave out.
“He will live?”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
The breath I had been holding left me all at once.
“When can I see him?”
“Soon.”
The surgeon looked at the blood covering my clothes.
“Are you family?”
I opened my mouth.
Nothing came out.
May you like
Luca answered from behind me.
“Yes.”
