Chapter 6 - THE PRICE OF A CHILD
Panic moved faster than thought. Alessandro searched Emma’s room, bathroom, closet, and balcony even
though he knew she was gone. The open window was not wide enough for an adult to enter easily, but a
length of dark climbing rope hung beyond the sill. The police guard assigned to the corridor had
been found unconscious in a utility room, drugged through a cup of coffee delivered by someone
wearing a kitchen uniform. Security footage showed a small figure in a hood being carried through
the restored tunnel less than twelve minutes before Matteo called. For all the police on the estate,
he had found one more weakness.
Moretti took command immediately. Roadblocks expanded across the region. Helicopters searched rural
routes. Emma’s photograph went only to law enforcement to keep the kidnapping out of the press.
Alessandro wanted every resource mobilized and nearly ordered his own helicopters into the air, but
Moretti stopped him from creating chaos. “He wants you frightened enough to make mistakes,” she
said. Alessandro answered that Matteo had succeeded. Moretti met his stare. “Then be frightened.
Just don’t be stupid.” The bluntness cut through him. Emma had once repeated Sofia’s definition of
courage: doing the thing while scared. Alessandro held onto that sentence like a rail above deep
water.
Matteo sent coordinates for an abandoned textile mill near Prato and demanded Alessandro come alone
with ten million euros in bearer instruments and a vehicle. Moretti refused to let him truly go
alone, but they constructed the appearance of compliance. A tracker was hidden in Alessandro’s belt
buckle, a microphone sewn into his jacket, and tactical teams positioned outside the specified
radius. Moretti warned that Matteo knew police methods and might detect surveillance. Alessandro
told her he understood. What he did not say was that if the operation collapsed, he would walk into
the building anyway.
The textile mill stood beside a dead canal, its windows shattered, its brick walls black with
decades of rain. Alessandro entered carrying a case. Inside, old machinery rose from the darkness
like metal skeletons. A single lamp burned on the second floor. Matteo waited beside it with a
pistol. Emma sat tied to a chair several meters away, her mouth uncovered, her face streaked with
tears. The moment she saw Alessandro, she tried to stand. Matteo placed the gun against the back of
her chair. “You always were late to the important moments,” he said.
Alessandro forced himself to look only at Matteo. He set the case down and asked for Emma. Matteo
wanted assurance first. He believed Carlo had decided to sacrifice him and said he possessed files
that could prove Carlo ordered Vittorio’s murder, Sofia’s death, and the attack on Alessandro. He
also knew Carlo’s current location. But he would not surrender the evidence until he received money
and a route out of Europe. Alessandro said none of that mattered until Emma was released. Matteo
smiled and replied that this was why powerful men should never allow themselves to love anything
vulnerable. Vittorio’s weakness had been Alessandro. Alessandro’s weakness was now a child who was
not even his.
Emma looked at Matteo and said, with surprising steadiness, “He came because he’s not like you.” The
words changed Matteo’s expression. He stepped toward her. Alessandro moved at once. Matteo swung the
gun toward him, and the microphone in Alessandro’s jacket transmitted the motion to Moretti’s team.
But before tactical officers could enter, a shot exploded from the far catwalk. Matteo jerked
sideways, hit in the arm. A second shooter had fired from the shadows.
Carlo Bellini emerged above them holding a suppressed pistol. He had followed Matteo, not to rescue
anyone but to erase loose ends. “Always theatrical,” Carlo called down. Matteo fired back. The mill
erupted into gunfire. Alessandro dropped behind machinery and dragged Emma’s chair toward cover
while rounds struck iron and sent sparks across the floor. Emma screamed. Matteo and Carlo shot at
each other through rusted railings. Outside, Moretti ordered the tactical team in.
Alessandro cut Emma’s wrist ties with a shard of metal from the floor. He pulled her against his
chest and moved toward a side corridor. Carlo saw them and descended a stairway, firing once. The
bullet struck the wall beside Alessandro’s head. Matteo, bleeding heavily, shouted that Carlo had
always intended to kill Isabella too after the merger. Carlo answered by shooting Matteo in the leg.
Then police smashed through the lower doors. Flash-bang grenades thundered. Officers flooded the
building.
In the confusion, Carlo seized Emma by the arm. Alessandro reached them before Carlo could use her
as a shield. He struck Carlo’s wrist, knocking the pistol away. The two men crashed against an old
cutting table. Carlo was older but ruthless, fighting with the desperate strength of someone who
understood prison would be the end of his empire. He hissed that Vittorio had been too proud to make
peace and that Alessandro had inherited the same weakness. Alessandro hit him once, hard enough to
break his balance, but stopped himself from continuing when Emma cried his name. Killing Carlo in
anger would make the child witness another violence she could never forget.
Moretti reached them with her weapon raised and ordered Carlo to the floor. This time he had nowhere
to go. Officers arrested him beside the same machinery where his plan had collapsed. Matteo, wounded
but alive, was taken into custody as paramedics worked on him. He tried to bargain even from the
stretcher, shouting that he had evidence hidden in three locations. Moretti told him to save it for
prosecutors.
Emma clung to Alessandro so tightly he could feel her heartbeat through his shirt. He carried her
outside into the cold predawn air. Police lights flashed across the canal. She asked whether the bad
men were gone. Alessandro did not promise what no one could promise. He said Carlo and Matteo were
in custody and that many people would work to keep her safe. Emma looked up at him and asked a
smaller, harder question. “Are you going to send me away now because I make trouble?” The words
nearly broke him.
Alessandro knelt in the gravel despite the mud. He told her she had never been the trouble. Adults
had failed around her, lied around her, and endangered her, but none of that belonged to her. He
said the estate was her home for as long as she wanted it to be. Emma began to cry, and so did he,
though he had not cried at his father’s funeral. She wrapped both arms around his neck and
whispered, “Then I want to stay.” Behind them, dawn began lifting over the abandoned mill, pale and
May you like
fragile. It was not a victory yet. But for the first time since breakfast, Alessandro believed they
might survive long enough to build one.
