Chapter 5 - the child in the car
“Michael, what are you doing?!” Teresa screamed, backing away from the gun in her eldest son’s hand.
She looked at him with absolute terror, completely unable to comprehend why her own flesh and blood was threatening her life.
“Answer me!” Michael roared, his hand shaking violently. “Did you know?!”
“Know what?!” she cried, tears streaming down her face.
I stood frozen near the hallway, the heavy revolver feeling like ice in my hand. I wanted to raise it, to protect Teresa, but Michael’s finger was tight on the trigger. One sudden movement, and he would fire.
George Ellis stepped forward, intentionally placing his body between Michael and Teresa.
“She didn’t know, Michael,” George said, his voice steady despite the chaos. “Frank protected her from the truth. Just like he protected you.”
“Protected me?!” Michael laughed, a broken, hysterical sound. He pointed to the diary on the floor. “He let me think my sister died! He let Mom grieve for thirty-six years!”
Michael looked at Teresa, his eyes wild with betrayal.
“You want to know who was in that car, Mom?” Michael yelled. “You want to know who Carlo Bellini actually blew up?”
Teresa covered her ears, sobbing. “Stop it, Michael! Please!”
“It wasn’t Sofia!” Michael screamed. “Sofia was safely hidden upstate! The child in that car… the child Carlo murdered…”
Michael lowered the gun slightly, his chest heaving as the words tore themselves from his throat.
“Was Carlo’s own son.”
The room went completely silent.
Even Teresa stopped crying. She lowered her hands, staring at Michael in absolute shock.
“What?” she whispered.
“Dad traded them,” Michael said, his voice dropping to a horrified whisper. “Carlo threatened to kill Sofia. So Dad kidnapped Carlo’s three-year-old son in the middle of the night. He put the boy in the car, dressed him in Sofia’s coat, and left the car where Carlo’s men would find it.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
Frank Moretti, the beloved patriarch who built this restaurant, the man Teresa mourned every single day… had sacrificed an innocent three-year-old boy to save his daughter.
And Carlo Bellini had unknowingly detonated the bomb that killed his own child.
“Frank didn’t detonate the bomb,” George clarified quietly. “He just made sure Carlo pulled the trigger on his own flesh and blood.”
Michael looked at George, his face twisting in rage.
“You knew,” Michael accused. “You were Dad’s best friend. You helped him do it, didn’t you?”
George didn’t deny it.
He just looked at Michael with immense pity.
“We did what we had to do to protect the family, Michael.”
“You murdered an innocent kid!” Michael yelled.
“And Carlo murdered a dozen innocent men before that!” George shot back, his calm finally breaking. “He was coming for Sofia! He was coming for Luca! Frank made a choice!”
Michael stepped back, shaking his head.
“Carlo thinks I’m getting him the ledger,” Michael muttered, his panic returning. “He thinks I’m getting proof that he killed Sofia. But if he finds out it was his own son… he’ll burn this entire city down. He’ll kill all of us.”
Michael looked at the door.
“I have to give him something,” Michael said desperately. “I have to give him someone to blame.”
He slowly raised the gun again, pointing it at George.
“I’m sorry, George. But I have to give him you.”
“No!” Teresa screamed, lunging forward.
“Mom, stay back!”
Before Michael could fire, I stepped out from the hallway.
I raised the heavy revolver with both hands and pointed it directly at Michael’s chest.
“Drop the gun, Michael,” I said.
My voice shook, but my hands didn’t.
Michael froze, staring at the maid who usually poured his coffee.
“Hannah,” Michael sneered, trying to mask his surprise. “Put that down. You don’t know how to use it.”
“I grew up on the South Side,” I replied coldly. “I know exactly how to use it.”
Michael hesitated. He looked at my gun, then at George, weighing his options.
But the standoff didn’t last.
From downstairs, we heard the unmistakable sound of heavy boots crashing through the kitchen doors.
Carlo’s men had breached the restaurant.
“Michael!” Carlo’s raspy voice echoed up the stairwell. “I’m out of patience! Bring me the ledger, or I’ll come up there and kill everyone myself!”
Michael’s eyes darted toward the door.
“I have to go,” he panicked.
He didn’t shoot George. He didn’t shoot me.
He turned and bolted toward the fire escape in the kitchen, throwing the window open and scrambling out into the night.
He was running.
“Let him go,” George ordered as I lowered the gun.
George rushed over to the heavy apartment door. He dragged the heavy oak bookcase in front of it, barricading us inside.
“Hannah, the file,” George said urgently, pointing to the manila folder I still had tucked under my arm. “Open it.”
I dropped the gun onto the sofa and ripped the folder open.
Inside were birth certificates. Medical records. And a single, faded photograph of a three-year-old boy.
But it wasn’t just a random child.
The name printed on the birth certificate made my heart stop.
Lorenzo Bellini.
I stared at the name. Lorenzo.
“Mr. Ellis,” I whispered, looking up at George. “This birth certificate… it doesn’t say the boy died.”
George’s face went pale. “What?”
I quickly flipped through the medical records.
“It says he was treated for severe burns,” I read, my hands shaking. “It says he was transferred to a private orphanage in Boston. Under a different name.”
Teresa gasped, covering her mouth.
“Frank didn’t put the boy in the car,” George realized, his voice filled with shock. “He faked the explosion entirely. He staged the wreckage and smuggled the child out of the city.”
I looked at the photograph of the little boy.
He had dark hair.
And a very distinct, small birthmark on his jawline.
I knew that birthmark.
I had seen it every single day for the past two years.
“Oh my God,” I breathed, dropping the file.
Teresa and George looked at me.
“Hannah, what is it?” George asked.
I couldn’t speak. The truth was so massive, so completely world-shattering, that the words refused to form in my mouth.
I looked at Teresa, the woman who had just had her heart broken by the betrayal of her eldest son.
And I realized she was about to lose her youngest son, too.
May you like
Because the little boy in the photograph… the son Carlo Bellini thought he had murdered…
Was Luca.
