Chapter 8 - The Woman In The Car
Luca dropped the gun.
It hit the hardwood floor with a heavy clatter.
He didn’t look at me. He didn’t look at his father.
He just walked past everyone, shoved the heavy mahogany doors open, and sprinted down the hallway toward the front driveway.
“Luca, wait!” Michael yelled, running after him.
I followed them, my heart hammering in my chest.
June walked calmly behind us, her sensible shoes clicking against the marble floors.
We burst through the front doors into the cool Chicago night.
Parked at the bottom of the mansion’s grand staircase was a black sedan. Daniel’s car.
Luca reached the car and ripped the back door open.
Sitting in the backseat was a woman.
She was in her late sixties. Her dark hair was streaked with silver, pulled back in a neat twist. She wore a simple beige coat.
And she was holding a terrified, seven-year-old boy in her arms.
Luca stopped.
His hands gripped the edge of the car door so tightly his knuckles were white.
“Mom?” he whispered.
The woman looked up.
Tears instantly flooded her eyes.
She reached one hand out, her fingers trembling.
“Oh, my beautiful boy,” Lucia Moretti sobbed.
Luca collapsed to his knees right there on the wet driveway.
He buried his face in his mother’s coat, weeping with thirty years of buried grief.
Michael stopped a few feet away.
He couldn’t move. He just stared at his wife, tears silently rolling down his weathered cheeks.
“Lucia,” Michael choked out.
Lucia looked over her son’s shoulder at her husband.
She smiled gently.
“You took too long to come home, Michael.”
I stood frozen on the steps.
My eyes weren’t on the reunion.
They were on the little boy sitting beside Lucia.
He had messy brown hair, wide green eyes, and he was clutching a small, worn sketchbook against his chest.
Toby.
My brother.
I slowly walked down the steps.
The boy looked at me, shrinking back slightly.
“Hi,” I said, my voice barely a whisper.
He looked at my face, then down at his sketchbook.
“Are you Emma?” he asked. His voice was small, innocent.
“Yes.”
Toby opened his sketchbook.
He pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to me.
“The man who took me from my foster house today said I was going to a bad place,” Toby said.
“But the nice lady in the car said you would keep me safe. She said our mom loved us both very much.”
I took the drawing.
It was a child’s crayon drawing of a hospital bed.
A stick figure of a woman laying down.
And two smaller stick figures holding her hands.
Written at the top in clumsy letters was: Mom, Emma, and Toby.
A sob tore out of my throat.
I reached into the car and pulled my little brother into my arms.
He hugged me back instantly, burying his face in my neck.
For the first time in twenty-nine years, I wasn’t alone.
Suddenly, the sound of sirens shattered the quiet night.
Red and blue lights flashed at the end of the long driveway.
Dozens of police cars were smashing through the front gates.
Vanessa walked out of the front doors, her phone in her hand.
Her face was streaked with tears, but her chin was held high.
“I called them,” Vanessa said loudly over the sirens.
Luca stood up, wiping his face.
“Vanessa, what did you do?”
“I gave them the brass key,” Vanessa said, pointing back to the dining room.
“I told them exactly where the vault is. I told them to arrest my father.”
Richard Bellini stumbled out the door behind her, looking horrified.
“You betrayed your own blood!”
Vanessa looked at her father with absolute disgust.
“You aren’t blood, Dad. You’re a parasite. And I’m finally cutting you off.”
She looked at me.
“The company is yours, Emma. Clean it up.”
The police swarmed the steps.
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TITLE: The Light After The Storm
