Chapter 7 - The TrapWithin twenty minutes, we were back inside the mansion. Luca had regained his composure, the raw vulnerability replaced by the cold, calculated brilliance of a man preparing for total war.
We stood in his private underground security hub—a room lined with glowing monitors, encrypted servers, and tactical maps of Chicago.
“My tech specialist, Marcus, traced Chloe’s cell phone signal the moment she left the gate,” Luca announced, tapping a key on the central console. A live satellite feed appeared on the massive main screen, showing a red convertible parked outside the First National Bank downtown. “She’s heading straight to the safety deposit vault to verify her leverage.”
“She thinks she’s holding all the cards,” I said, leaning over the console to study the map. “Which means she’s going to be careless. She’ll meet someone, or she’ll make a phone call to coordinate her next move.”
“Already on it,” a tech operator chimed in from the corner. “We’ve intercepted her outbound call. She’s talking to a federal prosecutor named Vance—no relation to Vanessa, ironically. A corrupt district attorney who’s been trying to build a RICO case against the Moretti syndicate for two years.”
Luca’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. “So she’s selling the file directly to the government in exchange for immunity and a cash payout.”
“Precisely,” I noted. “Which means the file isn't just a copy; it’s the physical original paper trail from St. Jude’s Hospital. If the DA gets his hands on it, it reopens an active homicide investigation that could legally destabilize your entire corporate immunity structure.”
“Forget the corporate structure,” Luca snapped, his voice hard as iron. “If the federal government gets those files, they will use them to question my legal guardianship of Lily. They’ll try to place her in protective custody while they ‘re-evaluate’ my fitness as a parent.”
The thought of anyone taking Lily away from her father—away from the only home she had left—sent a spike of pure adrenaline through my veins.
“They won't get the files,” I said decisively.
Luca looked at me, a dangerous, approving smirk playing on his lips. “And how do you propose we intercept them in a federally monitored bank downtown in broad daylight, Claire?”
“By letting them walk right into our trap,” I replied, a bold plan forming in my mind. “Chloe wants a payoff. She thinks she has all the leverage. What if we send someone she doesn't expect—someone entirely off the radar—to meet her at the bank under the guise of an anonymous intermediary representing a rival syndicate willing to pay double?”
Luca stared at me in stunned silence for a second, then let out a low, dark laugh that resonated through the room. “A sting operation. In broad daylight.”
“Exactly. While she’s distracted negotiating with a fake buyer, our security team accesses her safety deposit box using our master override codes, swaps the original hospital file with a blank decoy, and leaves her empty-handed.”
Luca nodded slowly, his tactical mind clicking into gear. “It’s brilliant. But who plays the intermediary? If one of my known associates walks up to her, she’ll panic and run straight to the FBI.”
“I’ll do it,” I said without hesitation.
Luca’s expression instantly darkened. “Absolutely not. It’s too dangerous. If Chloe recognizes you from the engagement dinner—”
“She won't,” I interrupted. “She was too focused on screaming at the gates to look closely at me, and I was standing behind you in a standard uniform. With a blonde wig, professional makeup, and a high-end designer suit from Vanessa’s abandoned closet upstairs, I can walk right past her and she’ll think I’m a corporate fixer.”
Luca paced across the command hub, running a hand through his dark hair, clearly torn between his protective instincts and the tactical necessity of the plan. “Claire... if this goes wrong, you’re looking at federal obstruction charges.”
“It’s not going to go wrong,” I said, stepping right up to him and placing my hand firmly on his chest. I felt his fast, heavy heartbeat beneath his shirt. “Trust me, Luca. You saved my family’s home, and you gave my mother her peace. Let me protect yours.”
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He looked down into my eyes, the cold mafia boss melting away entirely, leaving only a man who was falling hopelessly, deeply for the extraordinary woman standing before him.
“Fine,” Luca whispered, his voice rough with suppressed emotion. “You play the fixer. But my top sniper and a four-man extraction team will be stationed across the street the entire time. If anyone so much as looks at you wrong, I burn that bank to the ground.”
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