Page 26 of Claimed by the Enemy (Moretti Bratva #2)

Chapter Twenty-One

Dom

“ Y ou’re sure about this?”

Uncle Enzo’s voice carries across the parking garage where we’ve met to finalize our plan. Three days have passed since the yacht, three days of careful preparation and gathering evidence.

Three days of Sophie trying to convince me not to confront Riccardo directly.

“I’m sure,” I say, checking the recording device hidden in my jacket. “He needs to confess. On tape. It’s the only way to end this permanently.”

“And if he doesn’t confess? If he simply tries to kill you?”

“That’s where you come in.”

Uncle Enzo nods grimly. Behind him, two of his most trusted men wait by a black sedan. They’re armed, professional, and completely loyal to Sophie’s safety.

“Sophie doesn’t know about this part of the plan,” I say.

“She’d try to stop us.”

“She’d try to protect everyone. It’s what she does.”

“It’s what makes her remarkable,” Uncle Enzo agrees. “And what makes this necessary. Our children deserve to grow up free from the poison that’s been destroying our families.”

Our children. The words still send a shock through my system. In six months, Sophie and I will be parents. Our child will grow up in a world where Bellinis and Morettis are allies, not enemies.

If we survive the next hour.

“Vincent will drive you,” Uncle Enzo continues. “He’s been briefed on the exit strategy. The moment you get what we need, you signal him and we move.”

“And Sophie?”

“Is safely at home with Raff, believing you’re at a routine business meeting.” Uncle Enzo’s expression softens slightly. “She made me promise to bring you back alive.”

“What did you tell her?”

“That I owe her a lifetime of keeping that promise.”

Uncle Riccardo’s penthouse hasn’t changed since my last visit. Same expensive minimalism, same carefully curated art, same sense of old money and older secrets.

What’s different is the way he looks at me when I walk through the door.

Like he’s seeing a dead man.

“Domenico.” His smile is warm, paternal, exactly the same as it’s been my entire life. “This is unexpected.”

“Is it?”

“You’ve been keeping strange company lately. I was beginning to worry.”

“Were you?”

Riccardo closes the door behind me, his movements casual but deliberate. “Come, sit. We have much to discuss.”

I follow him into the living room, hyperaware of every detail. The placement of furniture, the distance to exits, and the way Riccardo’s hands move as he pours himself a drink.

“Whiskey?” he offers.

“No thanks.”

“Ah, yes, I forgot. You’re going to be a father soon. Congratulations.”

The casual way he mentions Sophie’s pregnancy makes my skin crawl. “Thank you.”

“A baby. How wonderful.” Riccardo settles into his usual chair, the same one he sat in when I was sixteen and broken by grief. “Tell me, figlio, does Sophie know the whole truth about her parents?”

“What truth would that be?”

“About how they really died.”

“I know how they died, Uncle. The same way my parents died. Because of you.”

Riccardo’s glass pauses halfway to his lips. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me. You killed them. All of them. Marco, Aurora, my mother, my father. You orchestrated everything.”

“Domenico, you’re clearly upset. Perhaps we should-”

“I’m not upset. I’m done. Done with the lies, done with the manipulation, done with you poisoning my family from the inside.”

Riccardo sets down his glass with careful precision. “Those are very serious accusations.”

“They’re facts. I know about the falsified documents. The fake witnesses. The way you convinced Uncle Enzo that my father killed his family.”

“Do you?”

“I know you’ve been playing us against each other for sixteen years while you consolidated power from both families.”

“And how exactly would you know any of this?”

“Because Uncle Enzo and I compared notes. Turns out, when you remove your lies from the equation, the truth becomes pretty clear.”

Riccardo stands up, moving to the window that overlooks Central Park. “The truth. Such an interesting concept.”

“What’s interesting about it?”

“The truth is that your father was weak. That he trusted the wrong people, made alliances with families that were beneath him.”

“You mean the Bellinis.”

“I mean, anyone who threatened the purity of what we’d built.” Riccardo turns back to me, and for the first time, I see something cold and calculating in his eyes. “Your father was planning to merge with Marco Bellini. Can you imagine? Diluting the Moretti name with street trash from Naples.”

“They were our friends.”

“They were parasites. And your father was too soft to see it.”

“So you killed him.”

“I saved our family from destruction.”

The casual admission hits like a physical blow. “You killed my parents.”

“I eliminated threats to our legacy. Just as I’ll eliminate this threat.”

“What threat?”

“You, Domenico. And that poisonous little wife of yours.”

Riccardo’s hand moves to his jacket, but I’m already diving behind the couch as the first shot rings out. Wood explodes above my head, and I hear him moving across the room.

“You always were too trusting, figlio. Just like your father.”

Another shot, closer this time. I roll toward the kitchen, trying to put more furniture between us.

“Did you really think I didn’t know about your little alliance with Enzo Bellini? Did you think I wouldn’t be watching?”

“Watching what?”

“Everything. Your marriage, your wife’s pregnancy, your pathetic attempts to play detective.”

He’s moving closer, hunting me through his own living room like prey.

“You see, Domenico, I’ve been planning this for a very long time. Sixteen years, to be precise.”

“Planning what?”

“The complete elimination of both the Moretti and Bellini bloodlines.”

I risk a look around the edge of the kitchen island. Riccardo is methodically checking corners, his gun held with professional competence.

“Both bloodlines?”

“Did you think this was just about business? About money?” Riccardo laughs, the sound echoing off expensive walls. “This was about purity. About ensuring that true Italian families like ours don’t get contaminated by street filth.”

“You’re insane.”

“I’m a purist. Your father wanted to sully our name with Bellini blood. Now you’ve done exactly the same thing.”

“Sophie is my wife.”

“Sophie is an abomination. The child she’s carrying is an abomination. And when I’m finished with you, both problems will be solved permanently.”

Rage floods through me, hot and immediate. “You touch Sophie, and I’ll kill you.”

“With what? You’re unarmed, trapped, and completely outmatched.”

“Am I?”

The front door explodes inward with a crash that shakes the entire penthouse. Uncle Enzo steps through the debris, flanked by his two men, all of them armed and focused.

“Hello, Riccardo,” Uncle Enzo says calmly. “We need to talk.”

Riccardo spins toward the new threat, his gun wavering between me and the Bellini crew.

“Enzo. I should have known you’d come crawling back eventually.”

“You should have known a lot of things. Like the fact that I’ve been recording this entire conversation.”

Uncle Enzo holds up a small device, its red light blinking steadily.

“Every word, Riccardo. Every confession. Every threat against my niece and her unborn child.”

“You think anyone will believe that recording? I have judges, police commissioners, federal prosecutors in my pocket.”

“You had them in your pocket. Before they learned you’ve been orchestrating gang wars for sixteen years. Before they discovered the money laundering, the arms dealing, the human trafficking, you’ve been hiding behind legitimate businesses.”

Riccardo’s face goes pale. “You can’t prove any of that.”

“Actually, we can. You see, while you were focused on keeping Dom and Sophie at each other’s throats, we’ve been investigating. Following money trails, tracking shipping manifests, interviewing very interesting people who were eager to share information in exchange for immunity.”

“Impossible.”

“Your mistake, Riccardo, was thinking that hatred would always be stronger than love. That family loyalty would always trump the desire for truth.”

Uncle Enzo steps closer, his weapon trained on Riccardo’s chest.

“But you underestimated my niece. You underestimated her capacity for love, for forgiveness, for seeing past the lies you fed both our families.”

“Sophie is a naive child.”

“Sophie is the future. The proof that our families can build something better than the poison you’ve been spreading.”

“Our families?” Riccardo’s voice rises with hysteria. “You think you’re family? You think mixing Moretti blood with Bellini filth creates something worth preserving?”

“I think,” Uncle Enzo says quietly, “that love is stronger than hatred. And that the child Sophie and Dom are going to have represents hope for something better.”

“Over my dead body.”

“If necessary.”

Riccardo’s gun swings toward Uncle Enzo, but I’m already moving. Sixteen years of rage, of grief, of believing lies about the man who raised me, fuels my charge across the room.

I hit Riccardo like a freight train, driving him into the expensive art covering his walls. The gun goes off, the bullet burying itself in the ceiling as we crash to the floor.

“You killed them,” I snarl, my hands around his throat. “You killed my parents. You killed Sophie’s parents. You destroyed everything good in both our families.”

“They… deserved… to die,” Riccardo gasps. “Weak… contaminated…”

“They were innocent.”

“No one… is innocent…”

“Dom.” Uncle Enzo’s voice cuts through my rage. “That’s enough.”

I look up to find three guns trained on Riccardo, Uncle Enzo’s men having secured the scene while I was lost in fury.

“He confessed,” Uncle Enzo continues. “We have everything we need.”

“He tried to kill Sophie.”

“And he failed. Because love is stronger than hatred, Domenico. Because Sophie chose you over revenge, just like you’re choosing justice over murder.”

I look down at Riccardo, this man who raised me, who poisoned my mind with lies, who would have killed my wife and child without hesitation.

And I choose to be better than him.

I release his throat and stand up, my hands shaking with adrenaline and rage.

“It’s over,” I say.

“Yes,” Uncle Enzo agrees. “It’s over.”

The police arrive twenty minutes later, led by a federal prosecutor who’s been investigating Riccardo’s organization for months. They have warrants, evidence, and a recording that will put him away for multiple life sentences.

Uncle Enzo and I watch from across the street as they lead Riccardo out in handcuffs. He looks smaller somehow, diminished by the weight of his exposed crimes.

“Sixteen years,” Uncle Enzo says quietly.

“Sixteen years of lies.”

“Sixteen years of poison that ends today.”

“What happens now?”

“Now we go home to Sophie. We tell her it’s finished. We start building the future our families should have had all along.”

“Together?”

“Together.”

I look at this man who was my enemy for sixteen years, who trained his niece to destroy me, who became my ally when love proved stronger than hatred.

“Uncle Enzo?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you. For trusting me with Sophie. For helping me end this.”

“Thank you for loving her enough to see past the lies. For giving her a reason to choose hope over revenge.”

“She’s remarkable.”

“Yes, she is just like her parents were. Just like your parents were.”

“They would have been friends.”

“They were friends. The best of friends. Until someone convinced them otherwise.”

We watch the police cars disappear into traffic, carrying away the last remnant of a war that should never have started.

“Dom?” Uncle Enzo says as we head toward our cars.

“Yeah?”

“Sophie’s going to want details about tonight.”

“What should I tell her?”

“The truth. All of it. She’s earned that much.”

“And if she’s angry that we kept her out of the final confrontation?”

“Then you remind her that everything we did, we did to protect the future she’s carrying. And that the future is more important than any of our pasts.”

I find Sophie exactly where Uncle Enzo said she’d be - at home with Raff, pacing the living room like a caged animal. She turns when I walk through the door, relief flooding her face.

“Dom.” She runs to me, throwing her arms around my neck. “Are you okay? Did you-”

“It’s finished, Sophie. It’s all finished.”

“Riccardo?”

“Confessed. To everything. He’ll spend the rest of his life in prison.”

Sophie pulls back to look at my face, searching for signs of deception. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. Uncle Enzo and I made sure.”

“Uncle Enzo was there?”

“Uncle Enzo saved my life.”

Sophie’s eyes fill with tears. “Is it really over?”

“It’s really over. No more family feuds. No more lies. No more looking over our shoulders.”

“What about the baby?”

“The baby is going to grow up free. Free from all the poison that’s been destroying our families for sixteen years.”

Sophie kisses me then, soft and desperate and full of relief. “I love you.”

“I love you, too. Both of you.”

“Both of us.”

“Sophie?”

“Yeah?”

“There’s something I want to ask you.”

“What?”

I drop to one knee, pulling out the ring I’ve been carrying for three days. The same ring I gave her when we got married out of necessity, but now offered freely out of love.

“Sophie Bellini Moretti, will you marry me? Again? For real this time?”

Sophie’s hand flies to her mouth, tears streaming down her face. “Dom…”

“I know we’re already married. I know we’re already having a baby. But I want to do this right. I want to choose you, publicly and completely, with no threats or ultimatums or family pressure.”

“Yes.”

“I want to promise you forever, and mean it.”

“Yes.”

“I want our child to know that their parents chose each other out of love, not necessity.”

“Yes, Dom. Yes to all of it.”

I slip the ring onto her finger, the same finger where it’s been for weeks, but somehow it feels different now.

“I love you, Sophie Moretti.”

“I love you too, Domenico Moretti.”

Behind us, Raff starts clapping, and I realize Uncle Enzo has appeared in the doorway, smiling at the scene.

“Congratulations,” Uncle Enzo says. “Both of you.”

“Thank you,” Sophie says, wiping away her tears. “For everything.”

“No, Sophie. Thank you. For showing me that love is stronger than hatred. That the future is more important than the past.”

“What happens now?” Sophie asks.

“Now we plan a wedding,” I say. “A real one this time.”

“And after that?”

“After that, we live happily ever after.”

Sophie laughs, the sound bright and joyful and full of hope. “Is it really that simple?”

“It is now.”

And for the first time in sixteen years, I believe it.

We’re free. All of us. Free to love, free to build something new, free to give our child the world our parents should have given us.

A world without family feuds.

A world built on love instead of revenge.

A world worth fighting for.

And a world we’ll spend the rest of our lives protecting.