Chapter 68: Matteo Taken

Matteo saw the van before I did. He had just stepped out beneath the hospital awning, his canvas duffel pulled high against his ribs. The rain had thinned to a hard mist. Across the curb, a delivery van rolled forward without headlights. Matteo stopped. "Dante," he said. The side door slid open. Two men came out fast. No family colors. No De Luca badge. One caught Matteo's shoulder. The other seized the strap of his duffel. Matteo drove an elbow backward and the first man grunted, but a third hand hooked around his throat and turned the fight into a choke of breath and wet shoes on pavement. I ran. The distance was nothing. Twelve steps, maybe fifteen. It felt like the five years I had spent arriving after someone else had decided the damage was done. "Let him go!" Matteo kicked free long enough to hit the van door with his heel. His duffel swung open. I saw the black recorder in his fist. He did not drop it. The man behind him slammed Matteo against the metal panel. The recorder vanished with his hand as they dragged him inside. I reached the curb just as the driver threw the van into gear. My palm hit cold steel. The side door shuddered under it. A fist came through the opening and caught my cut mouth hard enough to send light across my eyes. I staggered into the rain. The van tore away. For one raw second, I was ready to make the call that would turn half the city inside out. I knew men who would close bridges, break doors, and call it loyalty because they wanted my name to matter again. I could have had every Moretti car hunting that van before the next traffic light. That was what Bianca wanted. Chaos. A rescue with my fingerprints on it. A reason to say I had turned a hospital into a family war and put Noah in the middle. "Dante." Elena's voice stopped me more completely than the blow had. She stood at the hospital doors, one hand still on the glass. Maya was behind her on the other side, visible only for a heartbeat before she pulled the locked pediatric entrance shut again. Noah stayed upstairs. Safe. Out of this. I went toward Elena, blood warming my lip. "They took Matteo." "I saw." Her face had gone pale, but her eyes were sharp. "Do not call your people." "They have him in a van." "And if you flood the city with Moretti men, who pays when Bianca says you used them to reach my son?" The question landed where anger could not protect me. "I can find them," I said. "You can make it worse." She stepped past me into the rain, but she did not leave the hospital entrance. She chose the patch of sidewalk where the security camera above us could see every movement. "Matteo is not yours to take back. Noah is not yours to use to get him back." Every instinct in me fought her. That was the point. My instincts had always looked too much like possession when I was afraid. "What do you want me to do?" I asked. She looked at me then, as if the question itself cost more than I deserved to ask. "Stand where I can see you. Say nothing to anyone unless I tell you to." It was not forgiveness. It was a job without power. "All right." The camel-coat reporter had followed the van with her eyes. Now her microphone came up again. "Mr. Moretti, was that a kidnapping? Is Matteo connected to the wedding lie?" I could have answered with a name. Bianca. De Luca. Vittoria. I had suspicion enough to feed the whole city for a week. Elena lifted one hand without looking at me. I kept my mouth shut. She faced the reporter herself. "A man was taken outside a pediatric hospital. That is what happened. Do not turn it into a story about who owns him." "Do you think Noah is in danger?" "Noah is protected with Maya. That boundary holds." The reporter tried to press closer. Elena did not retreat. She planted both feet on the wet pavement and made the camera take her exactly where she stood. "If whoever took Matteo wants something, they will have to ask for it where witnesses can hear them," she said. "Not through either family." The words made the danger plainer than any threat could have. A live exchange. Witnesses. No dark room where Moretti money or De Luca silence could decide who disappeared next. Elena looked up at the security camera above the awning. "Keep that recording," she told the reporter. "We need witnesses, not another headline." My phone began to ring. Not my director. Not Luca. The screen showed no name. I looked at Elena. "Speaker," she said. I answered and held it between us. For a moment there was only engine noise and Matteo breathing somewhere far too close to the receiver. Then a man's voice spoke, flattened by a cheap mask of distance. "You want your brother alive?" Elena did not let me answer. "He is not his brother's property," she said. "Say what you want." A laugh came through the line. Matteo made a sound like he was trying not to. My hands closed at my sides. I did not move. "No cops. No Moretti men. No De Luca men," the voice said. "Tomorrow, you bring us a blood sample from Noah Vale." Rain slid down Elena's face. She did not wipe it away. "No," she said. The caller paused. "Not the boy," he said, almost amused. "One blood sample. You know what you have." The line went dead. Elena stared at the dark phone in my hand, then at the locked pediatric doors behind us. Noah was still safe. But someone had just told us exactly how they meant to turn his blood into a leash.