Chapter 20 Luca's Game.

Chapter 20 Luca's Game.
Aria’s POV.

The video feed of my captive mother burned into my retinas even after Luca lowered the tablet. Everything in me screamed to rush forward, to demand her release, to do anything except stand here paralyzed while he smiled that cold and calculating smile.

"Don't," Enzo's voice was low, his hand finding my wrist in warning. "That's what he wants."

Yes, he was right. Of course, he was right. But seeing my mother bound and helpless after five years of believing her dead shattered something fundamental in me.

"What are your terms?" Enzo called out, his voice steady despite Isabella struggling weakly against his grip.

"Simple." Luca spread his hands as if we were discussing a business transaction. "You surrender yourself to me, Aria comes willingly. Isabella is returned to my custody, and in exchange, I let your little team walk away alive. Oh, and I'll even throw in Aria's mother as a bonus. See? I'm feeling generous tonight."

"And if we refuse?" I managed to force the words out. "Then I start removing her fingers. Once every hour until you change your minds." His smile widened. "Or until she runs out of fingers. Whichever comes first."

Marco shifted beside me, weapon raised. "We could take them. Four against five. We've had worse odds."

"Stand down," Enzo ordered. "We're not doing this here." "Smart man," Luca said. "I have twenty more soldiers surrounding this forest. Even if you somehow killed us all, you'd never make it out alive." He checked his watch, a casual gesture that made my skin crawl. "I'm giving you until dawn to decide. That's..." he calculated, "...roughly three hours. Meet me at the old tavern in the village square at sunrise. Come alone, or your mother dies screaming."

"How do we know she's even still alive?" Enzo demanded. Luca tapped something on the tablet. The bag was yanked off my mother's head and even in the grainy video, I could see her face, older, thinner and terrified, but unmistakably her. Her lips moved and audio crackled to life.

"Aria..." Her voice broke. "Aria, don't..."

The feed cut off. "Dawn," Luca repeated. "Don't be late. I hate waiting." He gestured to his men and they melted back into the forest, taking Isabella with them. Within seconds, they were gone, leaving only the rustle of leaves and the thundering of my heart.

"We need to move," Lucia said immediately. "Before those reinforcements close in."

But I was already running toward where Luca had stood, searching the ground, looking for, there. A piece of paper, he deliberately dropped. I snatched it up, my hands shaking as I read the address scrawled in neat handwriting.

Taverne du Vieux Port. Dawn. Come alone or she dies... Luca.

"It's a trap," Marco said flatly. "Obviously." Enzo was already moving deeper into the forest, away from the village. "Which is why we're not walking into it blind. We have three hours. That's enough time to scout the location, establish escape routes and maybe even find where he's holding Aria's mother."

"Or it's enough time for him to kill her and vanish," I shot back, following him. "You saw that video, Enzo. He has her. My mother..."

"Who faked her death and has been working against your father for five years?" he interrupted, his tone hard. "Who may or may not be there voluntarily. Who might be bait in an even bigger trap?"

"She's my mother!" The words exploded out of me. "And she's a weapon Luca's using against you." He stopped, spinning to face me. "Think, Aria. He showed you that video to make you emotional and to make you feel reckless. Don't give him that power."

I wanted to argue, but the rational part of my brain knew he was right. Everything Luca did was calculated. The video, the deadline and the location were all designed and planned to put us off balance.

"So what's the plan?" Lucia asked. "We split up," Enzo decided. "Marco, you take Aria to the tavern. Stay hidden, scout the location and find every entrance and exit. Lucia, you're with me. We're going to find where he's holding her mother and see if we can extract her before dawn."

"And if you can't?" I asked.

"Then we walk into that tavern knowing we have no leverage and improvise." His jaw tightened. "But I don't plan on improvising."

We moved through the forest in tense silence, Marco and I eventually breaking off toward the village while Enzo and Lucia disappeared into the darkness. The plan was simple: observe and gather intelligence, don't engage, but nothing about this felt simple.

The tavern Luca had specified was in the old quarter of the village, a stone building that had probably stood for centuries. At this hour, nearly three in the morning, it was dark and shuttered, but I could see movement inside through the gaps in the curtains.

"He's already here," Marco murmured. "Setting up his pieces." We found a vantage point in an abandoned shop across the square, giving us a clear view of the tavern's entrance. Through the windows, I could see shadows moving, at least six men, maybe more. All armed and at the same time looking all professional.

"It's a kill box," Marco said. "You walk in there, you're not walking out."

"Then we find another way." I studied the building, noting the side alley, the roof access and the placement of guards. "There has to be a weak point."

"Or we don't go in at all. We wait for Enzo and Lucia to extract your mother, then we run. Get out of France and regroup somewhere Luca can't find us."

"He'll always find us," I said quietly. "As long as he's alive, we'll never be safe." Marco was quiet for a moment. "You're planning to kill him."

"I'm planning to end this." I checked my weapon, still ten rounds left. Not enough for a sustained firefight, but enough for what I had in mind. "One way or another, this ends at dawn."

We waited while watching the tavern and the guards rotate positions. Professional, but I think not perfect; they had patterns and gaps in their coverage. Exploitable if you are desperate enough and I was very desperate.

"There," Marco pointed to movement in the alley. Two guards slip out for a smoke break, their attention on their cigarettes rather than the shadows. "If we time it right..."

"We could get inside," I finished. "Through the back entrance." "It's suicide."

"It's a chance." I looked at him. "You don't have to come with me. This isn't your fight." "Boss would kill me if I let you go in alone," Marco said, but he was already checking his weapon. "Besides, you saved my life in that barn. I owe you one."

We moved while the guards were distracted, slipping across the square and into the alley. The back door was locked, but Marco produced a small toolkit. Where did these people keep getting tools? And how had it opened in under a minute?

Inside, the tavern was dark and silent, the smell of old wine and older wood filling my nose. We moved through the kitchen, weapons ready and every nerve screaming danger.

Voices drifted from the main room, Luca's distinctive cultured tone and someone else responding in Italian. We crept closer, staying in the shadows, until we could see into the bar area.

Luca sat at a corner table, relaxed as if he owned the place. Which, for tonight, he probably did. His men were positioned around the room, covering every angle and at the bar, facing away from us, was another figure.

My heart stopped. It was Enzo. He'd walked right into Luca's trap alone and unarmed, from what I could see. Just sitting there across from the man who'd tried to kill us half a dozen times.

"...remarkable resilience," Luca was saying. "I have to admit, Moretti, you've impressed me. The plane should have killed you. The bunker should have collapsed on you and yet here you are, still breathing and still fighting."

"You should have made sure I was dead the first time," Enzo replied, his voice cold. "Sloppy work, Luca. Not like you."

"The first time?" Luca laughed. "My dear friend, do you know how many times I've tried to kill you? That business in Rome three years ago. The car bomb in Milan. The poisoned wine at the Russo wedding. Each time, you survived. Each time, you came back stronger." "Because each time, you fucked up."

"Or because I wanted you to survive." Luca leaned forward. "Did you never wonder why your brother died but you lived? Why was Paolo so easy to eliminate while you remained frustratingly unkillable?"

Enzo's knuckles went white on the table. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying I didn't want you dead. Not yet and not until I'd destroyed everything you cared about first." Luca's smile was poisonous. "Paolo was just the beginning. Your empire, your alliances and your reputation. I've been systematically dismantling it all and you, Enzo Moretti, you've been too focused on revenge to see it."

"You're lying." "Am I?" Luca pulled out his phone, swiping through images. "Shall we discuss your assets in Switzerland? Frozen. Your safe houses in Eastern Europe? Compromised. Your connections in the Russian bratva? They think you're the one who betrayed them. I've been wearing your face, Moretti, committing your crimes and destroying your name."

I felt Marco tense beside me. This was bigger than we'd realized, not just a family war, but a calculated campaign of destruction.

"And the best part," Luca continued, "is that you walked right into it. You thought you were hunting me, but I was herding you. The burner phone I gave to Dahlia? Tracked. Every message Aria sent, every plan you made. I knew about it before you even executed it."

My stomach dropped. The burner phone. The one I'd used to contact Dahlia, to plan my escape, to...

Oh God. He'd been listening the entire time. "You're wondering how I knew to put the bomb in the safehouse," Luca said, reading Enzo's expression. "Or how I knew exactly when you'd arrive at the café in Naples. Or which plane are you on to Paris? It's because you told me. Every single step."

"The phone," Enzo said flatly. "The phone," Luca confirmed. "Though I must say, having Aria text her little friend was inspired. Made her feel like she had agency, like she was making her own choices. When really, she was just feeding me information."

Rage boiled in my veins. Every message I'd sent. Every desperate plea to Dahlia. He'd read them all and used them all against us. I stepped out of the shadows before Marco could stop me. "You son of a bitch," I said, raising my weapon.