Chapter 21 Baited with an Heir.

Chapter 21 Baited with an Heir.
Aria’s POV.

Every gun in the room swung toward me. Luca didn't even flinch, just smiled that infuriating smile. "Aria. So good of you to join us. Though I must admit, I was expecting you an hour ago, but you're getting slow." "You spied on me," I said, my voice shaking with fury. "Every message and every plan..."

"Every intimate moment with Moretti, yes." His smile widened. "The audio quality was quite good. I particularly enjoyed the session in his study. Very passionate."

I wanted to shoot him. Wanted to empty my clip into that smug face. But ten bullets wouldn't be enough against all his men and I'd just be throwing away our only advantage. "Where's my mother?" I demanded.

"Nearby and safe, for now." He checked his watch. "You have thirty minutes until dawn. Shall we begin negotiations? Or would you prefer I start removing her fingers now?"

"Don't touch her!" The words came out strangled. "Then put down the gun, sit down and let's talk like civilized people."

"Fuck your civilization." But my hand was shaking now, the adrenaline wearing off and leaving behind cold fear.

"Aria," Enzo's voice, carefully neutral. "Lower the weapon." "He's been playing us from the start!"

"I know." Enzo met my eyes. "Lower the weapon anyway." Every instinct screamed against it, but I lowered the gun. Not holstering it, just... not pointing it at Luca's head anymore.

"Better," Luca said. "Now, shall we discuss?" Enzo moved.

One second, he was sitting calmly at the table. The next, he'd launched himself across it, hands going for Luca's throat with murderous intent.

Chaos exploded immediately. Luca's men opened fire, but Enzo was already using Luca as a shield.

I dove behind the bar as bullets tore through bottles, spraying glass and alcohol everywhere. Marco appeared beside me, returning fire and covering Enzo's insane attack.

Tables shattered and men screamed. The tavern transformed into a war zone in seconds.

I popped up, firing at the nearest guard. He went down, another appeared and Marco took him out. But there were too many, too well-positioned.

"Enzo!" I shouted. "Get back!"

But he wasn't listening. He had Luca pinned against a wall now, hands still trying for his throat while Luca struggled. One of Luca's men moved to intervene and I put a bullet in his shoulder.

Then hands grabbed me from behind, another guard I hadn't seen. He dragged me backward, toward a side door, his arm locked around my throat.

"Drop it or I'll break her neck!" he shouted.

Marco's weapon swung toward us, but he couldn't get a clean shot. The guard was using me too effectively as a shield.

"Let her go," a new voice said, cold and female. Lucia appeared in the doorway, weapon trained on my captor's head. "Or I'll paint the wall with your brains."

"Three seconds," the guard said, tightening his grip. "Two..." Lucia fired. The guard dropped and I gasped, my throat raw. Lucia pulled me up and checked me quickly for injuries. "Are you hit?"

"No. Help Enzo..."

But when I looked back, Luca was gone. Enzo stood in the wreckage, blood streaming from a cut on his temple, surrounded by dead and wounded men. And the tablet lay on the floor, screen cracked but still showing that video feed.

My mother is still bound, still held captive and still bait in whatever game Luca was playing.

"He escaped," Enzo said, his voice tight with rage. "Through the back. Marco..."

"On it." Marco was already moving. "Wait." Lucia knelt by one of the wounded guards, pressing her gun to his forehead. "Where is he? Where's the woman?"

The guard coughed up blood. "Go to hell." "You first." Lucia pulled the trigger.

"Lucia!" I grabbed her arm. "We need information..."

"We need to move," Enzo interrupted. "The whole village heard that firefight. Police will be here in minutes."

He was right. Already, I could hear sirens in the distance, getting closer. We ran, leaving the carnage behind and slipping through alleys and back streets. My legs burned and my lungs screamed. But I kept moving, because stopping meant capture and capture meant death.

We ended up in another barn. Why were there so many barns in rural France? This one is actually occupied. Two horses shifted nervously in their stalls as we burst in.

"Clear," Marco reported, checking the loft. "For now." I leaned against a wall, trying to catch my breath. My whole body was shaking with adrenaline crash.

Enzo appeared in front of me, checking my throat where the guard had grabbed me. "Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine. Enzo, my mother..." "Is still alive," I asked. His hands framed my face. "Luca won't kill her, not yet. She's too valuable as leverage."

"He played us from the start," I said bitterly. "The phone, the messages and everything."

"I know." His jaw tightened. "I suspected the phone was compromised weeks ago. Why do you think I never told you any real plans? Never discussed actual safe houses or contacts where you could hear?"

I stared at him. "You knew? You knew he was listening and you didn't tell me?"

"If you'd known, you would have acted differently. Luca would have realized we were onto him." His thumb brushed my cheekbone. "I used his spy device against him, fed him false information through you without you even knowing."

"You used me," I said flatly.

"I protected you." His voice hardened. "Every real plan, every actual safe house, every genuine escape route, I kept them out from you. What you knew, what you texted to Dahlia, it was all designed to lead Luca exactly where I wanted him."

"And where's that?" "To Paris." His smile was cold. "Where the real trap is waiting. All of this, the plane crash, the chase and the parley, it's been driving him toward the endgame and he thinks he's winning."

I wanted to hit him and I wanted him to scream. But footsteps outside cut off any response.

"Someone's coming," Lucia hissed. "Multiple contacts." We pressed into the shadows with our weapons set ready. The barn door creaked open, and a figure slipped inside.

Too small to be one of Luca's soldiers. Too quiet to be the police. "Don't shoot," a familiar voice said. "It's me."

Dahlia stepped into the dim light filtering through the barn slats.

"How?" I started.

"Later, but right now, we have a bigger problem." She pulled out her phone, showing us a message. "Luca just sent this to every criminal network in Europe."

I read the text and my blood turned to ice.

Aria De Luca is pregnant with my child. Return her alive and I'll make you rich beyond measure. Kill Enzo Moretti and I'll make you a king.

"What?" The word barely made it past my lips. "He's lying," Enzo said immediately. "Obviously lying to..."

"Is he?" Dahlia's eyes met mine. "When was your last period, Aria?"

I tried to remember. The past weeks had been such chaos: the fortress, the attacks and the escape. When had I last, oh God?

Six weeks, or maybe seven. "No," I whispered. "No, that's not possible. I never had sex with Luca."

"Are you sure?" Enzo said quietly. "That first night, your Dad mandated you to go for a dinner date with him before your engagement party and the morning after the dinner date." I traced that he drugged you then, but didn't think you could be pregnant with the drug he injected you with.

The world tilted, pregnant. With Luca's child? No, that was impossible. I'd never even try that. "And you didn't tell me?"

"Like... How?" I asked. "He drugged you." Or, can it be equally that night my father had given me to Luca, before the trade. The hours I couldn't remember and the gaps in my memory.

"You know the answer," Enzo said numbly. "Before he gave me to Enzo. There are hours I can't remember."

"Merda," Marco breathed. "So it might be his," Lucia said. "Or it might be Enzo's. Either way, Luca's using it as bait. He's telling the world you're carrying his heir, making you untouchable to some factions and a prime target for others."

"This changes everything," Enzo said, his hand moving to my stomach. "If you're pregnant..."

"If," I interrupted. "We don't even know if it's true." "Luca knows," Dahlia said. "He has your medical records. He's been tracking everything: your cycle, your health and everything. If he says you're pregnant, then you probably are."

The barn fell silent except for my ragged breathing. Pregnant? Possibly with Luca's child or possibly with Enzo's. Either way, carrying a life inside me that would be used as a weapon in this endless war.

"What do we do?" I asked.

Enzo's expression was carved from stone. We go to Paris. We end Luca and then we figure out the rest."

"And my mother?" "Is bait in a trap we're going to spring?" He pulled out a knife I hadn't seen him take, wiped blood off the blade. "But first, we need to disappear. Dahlia, can you get us out of France?"

"I have a boat waiting in Marseille, but three hours by car if we drive fast."

"Then we drive fast." He turned to me. "Can you handle this?"

Could I? I was exhausted, terrified, possibly pregnant and the man I'd killed haunted my dreams, but my mother was still captive. Luca was still breathing and somewhere in Paris, this nightmare would finally end.

"Yes," I said. "Let's finish this."

We moved toward the barn door, toward whatever waited in Paris and toward the final confrontation I'd been running toward since the moment my father had sold me.

But as we slipped into the pre-dawn darkness, I couldn't shake Luca's final words echoing in my mind. "I am pregnant with his child." And the terrifying possibility that he might be right.