Chapter 9: The Third Key
Mara moved first.
Not toward Celeste.
Toward the child.
Celeste pulled the trigger.
Click.
Nothing.
The pistol jammed.
The boy bit her wrist.
Mara crossed twenty feet in a blur.
She slammed into Celeste.
The gun flew into the mud.
Marco shouted.
“Take her!”
Mercenaries rushed in.
Dante tackled the first attacker and drove him through the hood of an SUV.
Mara spun.
Elbow.
Knee.
Disarm.
A rifle fired into the air.
The boy ran.
Celeste grabbed him again.
Mara seized Celeste by the throat and threw her against the vehicle.
The windshield exploded.
Celeste laughed through the blood.
“There she is.”
Mara froze.
“What?”
“The real Bellori.”
A black van screeched onto the riverbank.
The side door slid open.
The old woman from the subway station stepped out with armed guards.
“Lucia!”
She fired twice.
Two mercenaries dropped.
Marco cursed.
“You should be dead.”
“I’ve survived longer than you.”
She threw something toward Mara.
A small silver box.
Mara caught it.
Inside lay a third brass key.
Smaller than the others.
Darker.
The old woman looked directly at her.
“Your father split the Lion Ledger into three vaults.”
She pointed at the keys.
“Without the third key, no one can open the archive.”
Marco smiled coldly.
“That’s why I let you keep the first two.”
Dante turned sharply.
“What?”
Marco looked at him.
“I never wanted the keys.”
He looked at Mara.
“I wanted her.”
He raised a remote.
The black SUVs exploded simultaneously.
Fire swallowed the riverbank.
The blast separated Dante and Mara.
Burning debris crashed between them.
“Lucia!”
She couldn’t reach him.
Mercenaries surged through the flames.
The old woman grabbed Mara’s arm.
“We have to go.”
“No!”
“He’ll die if we stay.”
Dante fought through the fire.
Marco intercepted him.
The two men collided hard enough to crack the concrete embankment.
Punches.
Blood.
Knives.
Marco drove a blade into Dante’s side.
Dante broke Marco’s wrist.
The knife fell.
Marco smiled.
“You still fight like your father.”
Dante slammed him against the guardrail.
“Tell me who killed him!”
Marco looked almost amused.
“You did.”
Dante stopped.
Marco whispered,
“Your father died because he chose you over the Bellori child.”
Dante’s grip loosened for a fraction of a second.
Marco drove another blade toward his throat.
A shot rang out.
Marco froze.
Blood spread across his chest.
He looked down.
The old woman lowered her pistol.
Marco staggered backward.
“You…”
He collapsed into the river.
The current pulled him away.
Mara reached Dante.
He was bleeding heavily.
She pressed her hands against the wound.
“We’re leaving.”
He grabbed her wrist.
“The third key.”
She showed him the silver box.
Dante’s expression changed.
“That’s not a key.”
Mara looked down.
Hidden beneath the brass key was a folded piece of paper.
She opened it.
A set of coordinates.
And one sentence written in Dante’s father’s handwriting.
Trust no Moretti.
A helicopter roared overhead.
Searchlights flooded the river.
A voice came through a loudspeaker.
“Lucia Bellori.”
Mara looked up.
The helicopter door was open.
Inside stood a man with silver hair.
Dante stared at him in disbelief.
His face went white.
“That’s impossible.”
Mara looked at him.
“Who is he?”
May you like
Dante’s voice broke.
“My father.”
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