Chapter 13 - A City Watching
Seven months after the fire, Chicago had learned enough about the Moretti foundation to stop calling the scandal a family disagreement.
Adrian was arrested at a private airfield after investigators tracked payments to a charter company. The evidence linked him to Hannah's kidnapping, the arson, the fraudulent transit contracts, and the attempted removal of Grace. His former security contractor, Caleb Pike, had agreed to testify as part of a plea arrangement. Several other defendants faced separate charges.
The arrest didn't make Hannah sleep through the night. It didn't stop June from reaching for her rabbit when a car slowed outside. And it didn't erase the years Grace had spent wondering why her father never came.
But it meant that a court, not Luca's men, would decide what Adrian had done.
On the morning of the federal trial, Hannah stood in front of her bedroom mirror fastening the silver Saint Christopher medal. She had kept it hidden for years and almost lost it in the fire. Now she wore it openly.
Luca watched from the doorway. "You don't have to go through this alone."
"I know." She smoothed her jacket. "And that's why I'm going."
Their relationship was still rebuilding. They had kissed once, quietly, after Grace's school concert, then agreed not to let romance outrun trust. Hannah wanted to know the man Luca was becoming, not simply the man she remembered from a laundromat. Luca was learning that loving her meant making space for her fear as well as her forgiveness.
Ruth accompanied them to court. The girls stayed with Rosa, Denise, and a therapist who had planned a day of art and baking. Grace wanted to attend, but Hannah explained that the trial would include adult details the court had decided children should not have to hear. Grace accepted that only after being promised an honest explanation when it was over.
In the courtroom, Adrian sat at the defense table in a dark suit. He looked almost relaxed. Cameras weren't allowed inside, but the press filled the hallway. Luca felt his brother's gaze touch him and slide away.
Hannah took the witness stand shortly after noon.
She described her work with displaced families, the false transport records, the fire, and the weeks of captivity. Her voice shook when she spoke of pushing the girls through the back window. She paused for water when she remembered hearing June cry on the other side of the garden fence.
The prosecutor asked why she had continued collecting evidence after being warned.
"Because the figures on those forms were children," Hannah said. "Some were real and some were invented to steal money. But when a real child didn't get help because someone had pocketed her shelter funding, the harm was real. I couldn't pretend it was only accounting."
The defense attempted to portray her as vindictive toward the Moretti family. They suggested she had approached Luca for money years earlier. Hannah answered without raising her voice.
"I worked two jobs while raising his daughter," she said. "If I'd wanted his money, I knew where to ask. I wanted my child safe."
Luca lowered his head. He remembered every year he had spent believing a forged letter.
The prosecution then played Hannah's video from the HOME archive. Her exhausted face appeared on a monitor as she warned that Adrian was not working alone. Jurors watched without moving. When the recording ended, Elena Ward testified about the locked room and the sunflower drawing, carefully distinguishing what she had witnessed from what others had told her.
Caleb Pike followed. His plea deal was disclosed to the jury. The defense challenged his credibility, and the prosecution did not pretend he was an innocent man. Still, his messages, location records, and payment receipts supported much of his account.
He described orders to watch the girls, intercept investigators, and prepare false court paperwork. Then he said something Luca had never heard before.
"Mr. Adrian Moretti told us Luca would surrender everything if we got the little girl," Pike said. "He said his brother had spent ten years believing Hannah hated him. Once he saw his daughter, he'd do anything to keep from losing her."
Across the aisle, Adrian finally looked down.
During a break, Luca stepped into an empty stairwell. He gripped the rail until his knuckles whitened. Hannah found him there a few minutes later.
"You could have let yourself hate me," she said.
He shook his head. "I did. Some days. Then I hated myself for still loving you."
"He stole years from both of us."
"Yes. But I'm the one who chose not to look deeper. I have to live with that part."
Hannah stood beside him without touching him. "Then live differently. That's all any of us can do."
When the trial resumed, the prosecution introduced bank records and the forged correspondence. An expert testified about document origins and the office machine that had produced the letters. The jurors saw the sequence: a threatened nursing student, intercepted messages, an unknown daughter, a charitable fraud, and a kidnapping intended to silence the woman who uncovered it.
Near day's end, a defense witness admitted under cross-examination that Adrian had instructed staff to destroy portions of the foundation's archive. The admission was narrow, but devastating.
Luca expected triumph. He felt none. He thought of the families whose shelter requests had been denied and the children whose names had become numbers on fraudulent forms.
Outside, microphones appeared as soon as he stepped through the courthouse doors.
"Mr. Moretti, do you think your brother is guilty?"
Luca looked at the cameras. "The jury will decide the charges. I believe the victims deserve the truth, whatever it costs my family."
A reporter shouted, "Will you testify about your own role?"
Luca met Hannah's eyes.
"Yes," he said.
Tomorrow, he would take the stand.
May you like
That night he called Grace before bed. She didn't ask whether he was winning. She asked whether he had eaten dinner and whether he remembered the book he had promised to finish reading to June. He admitted that he'd forgotten the book but would read it when he came home. "Then come home with the truth," she said. He promised only to try.
And for the first time in his life, there was no bodyguard, no family name, and no fortune that could make the truth less frightening.
