Chapter 14 - The Last Frame
The ferry terminal smelled like salt, rust, and wet concrete.
I arrived at six ten in Roman’s car.
Alone, according to every camera Luca could see.
Not alone in any way that mattered.
Federal agents were positioned on the upper service road.
Dominic’s security team covered the river access.
Roman was inside an unmarked van two hundred yards away, listening through a transmitter sewn into the lining of my coat.
Not his coat.
Mine.
I had bought it myself.
That felt important.
Luca waited beneath the old departure board.
Two men stood behind him.
A steel trunk sat at his feet.
“You came.”
“I was curious.”
He laughed.
“You are less frightened than your father.”
I stopped ten feet away.
“You knew him?”
“Barely.”
“You frightened him enough to hide evidence for eight years.”
“Fear makes ordinary men sensible.”
“My father was ordinary.”
“Yes.”
“I am too.”
Luca smiled.
“No. You have Roman Costa listening somewhere nearby.”
My pulse jumped.
He knew.
Or suspected.
I kept my face still.
“You asked me to come alone.”
“And you did not.”
He looked toward the ceiling.
“Roman always did have difficulty following instructions.”
In my earpiece, Roman said nothing.
Good.
Luca tapped the steel trunk.
“Original records.”
“How do I know?”
He opened it.
Ledgers.
Photographs.
Hard drives.
Several small framed works wrapped in tissue.
My breath caught.
One frame had my father’s old workshop label.
“What do you want?”
“Your father’s original page.”
“You know federal investigators have copies.”
“I want the original.”
“Why?”
“Sentiment.”
I almost laughed.
“Men like you always discover sentiment after evidence becomes admissible.”
His face hardened.
One guard moved closer.
I resisted the urge to step back.
Luca said, “Roman believes he is different from me.”
“He is.”
“Because he gave you a coat?”
“No.”
“Because he kissed you?”
I hated that he knew.
“No.”
“Then why?”
I looked at him.
“Because when he had the chance to kill Daniel, he called the police.”
Luca’s smile disappeared.
“That is weakness.”
“No. That is the part men like you never understand.”
A siren sounded far away.
Luca’s eyes shifted.
Not part of our plan.
Then one of his guards shouted.
Movement erupted on the upper level.
Federal agents entered early.
Someone had spotted a weapon through thermal surveillance.
Luca grabbed me.
His arm locked around my shoulders.
A gun pressed against my side.
Everything became very quiet.
In my earpiece, Roman’s voice came once.
“Gemma.”
I could hear the fear.
I had never heard it from him before.
Luca dragged me backward toward the river doors.
“Tell them to stop.”
I lifted both hands.
“Roman.”
“I’m here.”
“Do not come in.”
Luca tightened his grip.
“Wrong answer.”
The gun shifted.
I looked down.
Not at the weapon.
At the steel trunk.
One of the framed works rested partly outside it.
Heavy carved wood.
Loose hanging wire.
Restorers notice objects.
Angles.
Weight.
Weak points.
I moved my heel backward and caught the wire.
Then kicked.
The frame slid off the trunk and struck Luca’s shin.
His grip loosened.
I dropped my weight.
Not graceful.
Effective.
The gun fired into the ceiling.
Agents rushed.
Someone pulled me sideways.
Luca hit the floor.
Hands pinned him.
The weapon skidded across concrete.
Then Roman was there.
He had ignored my instruction at the last possible second.
Of course he had.
His hands went to my shoulders.
“Are you hit?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He looked at my face, arms, coat, hands.
I grabbed his lapels.
“Roman.”
His eyes found mine.
“I’m fine.”
He exhaled.
Then pulled me against him.
Behind us, agents cuffed Luca Moretti.
The trunk remained open.
Years of evidence waited inside.
Sofia’s death would not be reduced to rumor.
My father’s fear would not be the final thing he left behind.
Victor would testify.
Daniel would testify.
Luca would stand trial.
But in that moment, none of it felt as real as Roman’s arms around me.
He pulled back just enough to look at me.
“You kicked a frame at him.”
“I am a trained professional.”
“That was a nineteenth-century frame.”
“I know.”
“You damaged it.”
“It was necessary.”
Roman stared.
Then laughed.
A real laugh.
In a freezing abandoned terminal surrounded by federal agents and organized crime evidence, the most feared man I had ever met laughed until he had to look away.
I started laughing too.
Maybe because we were alive.
Maybe because the whole impossible story had begun with another damaged frame.
After Luca was taken away, I insisted on examining the frame I had kicked before anyone packed the trunk. One corner had split. Gesso flaked from the carved edge. I felt an absurd stab of guilt.
Roman stood beside me while agents photographed evidence.
“You saved yourself with it.”
“I still damaged it.”
“Can you repair it?”
“Yes.”
“Then repair it.”
I looked at him. “That is your answer to everything?”
“No.”
His eyes moved toward Luca being placed into a federal vehicle.
“Some things cannot be repaired. They can only be documented honestly and prevented from happening again.”
For a mafia boss, he had become alarmingly good at conservation metaphors.
The frame later entered evidence, and months after trial I was allowed to restore it. I left one tiny fracture visible beneath the gilding. Not because I could not hide it. Because restoration is not supposed to lie about what an object survived. That principle became one of the rules I carried into everything afterward.
The federal agent in charge later asked why I had risked the movement with the frame instead of simply waiting. I told her the truth: Luca’s grip had shifted, the gun had moved closer to my ribs, and I saw one opening that might not come again.
She nodded and said, “That does not mean I recommend doing it twice.”
“I do not recommend being kidnapped twice.”
May you like
Roman, standing beside me, said, “Excellent policy.”
The humor arrived late, after the shaking stopped. That was another thing no one tells you about surviving danger: relief can be ridiculous. You can stand beside evidence bags and armed agents and suddenly become obsessed with whether your shoe heel broke. Mine had. Dominic found it under the departure board and handed it to me like recovered state property.
