PART 7 – An Unexpected Ally
"Luca?" I choked out, my voice audibly trembling.
On the other end of the line, it remained silent for a second. Then I heard him shift somewhere, as if startled by hearing my name. "Elena? What... is wrong? Is everything okay with Vittoria?"
"No," I replied, the tears I had held back all morning finally streaming down my cheeks. "Nothing is okay. I've been set up, Luca. By my ex-husband."
In fast, halting sentences, I told him about the registered letter, the photos from the flight, and the threatening lawsuit over our daughter's custody. As I spoke, I heard Luca's breathing on the other end grow heavier and colder.
"That bastard," Luca hissed over the phone. "He's using those photos from the flight to blackmail you? Do you even know who that photographer, Marco Moretti, really is?"
I stiffened. "What do you mean?"
"Moretti doesn't just work for gossip rags," Luca said with a voice full of ice-cold indignation. "He's a hired pawn of real estate magnates in Milan. The same clique your ex-husband apparently runs with. For months they've been trying to smear me and other captains to suppress our inspection reports on irregularities at the airport. Your ex-husband paid him to take those photos and pass them on."
The puzzle pieces fell into place with a terrifying hardness. So it hadn't been a coincidence at all that Moretti was sitting in that exact seat. It had been a premeditated plan to compromise Luca—and I had happened to become the victim caught in their web.
"What do we do now?" I asked desperately. "If this goes to court, I'll lose Vittoria. Stefano has the judges in his pocket."
"Not if we beat them to it," Luca's voice sounded decisive and full of unwavering authority. "Listen to me carefully, Elena. Take the next train to Milan. Tomorrow at ten o'clock I expect you at the airline's headquarters. I have a dossier on Moretti and his principals big enough to put your ex-husband and his buddies behind bars for the next ten years. We're going to beat them on their own turf."
Before I could respond, the line went dead.
The next morning I woke up early. Chiara called me crazy for returning to the city I had fled from so recently, but the look in my eyes made her fall silent. I packed Vittoria, boarded the early high-speed train to Milan, and for the first time in months felt no fear—only a burning, unstoppable determination.
