26. BLUE #2
“Moretti will be here in an hour. When he finds out a hundred kilos of his golden coke are at the bottom of the sea, he’ll kill us all.”
Gianni staggered to his feet and began pacing around us.
“Dead? All dead?” he muttered.
He snatched the gun from Lorenzo’s hand and pointed it at me.
“This is all your fault!”
“No,” I whispered, taking one slow step towards him. “No, Gianni.” I sniffed. “It’s me… your sorella.”
Tears slipped down my cheeks as I moved closer. The barrel stayed fixed between my eyes.
“Remember?” My voice trembled. “You promised that when you came back, you’d take us to the movies.” I swallowed another sob. “Just you and your sorella.”
He sniffed. His head twitched sharply to the right.
His eyes were empty. There was no shine left in them.
“I see you,” I whispered. “And I’m here.”
Slowly, carefully, I wrapped my hand around the gun. He didn’t resist. I eased it from his grip and tossed it aside.
“Sorella,” he cried, saliva spilling from his mouth as he collapsed into my chest.
“Shhh.” I stroked the back of his head, my palm resting gently against his hair.
Oliver came to my side and carefully pulled him back, trying to ease us apart.
“We have to go,” he said, prying his hands away from me. “You have to let her go, Gianni.”
But he only held me tighter until Oliver pulled me away completely and shoved me behind his back.
“It’s over.”
Andrea Bianchi, who had stayed composed until now, snapped.
“It’s not over until I say so.”
He picked the gun up from the ground and pointed it back at us.
“Luca,” he called to the blond man leaning against the wall with a cigarette between his fingers, “tie them up and drag them inside. We’ll leave them here for Moretti to find. He’ll be happy to see the son of the woman who stole twenty billion dollars’ worth of paintings from him.”
All this time, we’d believed the gold was some lost treasure Gianni had gone to find. We’d spun our own theories about what ship had sunk and how he’d recover it. But all along, it was never gold. It was drugs.
They dragged us inside, forced us into chairs, and tied up Oliver first, then me, placing us side by side next to the bed. Gianni was outside with Lorenzo. I could have sworn I heard him sniff, and deep down I knew those weren’t tears.
Luca tightened the last knot around my wrists, but I noticed it was loose. He looked at me, then winked. As if he’d left it that way on purpose.
He turned to Andrea.
“Boss, what about the treasure?” he asked. “You mentioned on the boat that we were supposed to pick that up too.”
The old man scoffed, sitting down on the bed and waving a dismissive hand.
“There was never any treasure. Henry and I found the map a long time ago. We even hired divers to look for the ship from 1809, but all we found were amphorae full of oil and wine.” He shook his head.
“So we used it to smuggle art and drugs instead. When the police started closing in, we had to invent the whole story about the lost gold and send Gianni off to search for it. We needed this deal with Moretti if we wanted to get away from all of it. The treasure was drugs all along. We only called it gold because Lorenzo’s phone was bugged last month. ”
Oliver looked at me, and I looked back.
It had all been a lie.
A story they wanted us to believe so they could get away with everything.
A story that never quite fit, because it was never meant to.
Now, piece by piece, it was finally coming together.
Even the paintings from his mum. They still hadn’t realized they were hidden inside the scrolls beneath the very bed the old man was sitting on.
Only a few questions remained. About my dad and his mum.
Luca glanced towards us. “What about them?”
“They’re just idiots caught at the wrong time,” Bianchi said with a weary breath. “I parted ways with Henry, and I don’t give two shits whether his son lives or dies.”
Lorenzo rushed inside, breathing hard, cigarette smoke still clinging to him as he shouted,
“Moretti’s here.”Bianchi stood, rising to his feet. Luca stepped beside him, but before leaving, he looked back at me. He tilted his head, then subtly motioned towards the stairs.
I followed his gaze, then watched them leave.
The door slammed shut.
“Baby, look at me,” Oliver said.
His shoulders shifted, and within seconds his hands were free.
I nodded and copied him. The rope slipped down, falling away from my wrists.
“I saw the ladder on the side of the lighthouse,” I whispered.
“I know,” he whispered back, standing up and guiding me towards the stairs leading up. “We have to climb. There’s a door at the top that leads outside.”
He turned to me, cupping my cheeks.
“Whatever happens, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
Then he pressed a kiss to my forehead.
I hurried as fast as my limp would let me up the narrow metal stairs. Oliver stayed close behind, steadying me with one hand and holding mine with the other until we reached the top.
It took barely two minutes.
The top of the lighthouse opened into a circular metal platform overlooking everything below. The great glass lantern above us was lit, its beam sweeping across the sea. To the right was a heavy metal door with a wheel-shaped handle.
Oliver didn’t hesitate. He grabbed it, turned the wheel, and shoved the door open.
He climbed out first, carefully lowering himself before gripping the metal frame with one hand and reaching back for me with the other.
I took it.
He pulled me through, keeping me close as we began climbing down.
Hanging against the side of the lighthouse, we could hear the voices below. They were talking about us, blaming Oliver and me for everything.
Moretti didn’t even blink before he put a bullet between Bianchi’s eyes.
Lorenzo and Gianni dropped to their knees beside him, pleading for their lives. As much as it hurt to see Gianni like that, all I wanted was to get off this island with Oliver.
I tried to ignore the commotion as we climbed lower, but my eyes kept searching for Gianni. He was my brother after all. Even if he couldn’t be saved.
A couple of Moretti’s men walked over to him and Lorenzo.
One of them drew a blade.
When I saw the knife pressed beneath Gianni’s throat, then the sudden spray of blood, I froze.
My whole body shook. My hands flew to my mouth, trying to hold back the sobs.
“No,” I whispered. “No… no, no.”
“Blue.” Oliver pulled me into him. “Baby, we have to go.”
“No.” I shook my head.
“He’s gone.” His jaw tightened. “And we have to run before they see us too.”
But it was already too late.
“Hey!”
Someone had spotted us.
“Run,” Oliver hissed through gritted teeth.
He grabbed my hand, our fingers locking together as he pulled me forward.
I limped after him as fast as I could, trying to keep up.
Every gunshot cracked through the air, closing in.
I screamed, clamping my hands over my ears while Oliver kept pulling me forward.
Away from the lighthouse, and towards the neutral side of the island.