Chapter 10 - THE LAST GHOST FROM FRANKFURTThe center opened six months later.
We called it The Vale House.
For Matteo.
For the false name that had once saved me.
We offered language training.
Legal referrals.
Emergency housing.
Employment assistance.
I thought the nightmare was over.
Then a woman from Frankfurt walked through the door.
Her name was Anika Keller.
Keller's daughter.
Marco called Luca immediately.
I refused to leave.
Anika was twenty-three.
Terrified.
Pregnant.
“My father is dead,” she said.
I stared.
Keller had disappeared after the dinner.
Nobody found him.
“How?”
“Vittorio's men.”
She handed me a phone.
A recording.
Keller confessing everything.
Names.
Accounts.
One final hidden trafficking route.
Luca listened.
His face hardened.
“They're still operating.”
“Without Vittorio?”
“Networks survive leaders.”
Anika started crying.
“They know I have this.”
I looked at Luca.
He already knew.
“We help her.”
“Blair.”
“We help her.”
He sighed.
“Yes.”
The final operation took three weeks.
This time, I did not play bait.
Mostly because Luca threatened to handcuff me to the kitchen.
I reminded him that was kidnapping.
He reminded me that I had once entered a warehouse voluntarily.
We compromised.
I worked with investigators.
The final arrests happened in New York, Berlin, Warsaw, and Chicago.
Forty-two people were rescued.
The network collapsed.
When Luca came home, I was waiting.
He looked exhausted.
I walked into his arms.
“Done?” I asked.
“Done.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
I cried.
He held me.
Then Nietzsche bit his ankle.
Luca swore.
I laughed.
Normal.
The sound felt miraculous.
That night, Luca took me to Bellini's.
The restaurant had new owners.
New management.
We sat at the same table.
He ordered the same wine.
“You're being dramatic,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He stood.
Everyone looked.
“Oh no.”
Luca lowered himself onto one knee.
“Oh my God.”
Marco appeared near the bar.
Matteo beside him.
Rosa.
The staff.
Everyone knew.
“You traitors.”
Luca held up a ring.
“Blair Hayes.”
I covered my mouth.
“You ruined a two-hundred-dollar bottle of wine.”
Laughter.
“You exposed my translator.”
More laughter.
“You insulted my security team.”
Marco nodded.
“She did.”
“You slapped me.”
Matteo looked delighted.
“And you walked into every dangerous room I tried to keep you away from.”
I was crying.
Luca's voice softened.
“You taught me that survival isn't the same as living.”
The room became silent.
“I don't want to survive without you.”
My heart broke beautifully.
“Marry me.”
I looked at the man everyone once feared.
Then at the people who loved him.
Then at the table where I had stopped being invisible.
“Yes.”
Luca exhaled.
I laughed.
“You were nervous!”
“No.”
“Terrible liar.”
He put the ring on my finger.
Then kissed me.
Someone opened champagne.
Marco shouted.
Matteo cried and denied it.
May you like
And for the first time in years, when I thought about Frankfurt, I did not see blood.
I saw the road that had brought me home.
