Chapter 5 - Why Elena Was Murdered
My mother had been kidnapped.
My aunt had been murdered.
My father had been a mafia patriarch.
And somewhere inside that nightmare was an eight-month-old baby everyone seemed willing to kill for.
I wanted answers.
Luca wanted war.
Marco wanted both of us to stay alive long enough to get them.
The attack on the estate lasted nine minutes.
Salvatore's men never breached the house.
They didn't need to.
The message was clear.
Nobody was untouchable.
By sunrise, Luca had moved us to an underground safe house beneath an abandoned winery outside the city.
Noah slept in my arms.
"He trusts you more every hour," Luca said.
"Maybe he senses Elena."
Luca's eyes darkened.
"Don't."
"What?"
"Don't make yourself a replacement for someone you never met."
The words hurt.
He immediately regretted them.
"I'm sorry."
I stared at him.
"You loved her."
"More than my own life."
"Then tell me who killed her."
"I don't know."
"You know more than you're saying."
He looked away.
I was beginning to recognize that habit.
So I pushed.
"What did Elena discover?"
His silence answered me.
"She discovered something."
"Three weeks before she died, Elena told me she wanted to leave the city with Noah."
"Why?"
"She wouldn't say."
"You let her go?"
"No."
His voice hardened.
"We fought."
"What happened?"
"She told me the Moretti family was built on a lie."
I waited.
"That night she disappeared with Noah."
My heart jumped.
"Then?"
"I found Noah twelve hours later at a church."
"Elena?"
"Missing."
"How did she die?"
"Her car was found in a ravine two days later."
"Body?"
Luca's silence stretched.
"No."
I stared.
"You never found her body?"
"Blood. Hair. Dental fragments."
"But no body?"
"No."
My heart began pounding.
"What if Elena isn't dead?"
Luca looked at me.
For one dangerous second, hope entered his eyes.
Then he crushed it.
"I spent months believing that."
"Maybe you should have."
Marco entered.
"We found Catherine's sedan."
"Where?"
"Airport parking."
"Camera?"
"Already checking."
He handed Luca a tablet.
A security image showed my mother getting into another vehicle.
The driver stepped out.
Luca went completely still.
"What?"
Marco enlarged the image.
A woman.
Black hair.
Scar through her left eyebrow.
My breath vanished.
"No."
Luca took the tablet.
His hand shook.
The timestamp was from last night.
The woman turned toward the camera.
Same face as my mother.
Same face as me.
But with a scar.
Elena.
Alive.
Luca whispered her name.
Then another image appeared.
Elena opening the car door for Catherine.
My mother wasn't running from Elena.
She was meeting her.
Luca sat down hard.
For eleven months he had mourned his wife.
She had been alive.
"Why?" he whispered.
Nobody answered.
Then Noah woke.
He looked at the photograph.
And smiled.
"Mama."
Luca closed his eyes.
That one word broke him.
Not loudly.
No dramatic collapse.
Just a man lowering his head while tears he refused to acknowledge slid down his face.
I turned away.
Marco did too.
Noah reached toward his father.
Luca lifted him.
"I'm going to find her."
I understood then.
Nothing in the world could stop him.
Not Salvatore.
May you like
Not the police.
Not death itself.
