Chapter 5 - The Secret Anna Took
Don wanted the plane ready in ten minutes.
Elena stopped him.
“That's what he wants.”
“He has Sofia and Vittorio.”
“And he's waiting for us to panic.”
Don turned.
“He killed my brother.”
“And my mother.”
“So don't ask me to wait.”
“I'm asking you to think.”
His eyes flashed.
Then he looked at Matteo's letter.
Do not become him.
Don exhaled.
“Five minutes.”
They searched Salvatore's computers.
Elena found a file labeled A.M.
Inside were medical documents.
Birth records.
Adoption papers.
Her birth certificate.
She opened it.
Mother: Anna Moretti.
Father: blank.
Another document had been sealed by court order.
Luca looked away.
Don noticed.
“You know.”
Luca said nothing.
Elena stood.
“Tell me.”
“Anna made me promise.”
“My mother has been dead seven years.”
“She wanted to protect you.”
“From whom?”
Luca looked at Don.
Then at Elena.
“Salvatore Rossy.”
The room became silent.
Elena laughed once.
“No.”
Luca handed her an old photograph.
Anna was twenty-four.
Beside her stood Salvatore.
Too close.
Too familiar.
“No.”
“Elena—”
“No.”
Luca's voice softened.
“Salvatore is your biological father.”
Don stepped backward.
Elena felt as if the floor had moved.
Salvatore had been married then.
Anna had worked for one of his restaurants.
When she discovered who he truly was, she left.
She never told him she was pregnant.
Years later Salvatore learned.
But Anna had already built another life.
“He wanted custody?” Elena asked.
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“He wanted an heir he could shape.”
Don's expression darkened.
“He already had two sons.”
“Matteo rejected him. You rejected him.”
Luca looked at Elena.
“He believed blood would eventually win.”
Elena stared at the photographs.
Every accident.
Every strange coincidence.
The mistaken résumé.
Salvatore had arranged it.
He wanted Elena close to Don.
Why?
The answer arrived in another file.
SUCCESSION.
Salvatore's plan was horrifyingly simple.
Destroy Don's reputation.
Use Elena as legal leverage through hidden ownership structures Anna had unknowingly signed years earlier.
Rossy Corporation contained shares held in trust for Salvatore's biological children.
Elena owned eleven percent.
Enough, combined with Salvatore's hidden holdings, to remove Don.
“He didn't bring me into your office to kill me,” Elena said.
Don understood.
“He brought you there to use you.”
“And when I found the dossier?”
“He accelerated the plan.”
They returned to Chicago.
Salvatore gave them an address.
An abandoned Rossy warehouse.
Don wanted Elena nowhere near it.
She refused.
“He has Sofia because of me.”
“He has Sofia because of him.”
“He wants me.”
“Exactly.”
“So use that.”
Don stared at her.
“You are not bait.”
“I'm not asking permission.”
“You work for me.”
Elena folded her arms.
“Then fire me.”
“Fine. You're fired.”
“Great. Now you can't tell me what to do.”
Marco coughed to hide a laugh.
Don glared at him.
“You're rehired.”
“You can't do that.”
“I own the company.”
“This is workplace harassment.”
“You are impossible.”
“And yet seven days.”
“What?”
“I've survived seven days.”
For the first time in the middle of everything, Don laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because Elena had reminded him there was still something alive outside fear.
His expression softened.
“Seven days.”
“Company record.”
Then he became serious.
“If you come, you stay beside me.”
“Deal.”
They entered the warehouse at midnight.
Salvatore waited.
He was sixty-eight.
Silver-haired.
Elegant.
He looked like an older version of Don.
Elena hated that she could see pieces of herself in his face too.
Sofia sat tied to a chair.
Vittorio beside her.
Alive.
Bruised.
Salvatore smiled at Elena.
“My daughter.”
“Don't call me that.”
“You have Anna's temper.”
“You murdered her.”
“Your mother made unfortunate choices.”
Don stepped forward.
“Release them.”
Salvatore looked at his son.
“Still giving orders.”
“You taught me.”
“No. I taught you power. You wasted it pretending to be respectable.”
Don remained calm.
“You killed Matteo.”
“He betrayed his blood.”
“No. He understood it.”
Salvatore's smile disappeared.
Elena secretly activated the recorder in her pocket.
Sofia saw.
She said nothing.
Salvatore began talking.
Arrogant men often did when they believed everyone else powerless.
He admitted ordering Matteo's interception.
He admitted Anna was supposed to be frightened, not killed.
He admitted paying police officers to falsify reports.
He admitted creating Belladonna.
Every word recorded.
Then he looked at Elena.
“Come with me.”
“No.”
“You don't understand what you are.”
“I understand exactly.”
“You are my daughter.”
“I was Anna Moretti's daughter.”
Salvatore's face hardened.
He raised a pistol.
Don moved in front of Elena.
“Don't.”
Salvatore smiled.
“You would die for her?”
Don answered without hesitation.
“Yes.”
Elena looked at him.
Something passed between them.
Not romance yet.
Something deeper.
Trust.
Salvatore aimed.
Then sirens erupted outside.
Sofia smiled through tears.
“You talk too much.”
Salvatore turned.
Marco struck.
The gun fired.
Elena screamed.
Don fell.
For one terrible second, everything stopped.
Then federal agents flooded the warehouse.
Salvatore disappeared through a side door.
Elena dropped beside Don.
Blood spread across his black shirt.
“Don.”
His eyes opened.
“Still here.”
“Don't joke.”
“I wasn't.”
She pressed both hands against the wound.
“Stay with me.”
His fingers closed around hers.
“Elena.”
“What?”
“The recording.”
She looked toward her pocket.
Gone.
Salvatore had taken it during the struggle.
And without it, much of their case depended on compromised financial records.
Marco ran back from the side corridor.
“He got out.”
Don struggled to sit.
Elena pushed him down.
Then Sofia pointed toward the warehouse door.
A black car was speeding away.
Vittorio looked at Elena.
His face went white.
“What?”
He pointed at her phone lying near the chair.
The screen was illuminated.
A new message from Salvatore waited.
YOU HAVE UNTIL SUNRISE.
May you like
BENEATH IT WAS A PHOTOGRAPH.
ELENA'S MOTHER WAS ALIVE.
