Chapter 3 - The Secret Elena Left Behind
Dominic switched off Mara’s flashlight.
“Behind me.”
“I can’t see.”
“That’s the point.”
Footsteps sounded below.
One.
Two.
Then stopped.
Dominic drew his gun.
Mara pressed herself against the wall.
The house felt enormous in darkness.
“Dominic,” she whispered.
“Quiet.”
A beam of light swept beneath the bedroom door.
Someone was in the hallway.
Dominic moved beside the frame.
The handle turned.
The door opened.
A man entered.
Dominic grabbed him and slammed him into the wall.
“Boss!”
Dominic stopped.
Leo Romano.
One of his security men.
“What are you doing here?”
“Anthony sent me.”
Dominic shoved him back.
“Anthony is with Sofia.”
“No. He left ten minutes ago.”
Mara stepped forward.
“What?”
Leo looked at her, then Dominic.
“He told me to come here and get you.”
“Where did he go?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
Dominic dialed the house.
No answer.
He dialed the kitchen.
Nothing.
Mara called Sofia’s tablet.
The child answered.
“Mara?”
Mara nearly collapsed with relief.
“Sweetheart, where are you?”
“My room.”
“Is anyone with you?”
“No.”
“Lock the door.”
“It is locked.”
“Good girl.”
Dominic took the phone.
“Where’s Uncle Anthony?”
“He told me he had to go.”
“Did he say where?”
“No.”
“Did anyone come inside?”
“I don’t think so.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
“Stay in your room. Leo’s brother is coming.”
He ended the call.
Leo looked confused.
“Boss, what’s going on?”
Dominic held up Elena’s photograph.
Leo’s face changed.
“You’ve seen this?”
“No.”
“You reacted.”
Leo looked toward Mara.
“Boss…”
“Talk.”
Leo swallowed.
“Elena and Anthony were investigating something before she died.”
Dominic stared.
“You knew?”
“Not then. Later.”
“What?”
“Money moving through Russo companies. Millions. Elena found accounts that didn’t belong.”
Dominic’s anger became frighteningly quiet.
“Whose?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who does?”
“Anthony.”
Dominic walked away.
Mara followed.
“Where are you going?”
“To find him.”
“How?”
Dominic looked at the photograph.
“There’s one place Anthony goes when he wants to disappear.”
The docks.
They drove east as dawn began turning the horizon gray.
Mara sat silently for ten minutes.
Then she asked, “Was Anthony in love with Elena?”
Dominic’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.
“I don’t know.”
“You thought it.”
“Yes.”
“Would it matter now?”
“Yes.”
“Because she was your wife?”
“Because he was family.”
Mara looked outside.
“People can love someone without betraying anyone.”
Dominic gave her a sharp glance.
“You defending him?”
“I’m suggesting grief makes suspicious people even more suspicious.”
“That sounds personal.”
“It is.”
Dominic waited.
Mara rarely spoke about herself.
He had never asked.
That realization bothered him.
“My mother died when I was nineteen,” she said. “My father blamed everyone. Doctors. Nurses. Her sister. Me.”
“You?”
“I convinced her to go to the hospital.”
Dominic’s expression softened.
“He said if I hadn’t scared her, she would’ve stayed home and died peacefully.”
“What happened?”
“She had a ruptured aneurysm. Nothing I did caused it.”
“Your father knew that.”
“Knowing something and accepting something aren’t the same.”
Dominic was quiet.
Mara continued.
“Grief wants a villain.”
“Sometimes there is one.”
“Yes.”
She looked at him.
“But make sure you choose the right one.”
They arrived at a private marina.
Anthony’s sedan sat near warehouse twelve.
Dominic entered first.
Mara followed despite his look.
Anthony stood inside.
Alone.
He held no weapon.
“You lied to me,” Dominic said.
“Yes.”
“You left Sofia.”
“I made sure Leo’s brother was outside.”
“You lied to me for four years.”
“Yes.”
Dominic punched him.
Anthony fell against a crate.
Mara flinched.
Dominic grabbed his shirt.
“Did you kill Elena?”
“No.”
“Did you love her?”
Anthony looked up.
“Yes.”
Dominic hit him again.
“Dominic!”
Mara grabbed his arm.
He turned on her.
“Stay out of this.”
“No.”
“He loved my wife.”
“That is not the same as murdering her.”
Anthony wiped blood from his lip.
“She knew.”
Dominic turned.
“What?”
“Elena knew.”
Anthony stood slowly.
“I told her once. Years before she married you.”
Dominic stared.
“She chose you.”
Anthony’s voice cracked.
“She always chose you.”
“Then why the photograph?”
“Because she needed proof we met.”
“Proof for whom?”
“You.”
Anthony reached into his coat.
Dominic raised the gun.
“Slowly.”
Anthony removed an envelope.
“Elena discovered someone had been siphoning money through your father’s old companies.”
“Who?”
“Your uncle.”
Dominic froze.
“Victor.”
Anthony nodded.
Victor Russo.
His father’s younger brother.
The man Dominic had heard whispered outside the house.
The man who had disappeared from New York three years earlier.
“I thought Victor was in Argentina.”
“He was.”
“Was?”
“He came back.”
“When?”
“Two months ago.”
Dominic looked at Mara.
The photograph of Sofia had not been random.
Someone had been watching them.
Anthony handed Dominic the envelope.
Inside were account numbers.
Names.
Dates.
One sheet had Elena’s handwriting.
V.R. KNOWS I FOUND IT.
“He killed her,” Dominic whispered.
Anthony nodded.
“I believe so.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because Elena made me promise.”
Dominic’s eyes burned.
“You let me mourn for four years without knowing.”
“She knew what you would do.”
“What?”
“Burn everything.”
Dominic stepped closer.
Anthony did not retreat.
“She wanted Sofia to have a father.”
Silence.
“She believed if you knew Victor killed her, you would kill Victor even if it destroyed you.”
Dominic looked down.
Mara understood.
Elena had not hidden the truth to protect Victor.
She had hidden it to protect Dominic from himself.
Anthony reached into the envelope again.
“There’s one more thing.”
A storage receipt.
Mara read it.
Unit 417.
Brooklyn.
“Victor’s records?” she asked.
“Elena’s copies.”
Dominic folded the paper.
“We go now.”
Anthony shook his head.
“No.”
Dominic’s expression sharpened.
“Victor called me tonight.”
“What?”
“He knows you opened the music box.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
Mara looked around the warehouse.
“Then someone followed us here.”
Dominic turned.
The warehouse door slammed shut.
A metal bar dropped outside.
Leo shouted.
Then a gunshot cracked.
Mara ducked.
Dominic pulled her behind a crate.
Smoke began leaking beneath the far door.
Anthony’s face changed.
“Fire.”
Dominic ran to the side exit.
Locked.
Mara coughed.
Flames climbed a stack of cardboard near the wall.
Leo kicked at the main door from outside.
“Boss!”
Dominic searched the warehouse.
One window.
High.
Too small.
Mara spotted a forklift.
“Dominic.”
He followed her eyes.
She climbed onto it.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting us out.”
“You know how to drive that?”
“My uncle owned a warehouse.”
She started the engine.
Dominic stared.
“Of course he did.”
Mara drove the forklift toward the loading door.
“Move!”
Anthony and Dominic jumped aside.
She rammed the metal door.
Once.
Twice.
The third strike bent the lower panel.
Dominic helped Leo pull it outward.
Smoke thickened.
They crawled beneath.
Outside, Mara dropped to her knees coughing.
Dominic knelt beside her.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
He touched her shoulder.
The gesture surprised both of them.
She looked up.
For one second the world went quiet.
Then Anthony shouted.
“Dominic!”
A black SUV tore out of the marina.
Dominic rose.
He saw the driver.
Older.
Silver-haired.
Familiar.
Victor Russo.
Dominic started toward his car.
Mara caught his hand.
“Don’t.”
“He killed my wife.”
“And he wants you angry.”
Dominic looked down at their joined hands.
Mara released him slowly.
Anthony approached.
“He’ll go after the storage unit.”
Dominic nodded.
Mara stood.
“Then we get there first.”
But before anyone could move, Dominic’s phone buzzed.
A security alert.
Sofia’s bedroom window had opened.
Dominic stared at the screen.
Then another message arrived.
A photograph.
Sofia’s empty bed.
And beneath it:
YOU LEFT HER ALONE.
Dominic stopped breathing.
Mara grabbed the phone.
Then a call came from Sofia’s tablet.
Mara answered.
No child spoke.
Only Victor’s voice.
“Bring me Elena’s evidence.”
A pause.
“Or your daughter learns what happened to her mother.”
May you like
Then Sofia cried out somewhere in the background.
And the line went dead.
