Chapter 2 - The Name Nobody Was Supposed to Know
Victor did not open the door immediately.
Elena watched his expression harden.
“Who is Lucia?”
“My mother’s sister.”
“You said she hasn’t been here in eleven years.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Victor looked at her.
She pointed toward his face.
“That expression said it.”
Another knock sounded.
“Victor.”
Lucia’s voice was softer this time.
“I know she’s in there.”
Elena’s stomach tightened.
Victor unlocked the door.
A woman in her early sixties stood in the hallway wearing a charcoal coat over a black dress. Silver streaked her dark hair, but her eyes were sharp and steady.
Those eyes went directly to Elena.
Lucia stopped breathing.
“My God.”
Victor stepped between them.
“Why are you here?”
Lucia ignored him.
“Elena?”
Elena stared.
“You know me?”
“No.”
Lucia looked shaken.
“But I knew your mother.”
Elena’s hands became cold.
“My mother?”
Victor turned toward her.
“You said your mother was alive.”
“She is.”
Lucia frowned.
“What is her name?”
“Rachel Hart.”
Lucia’s confusion deepened.
Then she looked at the photograph in Victor’s hand.
“Where did you get that?”
“It was in my drawer.”
Lucia’s face changed.
“Someone has been inside this room.”
Victor’s patience disappeared.
“Start talking.”
Lucia looked toward Elena.
“This isn’t the place.”
“It became the place when someone placed my mother’s key in my maid’s path and shut down my security system.”
Lucia flinched at the word maid.
Victor noticed.
“So you know something.”
“I know enough to be afraid.”
Elena stepped forward.
“I’m standing in a locked bedroom at two-thirty in the morning while strangers seem to know more about my family than I do. Please stop protecting me with silence.”
Lucia studied her.
“You sound like Anna.”
Elena’s heart skipped.
“Who is Anna?”
Lucia closed her eyes.
Victor looked down at the old photograph.
“The woman in this picture.”
Lucia nodded.
“Anna Reed.”
Elena’s throat tightened.
“My mother’s maiden name is Reed.”
Victor looked sharply at her.
Elena continued.
“Rachel Anna Reed.”
Lucia gripped the doorframe.
Victor’s eyes darkened.
“You knew.”
Lucia whispered, “I suspected.”
“Since when?”
“The moment I learned Elena had been hired here.”
Victor went still.
“You knew she worked for me?”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I was trying to understand who brought her here.”
Elena looked between them.
“I applied through an agency.”
Lucia laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“No one enters Victor Russo’s house by accident.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
Lucia stepped into the bedroom and closed the door behind her.
“Twenty-six years ago, my sister Emilia hired a young woman named Anna Reed.”
Elena listened silently.
“Anna was nineteen. Smart. Quiet. She worked in the house while attending nursing school.”
Victor’s expression darkened.
“I don’t remember her.”
“You were eleven.”
“I remember everyone who worked here.”
“Not her.”
Lucia looked at the photograph.
“Because after your mother died, your father removed everything connected to Anna.”
Victor’s eyes hardened.
“Why?”
Lucia hesitated.
“Because Anna saw something.”
Elena whispered, “What?”
Lucia’s gaze moved to Victor.
“The night Emilia died.”
The room went silent.
Victor’s mother had officially died from a sudden cardiac event.
Everyone in the Russo family knew the story.
Emilia had been alone.
Victor had been away at school.
His father, Carlo, had been attending a business dinner.
Lucia had arrived too late.
“Are you saying my mother was here?” Elena asked.
Lucia nodded.
“She found Emilia.”
Victor’s face changed.
“Why was that never in the report?”
“Because there was no report.”
“What happened to Anna?”
“She disappeared the next morning.”
Elena stepped backward.
“No.”
Lucia looked at her.
“I’m sorry.”
“My mother didn’t disappear. She moved to Ohio. She married my father. She raised me.”
“And did she ever speak about working here?”
Elena searched her memory.
No.
Her mother almost never discussed her life before marriage.
She had called it “a difficult time.”
Victor looked at Elena.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-six.”
“When were you born?”
“November.”
Lucia closed her eyes.
Victor caught the reaction.
“What?”
“Anna left in February.”
Elena shook her head.
“No. Don’t do that.”
“Elena—”
“Whatever you’re implying, stop.”
“I’m not implying anything.”
“You’re counting months.”
Lucia fell silent.
Elena’s voice shook.
“My father was Thomas Hart.”
“Was?”
“He died when I was thirteen.”
“I’m sorry.”
Elena looked at Victor.
“This is ridiculous.”
Victor agreed with her for reasons he couldn’t explain.
He wanted the story to be ridiculous.
He wanted the photograph to mean nothing.
He wanted the key to be an accident.
But Victor Russo had survived by respecting patterns before they became threats.
And too many patterns were forming around Elena.
He turned to Lucia.
“Why tonight?”
“I received a message.”
“From whom?”
“Unknown number.”
“What did it say?”
Lucia pulled out her phone.
Victor read the screen.
THE GIRL IS IN EMILIA’S ROOM. IF YOU WANT HER ALIVE, COME NOW.
Elena’s face went pale.
Victor’s eyes became cold.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I did.”
“My phone was blocked.”
“That’s why I drove here.”
Victor opened his backup phone.
Signal.
He dialed security.
No response.
He called again.
Nothing.
Lucia whispered, “Victor.”
He looked at her.
“There’s more.”
“Of course there is.”
“Your father knew Anna was pregnant.”
Elena covered her mouth.
Victor’s gaze snapped toward Lucia.
“What?”
“I heard them arguing.”
“When?”
“The night before Emilia died.”
“What did he say?”
Lucia hesitated.
Victor took one step toward her.
“What did Carlo say?”
Lucia looked at Elena.
“He told Anna that if anyone discovered who the father was, three families would be destroyed.”
Elena felt dizzy.
“My father was Thomas Hart.”
Lucia nodded carefully.
“Then perhaps that was exactly what he wanted everyone to believe.”
Victor turned away.
The past was rearranging itself around him.
His mother.
The locked room.
The missing employee.
His father’s secrecy.
Elena’s arrival.
And Dante watching her find the key.
Victor dialed Dante.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Elena remembered something.
“He asked me about my mother.”
Victor turned.
“When?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“What did he ask?”
“He saw me wearing her necklace.”
Elena touched the thin chain around her throat.
“He asked where I got it.”
Victor stepped closer.
A tiny oval pendant rested against her skin.
“Show me.”
Elena unclasped it.
Victor took it carefully.
The pendant was old silver.
He pressed the edge.
It opened.
Inside was a faded photograph of Elena as a child.
Nothing else.
Lucia whispered, “Turn it over.”
Victor did.
A symbol had been engraved on the back.
A small rose surrounded by three dots.
Victor stopped.
“What?” Elena asked.
Lucia looked frightened.
“Emilia wore that symbol.”
Victor’s voice dropped.
“So did my father.”
Elena stared.
“I don’t understand.”
Lucia shook her head.
“Neither did Anna.”
Victor’s phone buzzed.
A security alert.
One camera had come back online.
The pantry.
Victor opened the feed.
At first, nothing moved.
Then a figure entered.
Dante.
He walked directly to the flour bins.
He reached behind them.
He removed something.
Victor enlarged the image.
Another key.
Dante turned toward the camera.
For one impossible second, it looked as though he knew Victor was watching.
Then Dante smiled.
The feed went black.
Victor was already moving.
“Stay here.”
Elena grabbed his arm.
“No.”
He looked down at her hand.
She released him.
“If this started because of me, I’m not staying hidden while you walk into it alone.”
Victor stared at her.
“People who argue with me usually regret it.”
“I’ve noticed.”
Lucia stepped between them.
“Victor, she may be safer with you.”
He hated that Lucia was right.
Five minutes later, they moved through the dark mansion together.
Victor first.
Elena behind him.
Lucia last.
At the bottom of the stairs, the house seemed unnaturally quiet.
Victor opened the pantry.
Empty.
The flour bins had been pulled away from the wall.
Behind them was a narrow wooden panel Elena had never noticed.
Victor pressed it.
The panel opened.
A staircase descended beneath the mansion.
Elena whispered, “You knew this was here?”
“No.”
Lucia did.
Her face revealed it.
Victor turned.
“What is down there?”
Lucia looked at him.
“Your father’s old records room.”
Victor’s stare hardened.
“Records of what?”
Lucia didn’t answer.
A light appeared below.
Someone was already inside.
Victor descended.
Elena followed.
The room beneath the mansion was larger than expected.
Shelves lined the walls.
Old ledgers.
Photographs.
Documents.
Victor walked toward a metal table.
A single folder had been placed there.
ELENA HART.
Her full name.
Her birth date.
Her employment history.
Her mother’s address.
Every detail.
Victor opened it.
The first page contained a DNA report.
He read the first line.
Then the second.
His face went completely still.
Elena whispered, “What does it say?”
Victor looked up.
Before he could answer, a voice came from the darkness behind them.
“Put the folder down.”
Dante stepped into the light.
He was holding another file.
May you like
And across its cover was written one name.
VICTOR RUSSO.
