Chapter 4 - The Mother Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Adrian hit the floor with Mara beneath him as another bullet tore through the wall.
Nico fired toward the opposite building.
Tomas dragged Elena away from the window.
“Mara, stay down!”
“My mother!”
“Elena is breathing!”
Those three words were enough.
Mara stopped struggling.
Adrian shielded her until Nico shouted that the shooter had retreated.
Then Mara crawled toward Elena.
Blood covered Elena's shoulder.
Not her chest.
The bullet had struck high.
Tomas pressed cloth against the wound.
“Ambulance?”
“No,” Adrian said. “Private clinic.”
Elena caught Mara's wrist.
“No hospitals.”
Mara stared at her.
“You've been shot.”
“They watch hospitals.”
“Who?”
Elena's eyes closed.
“The same people who've watched you your entire life.”
Mara felt cold.
The drive to the Bellucci medical facility blurred together.
Doctors took Elena into surgery.
Mara sat in a private waiting room.
Adrian remained beside her.
Neither spoke for nearly an hour.
Finally Mara said, “She knew me.”
“Yes.”
“She looked at me like she'd known me yesterday.”
Adrian looked at the floor.
“Maybe she has.”
“What does that mean?”
“The surveillance.”
Mara understood.
Elena might have been watching from a distance.
For years.
The idea hurt almost as much as thinking she had vanished.
“Why wouldn't she come to me?”
“We need to let her explain.”
“If she survives.”
“She will.”
“You don't know that.”
“No.”
Adrian turned toward her.
“But if I say anything else, you'll think I'm giving you false comfort.”
Mara looked at him.
“You're terrible at comforting people.”
“I know.”
She leaned back.
After a moment, Adrian quietly placed his hand beside hers.
Not on hers.
Beside it.
Mara stared at the small space between their fingers.
Then she moved her hand across it.
Adrian laced his fingers through hers.
Neither commented.
Three hours later, the doctor appeared.
“Elena is stable.”
Mara almost collapsed with relief.
The bullet had passed through soft tissue.
No major artery.
No lung damage.
Elena woke that night.
Mara entered alone.
Her biological mother looked smaller in the hospital bed.
Less mysterious.
More human.
“Hi,” Mara said.
Elena cried immediately.
Mara did not.
Not yet.
“I don't know what I'm supposed to call you.”
“Elena is fine.”
“Okay.”
Silence.
Then Mara asked the question that had been burning inside her.
“Why did Sarah raise me?”
Elena closed her eyes.
“Because I begged her to.”
Mara sat.
“Start at the beginning.”
And Elena did.
Twenty-eight years earlier, Elena Vale was not a maid.
She was the daughter of a bookkeeper who worked for Gabriel Bellucci.
Gabriel was Adrian's uncle.
Unlike Adrian's father, Gabriel wanted the Bellucci organization out of criminal business.
He collected evidence against his brother.
In the process, he met Elena.
They fell in love.
Mara's breath caught.
“Gabriel was my father?”
“Yes.”
“Is he dead?”
Elena looked away.
“I don't know.”
Mara felt another layer of reality crack.
“When I became pregnant, Gabriel planned to leave,” Elena continued. “But your uncle—Adrian's father—found out.”
“Why would he care about me?”
“Because Gabriel had evidence.”
“The ledger.”
Elena nodded.
“He hid it somewhere only family could access.”
“Why not give it to police?”
“Corrupt officers worked for Victor Rinaldi.”
The name again.
Mara remembered Adrian mentioning him.
“What happened?”
“Gabriel vanished the night before we planned to leave.”
“And you?”
“I ran.”
“With me.”
“Yes.”
Elena met Sarah Hayes while hiding.
Sarah was a nurse.
She helped deliver Mara in secret.
When men began searching for Elena and the baby, Sarah offered something extraordinary.
“I'll raise her,” Elena whispered. “Those were her words.”
Mara finally cried.
“She saved me.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you stay?”
“Because they would have followed me to you.”
Mara wiped her face angrily.
“And twenty-two years ago?”
“I returned because I thought it was finally safe.”
“As a maid.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To get inside the Bellucci estate.”
“To find the ledger?”
“And to find out whether Gabriel was alive.”
“Did you?”
Elena hesitated.
Mara noticed.
“You found something.”
“I found evidence he survived at least five years after disappearing.”
“What evidence?”
“A letter.”
“Where is it?”
“Hidden.”
Mara almost laughed.
“Of course it is.”
Elena gave a sad smile.
“You sound like Sarah.”
The comparison broke Mara's heart.
“What happened after Marco died?”
“Marco discovered what I was doing. He agreed to help me.”
“And then his car exploded.”
“Yes.”
“You disappeared because you thought they'd killed him.”
“And because someone inside the Bellucci house knew I was searching.”
“Who?”
“I never learned.”
Mara stood.
“All this time, somebody has been protecting the same secret.”
“Yes.”
“And now they came after me.”
“Because Gabriel's bloodline matters.”
Mara frowned.
“Why?”
Elena looked toward the door.
“Where is Adrian?”
“Outside.”
“Bring him in.”
Adrian entered.
Elena studied him.
“You look like your mother.”
Adrian stiffened.
“You knew her?”
“Yes.”
“What does Mara's bloodline have to do with this?”
Elena took a breath.
“The Bellucci companies were divided between two brothers.”
Adrian's father and Gabriel.
“Half of the original estate and shipping assets legally belonged to Gabriel,” Elena said.
Adrian stared.
“My father said Gabriel surrendered his shares.”
“He forged the transfer.”
Mara understood.
“If Gabriel had a child…”
“She inherited his claim.”
Adrian looked at Mara.
Mara laughed without humor.
“You're telling me I'm accidentally half-mafia royalty?”
Adrian almost smiled.
“That's one way to phrase it.”
“I preferred being a maid.”
Elena's expression became serious.
“Money isn't the danger. The ledger is.”
“What does it contain?”
“Names. Officials. Police. Judges. Businesses. Routes. Everyone who helped Rinaldi operate.”
Adrian's jaw tightened.
“And someone thinks Mara can find it.”
“Yes.”
“Can she?”
Elena looked at Mara.
“No.”
Mara narrowed her eyes.
“That sounded suspiciously quick.”
Elena closed her eyes.
“Sarah had the final clue.”
“Sarah is dead.”
“I know.”
“Then what?”
“She left it to you.”
Mara froze.
“What?”
Elena whispered, “The motorcycle.”
Adrian stared.
“My motorcycle?”
Elena nodded.
“Before Sarah died, she sent Gabriel's clue to the Bellucci estate disguised inside a motorcycle part.”
Adrian looked confused.
“I bought that motorcycle five years ago.”
“It belonged to Marco before you.”
Adrian's face changed.
“No.”
“Yes.”
Mara stared between them.
The motorcycle she had randomly decided to sit on that morning was directly connected to everything.
Her mother.
Her father.
Marco.
The ledger.
The warning.
“Where is the clue?” Mara asked.
Elena looked at Adrian.
“Inside the fuel tank.”
They returned to the estate before sunrise.
Adrian refused to let Mara help dismantle the motorcycle.
She complained until he handed her a flashlight.
“That is not helping.”
“You're illuminating.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don't.”
Her pulse betrayed her.
He noticed.
She aimed the flashlight at his eyes.
He laughed.
Eventually Nico removed a small sealed cylinder from a hidden compartment beneath the tank.
Inside was a tiny brass key and a strip of paper.
Three numbers.
17 — 4 — 9.
Mara stared.
“Coordinates?”
Adrian shook his head.
“Not in that format.”
Elena, watching from a wheelchair, whispered, “A book code.”
“What book?” Mara asked.
Elena looked toward the mansion library.
“The Bellucci family Bible.”
They found it inside a locked display case.
Page seventeen.
Line four.
Ninth word.
CRYPT.
Adrian looked toward the old family chapel visible beyond the courtyard.
Mara's stomach tightened.
“You have a crypt?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Your family desperately needs more normal hobbies.”
At dawn they entered the chapel.
Beneath the altar was a staircase.
The family crypt smelled of stone and dust.
Names covered marble tombs.
Bellucci.
Bellucci.
Bellucci.
Then Mara saw one without a death date.
GABRIEL BELLUCCI.
Adrian inserted the brass key into a small lock built into the tomb.
It opened.
Inside was not a body.
It was a metal case.
Mara reached for it.
Adrian stopped her.
“Let Nico check it.”
Nico examined the case.
Safe.
Mara opened it.
Inside was a leather ledger.
And a recent photograph.
Mara picked it up.
A gray-haired man stood outside a café.
On the back was a date.
Three days ago.
Elena began crying.
Mara looked at her.
“Is that him?”
Elena nodded.
“My father?”
“Yes.”
Mara's heart thundered.
Gabriel Bellucci was alive.
A phone rang inside the crypt.
Nobody's phone.
The sound came from inside the empty tomb.
Adrian reached beneath the ledge and found a burner phone.
It displayed one incoming call.
GABRIEL.
Mara answered.
“Hello?”
For several seconds, silence.
Then an older man's voice whispered:
“Mara?”
Her throat tightened.
“Yes.”
He exhaled shakily.
“My little girl.”
Mara gripped the phone.
“Where are you?”
“There's no time.”
“Where are you?”
“They know you found the ledger.”
Adrian looked toward the crypt entrance.
Gabriel's voice became urgent.
“Do not let Adrian take it upstairs.”
“Why?”
“Because the traitor has been waiting inside that house for twenty-eight years.”
May you like
A shadow appeared at the top of the crypt stairs.
And someone began walking down.
