Chapter 3 - The Dead Sister
Mara could not move.
The woman approaching them looked older than the photographs.
Thinner.
A scar cut from her temple toward her left eyebrow.
But it was Isabella.
Same eyes.
Same sharp jaw.
Same dark hair.
Marco lowered his gun first.
"Isabella."
She stopped several yards away.
"You took your time."
Marco looked like a man seeing a ghost.
"We buried you."
"No. You buried what they gave you."
Mara found her voice.
"My mother?"
Isabella's expression softened.
"Lucia was the bravest person I knew."
"Was?"
The word hurt.
Isabella nodded.
"I'm sorry."
Mara swallowed.
"Did she die naturally?"
Isabella did not answer.
That was answer enough.
Marco cursed.
"Why are you here?"
"Because Dante survived."
"You knew about the crash?"
"I knew someone planned it."
"Who?"
Isabella looked toward Mara.
"Where's the memory card?"
Mara's blood ran cold.
"How do you know about it?"
"Because I put it in the brace."
Marco stepped forward.
"You were in the hospital?"
"I never left."
Mara thought about the voice outside Suite 900.
"That was you."
"Yes."
"Why tell Dante he shouldn't have survived?"
Isabella's eyes hardened.
"That wasn't me."
Silence.
Marco's hand tightened around his pistol.
"Then who was it?"
"Someone who wanted Dante to think I was threatening him."
Mara asked, "Why hide the card instead of giving it to him?"
"Because Dante trusts the wrong people."
"Marco?"
Isabella looked at him.
"For three years, I didn't know."
Marco's face tightened.
"And now?"
"Now I know he wasn't the one who betrayed us."
Marco released a breath.
Mara stepped closer.
"Who did?"
Isabella looked at her.
"Your key first."
Mara's patience broke.
"My mother is dead. Dante's wife disappeared. Someone tried to kill him tonight. You have been pretending to be dead for three years. Stop talking in riddles."
Isabella studied her.
Then nodded once.
"Fair."
She turned toward a steel door.
"Come with me."
Marco didn't move.
"Dante doesn't know we're here."
"He will."
"How?"
Isabella looked back.
"He's already on his way."
Mara frowned.
"He can't walk."
"That has never stopped my brother."
The room beyond the steel door resembled a forgotten hospital archive.
Old filing cabinets lined one wall.
Computer equipment covered another.
A map of Belladonna City hung beside dozens of photographs.
Mara recognized Dante.
Marco.
Hospital administrators.
Police officers.
Judges.
And a woman she had never seen before.
"Who is she?"
Isabella followed her gaze.
"Elena."
Dante's wife.
The photograph showed a woman in her early thirties with dark hair and intelligent eyes.
She was smiling beside Dante.
He looked different.
Younger.
Less guarded.
Happy.
Mara understood something.
The rage inside Suite 900 had not begun tonight.
It had begun three years earlier.
"Tell me everything," Mara said.
Isabella leaned against the table.
"Three years ago, Elena discovered money moving through one of the Vescari charities."
"Money laundering?"
"No."
"What then?"
"Payments."
"To whom?"
"Doctors. Police officers. Judges. Private security contractors."
Marco frowned.
"For what?"
"People."
Mara felt sick.
"What kind of people?"
"Witnesses. Informants. Women who wanted to disappear from abusive husbands. Children involved in custody cases."
Marco stared at the wall of photographs.
"A trafficking network?"
"Something like that."
"And it was connected to the family?"
"Yes."
"Who ran it?"
Isabella's jaw tightened.
"That's what Elena was trying to prove."
Mara looked at her.
"Your brother?"
Isabella's eyes flashed.
"Never."
"I had to ask."
"Dante has done terrible things."
Marco glanced toward her.
Isabella continued.
"But there are lines he doesn't cross."
"Whoever ran the network knew his organization."
"Better than anyone."
Mara thought of Dante's uncle.
"Vittorio."
Isabella said nothing.
Again, answer enough.
Marco swore under his breath.
Vittorio Vescari was Dante's mother's younger brother.
A philanthropist publicly.
The quiet strategist behind Vescari businesses privately.
"What happened to Elena?" Mara asked.
"She contacted me because she didn't trust Dante's inner circle."
"Why not tell her husband?"
"She was trying to protect him."
"From his own uncle?"
"From whoever was feeding Vittorio information."
Marco looked offended.
"Why didn't she trust me?"
"Because the leak came from Dante's security team."
Marco went silent.
Mara asked, "What did you find?"
"Enough to get Elena killed."
"Is she dead?"
Isabella hesitated.
Mara stepped closer.
"You know."
"I know she survived the first night."
Marco's head snapped toward her.
"What?"
"She was taken alive."
"Where?"
"I lost her trail."
"For three years?"
"I've been trying to find her."
Mara looked around.
"This is what my mother helped you do."
"Yes."
"Why her?"
"Because Lucia worked nights in surgical recovery. She discovered people being admitted under false names."
"Victims?"
"Some. Others were members of the network."
Isabella opened a drawer.
Inside lay dozens of copied charts.
"Your mother started collecting evidence before Elena ever came to me."
Mara's eyes burned.
Lucia Bellini had been a quiet woman who baked bread on Sundays and complained when Mara forgot to call.
Mara had never known any of this.
"Why didn't she tell me?"
"Because knowing made you a target."
Mara touched the key hanging beneath her scrub top.
"I have it."
Isabella looked at the chain.
"Good."
"What does it open?"
"A safe-deposit box."
"Where?"
"Not a bank."
A metallic crash echoed through the corridor.
Marco raised his weapon.
Isabella smiled faintly.
"My brother."
The door opened.
Dante stood there with two bodyguards.
He had somehow acquired crutches.
He wasn't using them properly.
His face changed when he saw Isabella.
Nobody spoke.
Dante dropped one crutch.
It clattered against the floor.
Isabella's eyes filled.
"Dante."
He took one step.
Pain nearly folded him.
He kept moving.
"You died."
"I know."
"I buried you."
"I know."
His voice broke.
"Three years."
Isabella moved toward him.
Dante raised a hand.
She stopped.
Exactly as Mara had stopped earlier.
"Don't."
Isabella's face crumpled.
"Dante—"
"Three years."
"I couldn't come back."
"Why?"
"Because they were watching you."
"You let me think you were dead."
"To keep you alive."
Dante laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
"You don't get to decide whether destroying me keeps me alive."
Isabella cried silently.
Mara looked away.
This wasn't mafia business.
It was grief.
Dante finally lowered his hand.
Isabella moved forward.
He pulled her into him.
For several seconds, Dante Vescari looked like a brother instead of a crime boss.
Then he stepped back.
"Elena."
Isabella closed her eyes.
"She's alive."
Dante stopped breathing.
Marco turned away.
Mara watched the sentence hit him.
"Say it again."
"Elena is alive."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
His grief immediately became fury.
"You've known?"
"I confirmed it eleven months ago."
"Eleven months?"
"Dante—"
"Eleven months!"
His voice filled the room.
"You knew my wife was alive for eleven months and said nothing?"
"I didn't know who was listening."
"You found me."
"Yes."
"You could have told me."
"And then what? You would've burned this city down searching."
"I still might."
"Exactly."
Dante moved closer.
"Give me one reason not to put every man I have on Vittorio tonight."
"Because Vittorio isn't the one holding Elena."
Dante stopped.
"Who is?"
Isabella looked toward Marco.
Then Mara.
"The memory card."
Dante removed it.
"What's on it?"
"The answer."
Marco found an old laptop.
No network connection.
Dante inserted the card.
A password prompt appeared.
Isabella looked at Mara.
"Lucia's key."
Mara frowned.
"What?"
"The key has six numbers engraved along the edge."
Mara pulled it from beneath her scrubs.
She had never noticed.
Under the desk lamp, tiny digits became visible.
She entered them.
The screen unlocked.
Three folders appeared.
ISABELLA.
ELENA.
DANTE.
Dante clicked ELENA.
A video file loaded.
The screen showed a dark room.
Elena sat in a chair.
Alive.
Dante gripped the table.
The timestamp was only eight days old.
Mara looked at him.
He had become completely still.
Elena spoke into the camera.
"Dante, if you're watching this, Isabella finally trusted the right person."
He leaned closer.
Elena's face looked thinner.
But strong.
"My husband, listen to me carefully. Vittorio is part of it, but he is not the person controlling me."
Dante whispered, "Who?"
On-screen Elena looked toward someone beyond the camera.
Fear entered her face.
Then she looked back.
"The person who ordered Isabella's death is someone you've trusted since childhood."
Marco stiffened.
Dante's breathing changed.
Elena continued.
"He knows every move you make because you tell him yourself."
The video distorted.
Dante hit the keyboard.
"No."
The screen froze.
Then resumed.
Elena leaned toward the camera.
Her next words were barely audible.
"The man you call Father is not dead."
Dante stared.
Mara looked at Isabella.
Isabella had gone pale.
Dante's father, Alessandro Vescari, had supposedly died fifteen years earlier.
The video ended.
No one moved.
Then another file appeared automatically.
LIVE FEED AVAILABLE.
Dante clicked it.
A dim room filled the screen.
Elena sat there.
This wasn't a recording.
She suddenly raised her head as if someone had entered.
A man's voice came from behind the camera.
"Your husband knows now."
Elena's face filled with terror.
Dante leaned toward the screen.
The man stepped into view.
Dante whispered one word.
"Father."
Alessandro Vescari looked directly into the camera.
Then smiled.
Behind Dante, the steel door locked itself.
A second lock clicked.
May you like
Then a third.
Someone had trapped them underground.
