Chapter 3 - The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Alejandro stood too fast.
The room tilted.
His doctor caught his arm.
“Sit down.”
Alejandro shook him off.
“Everybody out.”
Tomas hesitated.
“Boss—”
“Not you.”
He pointed toward Elena.
“And not her.”
Within seconds, the study emptied.
Emma remained because she had wrapped both arms around Elena’s leg and refused to move.
Alejandro stared at them.
“Luca had no child.”
Elena’s laugh was small and bitter.
“That’s what you were told.”
“He died before his wedding.”
“Yes.”
“You were in the car.”
“Yes.”
“You died too.”
“No.”
Each answer landed like a hammer.
Alejandro crossed to the desk and gripped the edge.
Four years earlier, Luca Moretti’s car had been found burning off a rural road in Wisconsin.
The driver was identified as Luca.
A second passenger was presumed to be Elena Rossi, Luca’s fiancée.
Alejandro had buried two empty caskets because there had not been enough left to bury properly.
He remembered standing in the rain.
He remembered his uncle Gabriel’s hand on his shoulder.
He remembered promising Luca he would find whoever did it.
He never did.
“Elena Rossi,” Alejandro said.
She nodded.
“Carter is my mother’s name.”
“Why?”
“To stay alive.”
“From who?”
Her eyes met his.
“I thought from you.”
The words hit harder than the poisoning.
Alejandro went still.
“Explain.”
Elena looked toward Emma.
“Not in front of her.”
Alejandro almost refused.
Then Emma yawned.
She had just broken a house rule, watched a man nearly die, used her emergency medicine on him, and discovered the scary owner of the mansion was apparently her uncle.
She was still four.
Alejandro pressed a button on his desk.
A trusted housekeeper arrived.
Elena crouched.
“I’ll be right here.”
Emma looked at Alejandro.
“Are you gonna fire Mama?”
“No.”
Elena looked surprised.
Emma narrowed her eyes.
“Promise?”
Alejandro had negotiated with men who demanded millions less aggressively.
“I promise.”
Emma considered him.
Then she handed him her stuffed rabbit.
“For your breathing.”
Alejandro stared at the toy.
“I don’t think that’s medically useful.”
Emma shrugged.
“It helps me.”
Then she left.
Alejandro set the rabbit carefully on his desk.
The moment the door closed, his voice changed.
“Talk.”
Elena did.
The night Luca died, she had not been in the car.
She had planned to be.
But Luca changed everything at the last second.
“He came to my apartment shaking,” Elena said.
“Luca didn’t shake.”
“That night he did.”
“What did he say?”
“That somebody inside the family had been moving money and selling information.”
Alejandro glanced at Tomas.
“Names?”
“He didn’t give me one.”
“Why?”
“He said if I knew, I would become a target.”
Elena swallowed.
“He told me not to get in the car.”
“He gave me cash, a different phone, and a train ticket.”
“And you obeyed?”
“I was pregnant.”
Alejandro shut his eyes.
Luca had known.
He had never told Alejandro.
Elena continued.
“Three hours later, the news said Luca’s car had burned.”
“Then I received a message.”
“From Luca?”
“No.”
“From who?”
“Unknown number.”
She recited it from memory.
Luca should have listened. If you want his child to live, disappear before Alejandro cleans up the mistake.
Alejandro’s face became stone.
“I never sent that.”
“I know that now.”
“How?”
“Because five months ago someone found us.”
She pulled out her phone.
A photograph filled the screen.
Emma leaving a preschool.
Taken from across the street.
Below it was a message.
FOUR YEARS IS LONG ENOUGH.
Alejandro felt cold.
“I came here because I thought hiding farther away had stopped working.”
“You hid in my house?”
“Yes.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It does if the safest place is the one nobody expects you to choose.”
Tomas spoke for the first time.
“How did you get hired?”
“Agency application.”
“No help?”
Elena hesitated.
“One anonymous reference appeared in my file.”
Alejandro looked sharply at her.
“You didn’t provide it?”
“No.”
Tomas was already typing.
“Name?”
“Margaret Sloan.”
Tomas stopped.
Alejandro knew the name too.
Margaret Sloan had been Luca’s private attorney.
She had disappeared six months after his death.
The FBI believed she had fled the country.
Tomas turned the laptop around.
The reference letter had been uploaded from an internal Moretti network address.
Not from outside.
Someone inside Alejandro’s own organization had placed Elena and Emma in the mansion deliberately.
And according to the access log, the upload had come from an office on the third floor.
An office that belonged to Alejandro’s uncle.
May you like
Gabriel Moretti.
