Chapter 5 - ELENA’S LAST SECRET
Lorenzo did not move.
The woman on the screen stared back at him with his dead wife’s face.
“My name is Adriana Rossi.”
Maya watched Lorenzo absorb the impossible.
Elena’s identical twin.
Supposedly dead six years earlier.
Alive.
Standing beside Victor Crane.
“Where is my sister?” Adriana asked.
Lorenzo’s voice was barely controlled.
“You tell me.”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re standing beside the man poisoning my son.”
Adriana’s expression broke.
“What?”
Crane turned toward her.
That single glance told Maya more than any confession could have.
Adriana hadn’t known.
Crane immediately ended the call.
Lorenzo stared at the black screen.
Then he hurled the phone across the greenhouse.
Maya let him.
For five seconds.
Then she said, “She didn’t know about Nico.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I watched her face.”
“You’re a nurse, not a lie detector.”
“No. I’m someone who spends twelve-hour shifts watching people receive terrible news.”
Lorenzo turned toward her.
“She was shocked.”
“She could be acting.”
“She could.”
Maya didn’t soften it.
“But if we assume everyone is guilty, we’ll miss the truth.”
Marco entered from outside.
“Vehicle’s gone. Plates were stolen.”
“Find them.”
“We will.”
Lorenzo picked up the photograph again.
The warning on the back seemed to burn through him.
DON’T TRUST ISABELLA.
Maya looked at the date.
“Elena wrote this?”
“I know her handwriting.”
“Then she suspected your sister before Nico was born.”
Lorenzo’s face tightened.
The betrayal was becoming personal in ways even the poisoning hadn’t been.
“What happened between Elena and Isabella?”
“They were close.”
“How close?”
“Almost sisters.”
“Then something changed.”
He looked at the photograph.
“Yes.”
Six weeks before Nico’s birth, Elena had become distant.
She had started locking drawers.
Changing passwords.
Asking Lorenzo strange questions about his finances.
He had assumed pregnancy made her anxious.
Then she asked him to leave Chicago.
Not eventually.
Immediately.
Lorenzo refused.
Three weeks later, she went into labor.
Hours after that, she was dead.
Maya asked the question he had avoided for eight months.
“Did Elena die naturally?”
His eyes closed.
“I don’t know anymore.”
Back at the mansion, Marco’s team searched Isabella’s room properly.
They found three hidden phones.
Two encrypted flash drives.
A key to a storage unit.
And a handwritten ledger.
The ledger contained dates.
Payments.
Initials.
V.C.
S.M.
A.R.
And one entry repeated eleven times.
12:03.
Maya stared at it.
“The attacks.”
Lorenzo nodded.
But the dates began before Nico’s symptoms.
Months before.
12:03 appeared beside the date Elena died.
Maya looked up.
“What time did she die?”
Lorenzo’s face went white.
“12:03 a.m.”
The pattern had never been about Nico.
It had started with his mother.
The storage unit was located on the west side.
Lorenzo wanted to go himself.
Marco argued against it.
Maya agreed with Marco.
Lorenzo ignored both of them.
Two hours later, they entered the unit.
Inside were boxes of medical records.
Elena’s records.
Nico’s records.
Adriana’s records.
And dozens of photographs.
One showed Victor Crane meeting Isabella in a parking garage.
Another showed Isabella entering a bank.
Another showed Elena secretly meeting Adriana weeks before giving birth.
At the back of the unit stood a locked metal cabinet.
Marco forced it open.
Inside was a laptop.
And a small jewelry box.
Lorenzo opened the box.
His wife’s wedding ring lay inside.
He staggered backward.
Maya caught his arm.
“Elena was buried with this.”
Marco looked at him.
“You’re sure?”
“I put it on her hand.”
Nobody spoke.
Either the ring had been removed before burial—
or the woman buried beneath Elena Bolaro’s name had never been Elena.
The laptop contained one unencrypted video.
Elena appeared on-screen.
Pregnant.
Terrified.
“If you’re watching this, something happened to me.”
Lorenzo stopped breathing.
Maya watched the dead woman continue.
“Lorenzo, I need you to listen before you get angry.”
His hand trembled.
“I discovered Isabella has been moving money through companies connected to the organization. At first I thought she was stealing from you. She isn’t. She’s building something with Victor.”
Elena looked behind her.
“I don’t know exactly what. Victor has access to medical records, death certificates, prescriptions. Isabella has access to your accounts and security.”
Lorenzo whispered, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
The recording continued as though Elena could hear him.
“I didn’t tell you because I knew what you would do. You would kill first and ask questions later.”
Maya looked at Lorenzo.
Elena had known him well.
“I contacted Adriana because she was alive.”
Lorenzo stared at the screen.
“She survived the crash six years ago. Victor helped her disappear. She believed someone was trying to kill her.”
Elena began crying.
“She thinks Isabella arranged the accident.”
The video ended abruptly.
Lorenzo stood motionless.
His entire history was changing in front of him.
Then Marco’s phone rang.
He answered.
His face tightened.
“What?”
He listened.
Then looked at Lorenzo.
“Isabella’s back.”
“Where?”
“At the mansion.”
“Alone?”
Marco swallowed.
“No.”
Lorenzo’s hand moved toward his weapon.
“Who is with her?”
Marco hesitated.
“Adriana.”
They returned immediately.
Isabella sat in the drawing room.
Her wrists were bruised.
Blood stained her blouse.
Adriana stood across from her holding a pistol.
Maya entered behind Lorenzo.
Adriana looked exactly like Elena.
Lorenzo stopped in the doorway.
For one terrible second, grief overwhelmed reason.
“Elena.”
Adriana’s face softened.
“I’m sorry.”
Lorenzo forced himself back into the present.
“Where is Crane?”
“Gone.”
Isabella laughed bitterly.
“You believe her?”
Adriana pointed the pistol toward Isabella.
“Tell him.”
“Tell him what?”
“Why Elena died.”
Lorenzo’s voice became deadly.
“Isabella.”
His sister looked at him.
Then she began crying.
Not theatrical tears.
Real ones.
“You think I wanted any of this?”
“Answer her.”
“I loved Elena.”
“Answer.”
Isabella stood.
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From my wife?”
“From what she was going to do.”
Lorenzo stared at her.
“What was she going to do?”
“She was going to take Nico and disappear.”
Silence.
Adriana shook her head.
“No.”
“Yes,” Isabella snapped. “She hated what Lorenzo was. She was going to give evidence to federal investigators and take the baby into protection.”
Lorenzo looked at Adriana.
She didn’t deny it.
His face changed.
“Is that true?”
Adriana lowered the gun.
“Elena wanted Nico safe.”
“Was she going to betray me?”
“She was going to save your son.”
Lorenzo absorbed the difference.
Before he could respond, Isabella said:
“And Victor found out.”
Maya turned toward her.
Isabella’s voice shook.
“I helped Victor stop her from leaving.”
Lorenzo took one step forward.
“What did you do?”
“I thought we were going to frighten her.”
“What did you do?”
“We gave her something before the delivery.”
Maya felt sick.
“A drug?”
Isabella nodded.
“Victor said it would make her too weak to leave for a few days.”
Adriana’s eyes filled with hatred.
“You poisoned your brother’s pregnant wife.”
“I didn’t know what it would do!”
Lorenzo looked as though someone had cut him open.
“And Elena died.”
Isabella sobbed.
“I thought she did.”
Everyone froze.
Lorenzo stared at her.
“What?”
Isabella looked toward Adriana.
“She didn’t die in childbirth.”
Maya’s heart slammed.
“Then where is she?”
Isabella whispered:
“Victor took her.”
Lorenzo’s voice disappeared.
“My wife is alive?”
Isabella shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Then the mansion lights went out.
A gunshot exploded from the hallway.
Adriana collapsed.
Maya screamed.
And through the darkness came Victor Crane’s voice.
May you like
“No more questions.”
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