Chapter 3 - THE TRAIN TICKET
“My office,” I ordered. “Now.”
I didn’t wait for Elena to respond. I turned to Rosa. “Take the girls to the playroom. Lock the door. Do not let anyone inside this house until I say so.”
Rosa nodded, quickly gathering Mia, Valentina, and Lucia. Lucia looked at me one last time, her big brown eyes filled with a terrifying mix of fear and relief. She had finally told her secret.
Elena followed me down the long, mahogany-paneled hallway to my study.
I shut the heavy double doors behind us and locked them.
“Sit,” I said, pointing to the leather chair opposite my desk.
She sat, her hands trembling as she clutched the silver rosary around her neck.
I walked around the desk, leaning forward on my knuckles.
“My wife was murdered fourteen months ago,” I said, forcing my voice to remain steady. “The police told me it was a random cartel hit. I burned half of New York to the ground avenging her. And now you’re sitting in my house, wearing her jewelry, telling me she knew it was going to happen.”
“She didn’t know it would be that day,” Elena whispered. “She just knew she was running out of time.”
“Time for what?”
Elena took a deep, shuddering breath. “To get us out.”
“Us?”
Elena reached into the pocket of her apron. She pulled out a small, faded rectangular piece of paper and slid it across my desk.
I looked down.
It was an Amtrak train ticket. One-way. From New York to Montreal.
The departure date printed on the ticket was the exact day Isabella was killed.
And the name printed on the ticket was Elena Vargas.
“Isabella bought this for you,” I said, confused.
“She bought five tickets,” Elena corrected quietly. “One for me. Three for the girls.”
I stopped breathing.
“And the fifth?” I asked.
“For herself.”
The room spun. Isabella was leaving me.
My beautiful, brilliant wife—the woman who had kissed me that morning and told me to be home for dinner—was packing our children onto a train to Canada to disappear forever.
“Why?” The word tore out of my throat, raw and agonizing. “Was she afraid of me? Did she think my enemies would hurt the girls?”
“She wasn’t running from your enemies, Mr. Russo.” Elena looked up, meeting my eyes with absolute sincerity. “She was running from your family.”
I stood up straight. “What?”
“I met your wife two years ago,” Elena explained, her voice gaining strength. “I was working as a waitress at a diner in Queens. My ex-boyfriend was connected to the Mendoza cartel. He beat me. Put me in the hospital. Isabella was there volunteering at the women’s ward. She saw me.”
I remembered Isabella’s charity work. She poured her soul into helping battered women.
“She didn’t just hold my hand,” Elena continued. “She paid my medical bills. She moved me into a safe apartment. But while she was helping me, she accidentally discovered something else.”
“What?”
“My ex used to brag about his cartel bosses meeting with someone inside your organization,” Elena said. “Someone who was feeding them your shipping routes. Your security schedules. Isabella realized the cartel wasn’t targeting you. Someone inside your house was using the cartel to eliminate you, so they could take over.”
My mind raced. Only three men had access to those schedules. My head of security, Victor. My lawyer, Marcus. And my brother-in-law, Julian.
“Isabella started digging,” Elena said. “She found financial records hidden in the estate. She realized the traitor was embezzling millions. But when she found out who it was, she realized she couldn’t just tell you.”
“Why not?” I snapped. “I would have killed them.”
“Because she found out the traitor had planted explosives under the girls’ beds.”
The blood drained from my face.
“She found the wiring two weeks before she died,” Elena cried. “The traitor told her if she breathed a word to you, he would detonate them while you slept. She had to pretend everything was fine while she secretly planned an escape for all of you. She gave me the rosary that morning and told me to wait at the train station. If she didn’t show up… it meant he found out.”
I sank into my chair, the weight of the betrayal crushing my chest.
Isabella didn’t die a victim. She died a soldier. She died trying to protect our daughters from a bomb in our own home.
“Who was it?” I asked, my voice deadly quiet. “Who was the traitor?”
“She never told me his name,” Elena said, wiping her eyes. “She only called him ‘The Watchman’ because he was always obsessed with time.”
The blue watch.
Suddenly, my office phone rang.
It was the internal intercom from the front gate.
I pressed the speaker button. “What is it?”
“Mr. Russo,” one of my armed guards said through the static. “Julian is here. He says it’s an emergency.”
Julian. Isabella’s brother.
I looked at Elena. Her eyes widened in terror.
“Send him in,” I told the guard.
I disconnected the line and opened my desk drawer, sliding my loaded pistol into the waistband of my trousers.
“Stay behind the desk,” I told Elena.
A minute later, the heavy doors to my study swung open.
Julian rushed in. He looked panicked, his expensive suit wrinkled.
“Dom,” Julian said breathlessly. “We have a massive problem. The Mendozas aren’t gone. I just got word they’re regrouping in Jersey.”
He walked toward my desk, waving a folder in his hand.
But I didn’t look at the folder.
I looked at his left wrist.
May you like
Poking out from beneath the cuff of his expensive Italian shirt was a distinct, bright blue dial.
My watch.
