Chapter 5 - THE GHOST NAMED ELENA
The smoke from the burning SUV choked the morning air, thick and acrid, casting a dark shadow over the immaculate estate. Sirens wailed in the distance, a sound that usually meant help, but in Vincenzo’s world, it meant complications.
Vincenzo pulled me to my feet, his grip on my arm unyielding. His chest was heaving, blood trickling down his temple, but his focus was absolute.
“Silas!” Vincenzo roared over the crackle of the flames.
His right-hand man emerged from the chaos, soot-stained and coughing, but alive. “Boss, they used a remote detonator. C-4 under the chassis. It was an inside job. Someone had to plant it while the car was in the garage.”
Vincenzo’s eyes darkened, sweeping over his own guards. “Lock down the estate. No one leaves. No one calls out. And Silas… find out who accessed the garage last night. Break their fingers until they give you a name.”
“Mr. Morretti,” I gasped, pulling frantically at his grip. “Let me go! I have to go to Caleb’s school! Beatrice threatened them—she told the nurse not to call an ambulance for my brother!”
Vincenzo froze. He looked down at me, processing the sheer depth of Beatrice’s cruelty. The mafia boss, a man who lived a life of violence, seemed genuinely repulsed by the idea of weaponizing a child’s illness.
“Silas,” Vincenzo snapped, abandoning the investigation of his own near-death. “Take three men. Go to the elementary school on 4th and Elm. Extract her brother. Take him to the private clinic on the East Side. Pay the doctors whatever they ask in cash. If anyone tries to stop you, put a bullet in their knee.”
“Yes, Boss,” Silas nodded, immediately turning and breaking into a sprint toward the remaining vehicles.
I sagged against the stone pillar, the adrenaline leaving my body in a dizzying rush. “Thank you,” I sobbed, burying my face in my hands. “Thank you.”
“You are under my protection now, Dana,” Vincenzo said softly, stepping closer. The raw danger radiating from him earlier softened, leaving a quiet, terrifying loyalty in its place. He reached out, his thumb gently wiping a smudge of soot from my cheek. “When they touch what is mine, I burn their world down.”
The words sent a shiver down my spine. I was a maid. An invisible girl. But standing in the wreckage of a car bomb, Vincenzo Morretti was looking at me like I was something incredibly precious.
“We have to move to the safehouse,” Vincenzo said, his tone shifting back to business. “The police will be here in two minutes, and Hale controls the chief of police. They’ll use this as an excuse to arrest me for my own assassination attempt.”
Ten minutes later, I was sitting in the back of an armored sedan, speeding away from the estate through a hidden service road. Vincenzo sat beside me, applying pressure to the cut on his forehead with a sterile gauze pad. Rosa was asleep in the front seat, sedated by the estate doctor to protect her fragile heart from the stress of the explosion.
The silence in the car was suffocating. I couldn't stop thinking about the photograph burning a hole in my pocket. I needed answers.
“Who is Elena?” I asked quietly, staring out the tinted window at the blurring trees.
Vincenzo went completely still. He slowly lowered the gauze pad from his forehead. “Where did you hear that name?”
“Your mother called me Elena when I walked into the sunroom,” I said, turning to look at him. “She said Beatrice was looking for a ledger. She said someone told her Elena burned.”
Vincenzo let out a long, heavy sigh, resting his head back against the leather seat. For a moment, the untouchable mafia king looked incredibly weary.
“Elena was my older sister,” Vincenzo said softly, his voice thick with a grief he rarely let surface. “She died twenty-five years ago. In a house fire.”
I stared at him, my heart pounding. “Beatrice Hale was in a photograph with your mother. She was holding the Morretti crest. How is the senator’s wife connected to your family?”
Vincenzo turned his head, his dark eyes locking onto mine. “Beatrice was not born a Hale, Dana. She was born Beatrice Morretti. She is my half-sister. The illegitimate daughter my father had with a maid.”
The revelation hit me like a physical blow. Beatrice—the wealthy, snobbish, cruel woman who looked down on the working class—was the daughter of a maid herself.
“My father brought her into the family when she was a teenager,” Vincenzo continued, his jaw tightening. “My mother, Rosa, tried to welcome her. Tried to love her. But Beatrice was poisoned by jealousy. She hated Elena. Elena was the golden child, the legitimate heir, beloved by everyone. Beatrice wanted what Elena had.”
“The house fire,” I whispered, connecting the horrifying dots.
“It wasn't an accident,” Vincenzo said, his voice dropping to a lethal growl. “The fire investigator found traces of accelerant outside Elena’s bedroom door. We couldn't prove Beatrice did it. But my father knew. He exiled Beatrice from the family. He gave her enough money to buy a new identity, a new life, and told her if she ever returned, he would kill her himself.”
“And she used that money to reinvent herself and marry a senator,” I realized, feeling sick to my stomach.
“Yes. And now my father is dead. Beatrice thinks the exile is lifted. She’s using her husband’s political power to try and crush my legitimate businesses, to force me into bankruptcy so she can seize control of the Morretti empire.”
“But why is she looking for a ledger?” I asked, my hand instinctively pressing against my apron pocket where the music box was hidden.
“Because my father kept a detailed ledger of every bribe, every payoff, and every politician he ever owned,” Vincenzo explained. “If Beatrice gets it, she can blackmail half the state government. She’ll be unstoppable.”
The car suddenly swerved violently, the tires screeching against the asphalt.
I was thrown against Vincenzo’s chest as the driver slammed on the brakes.
“Boss!” the driver yelled, pointing frantically through the windshield.
We had just pulled up to the heavily fortified safehouse on the edge of the city. But the reinforced steel gate was wide open. The two guards stationed outside were lying motionless on the gravel driveway in pools of blood.
And parked in the center of the driveway was Silas’s car. The car that was supposed to be bringing Caleb to the clinic.
“Caleb!” I screamed, trying to open my door, but the child locks were engaged.
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Vincenzo drew his weapon, his face a mask of pure, murderous intent. He looked at the driver.
“Silas is the leak,” Vincenzo whispered, the betrayal fracturing his voice for a split second before hardening into ice. “Silas planted the bomb.”
