Chapter 3 - The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be DeadLorenzo didn't sleep that night.
Neither did I.
He placed two guards outside the room where I was staying and ordered every camera on the property reviewed.
I sat on the edge of the guest bed, staring at my mother's name in the old file.
Elena Romano.
There had always been gaps in my childhood.
Questions my mother never answered.
Why had we moved so often?
Why had she refused to talk about my father?
Why did she panic whenever someone mentioned the Greco family?
Why had she always told me never to trust men who wore expensive black suits?
I had thought it was simply my mother's bitterness.
Now I wasn't sure.
At six in the morning, Lorenzo entered.
He looked exhausted.
"You need to leave."
I stood.
"Where?"
"Somewhere my enemies can't find you."
"You're sending me away?"
"I'm protecting you."
"You don't get to decide that."
His eyes hardened.
"Yes, I do."
"No."
He stepped closer.
"Julia, someone has been watching you."
"How long?"
"At least six months."
My heart dropped.
"Six months?"
"We found surveillance photographs."
He handed me a folder.
Inside were pictures of me leaving work.
Buying coffee.
Walking home.
Entering my apartment.
There were dozens.
Someone had followed me.
I felt sick.
"Who?"
"We don't know."
"Then how do you know my mother is involved?"
"We don't."
"Then why are you acting as if she is?"
Lorenzo looked away.
"Because her name was in my father's final ledger."
"What ledger?"
He hesitated.
"One that disappeared twenty years ago."
I stared at him.
"Then why do you have it now?"
"Because someone returned it."
"Who?"
"The same person who sent the flowers."
Silence.
He opened another folder.
Inside was a photograph.
An old photograph of a young woman.
I stared at her.
My heart stopped.
It was my mother.
But she looked younger.
Beautiful.
Confident.
Standing beside a man I recognized immediately.
Lorenzo's father.
And behind them stood another person.
A teenage boy.
Lorenzo.
I looked at him.
"You knew my mother."
"I met her once."
"When?"
"When I was seventeen."
"She knew you."
"Yes."
"Why did she never tell me?"
"I don't know."
He looked at the photograph.
"Maybe because she thought I would kill her."
I stared.
"Would you?"
"At seventeen, maybe."
"And now?"
His eyes met mine.
"No."
Something shifted between us.
Something neither of us acknowledged.
Then the study door opened.
Claudio entered.
"We have a problem."
Lorenzo turned.
"What?"
"Someone just called the private line."
"Who?"
"They asked for Julia."
My blood went cold.
"What did they say?"
Claudio looked at me.
"They said, 'Tell Elena's daughter that her mother is alive.'"
I stopped breathing.
My mother was supposed to be seventy miles away in Pennsylvania.
Alive.
But that wasn't the worst part.
Claudio continued.
"They also said one more thing."
"What?"
"They said Elena has twenty-four hours to return something that belongs to Lorenzo's family."
Lorenzo's expression turned deadly.
"What?"
Claudio handed him a photograph.
It showed a woman tied to a chair.
Her face was bruised.
Her eyes were closed.
But I recognized her.
My mother.
I screamed.
Lorenzo caught me before my knees gave out.
For the first time, his arms wrapped completely around me.
"She's alive," I whispered.
"Yes."
"Find her."
"I will."
"Promise me."
His voice became quiet.
"I promise."
I looked up at him.
"Then don't send me away."
He hesitated.
"Why?"
"Because she's my mother."
His expression softened.
"And if whoever has her knows I'm connected to her?"
"I'll go anyway."
"No."
"Lorenzo—"
"No."
He touched my face.
The gesture was so gentle that I forgot how dangerous he was.
"I've spent twenty years looking for the person who destroyed my family."
May you like
His eyes darkened.
"And now I think that person may have been protecting yours."
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