Chapter 4 - The Woman Elias Buried
Elias did not speak for the entire drive back to Manhattan.
Sophie sat beside me in the rear seat with a blanket around her shoulders.
Her lip was swollen.
My wrist throbbed.
Marco occupied the front passenger seat.
No one mentioned what Derek had said.
Your mother.
Alive.
It was impossible.
Elias’s mother, Isabella Russo, had died twenty-one years earlier.
That was public record.
Car accident.
Closed casket.
Funeral attended by half of New York’s political class.
Elias had been fourteen.
At the penthouse, Lena examined Sophie.
“No concussion,” she said. “Bruising. She’ll be sore.”
Sophie squeezed my hand.
“I’m okay.”
I almost laughed.
It was exactly what I always said.
Lena seemed to realize that too.
“No,” she told my sister gently. “You’re not okay. But you will be.”
The difference mattered.
Elias stood by the window.
I approached him after Sophie fell asleep.
“Did you see her body?”
He didn’t turn.
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I was fourteen.”
He poured whiskey.
“The car burned.”
“Closed casket.”
“Yes.”
“And you believed she was inside.”
“My father identified her jewelry.”
“That’s not identification.”
He looked at me.
“I know that now.”
“Could Derek be lying?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think he is?”
Elias drank.
“No.”
The next morning, Derek disappeared from police custody.
Two officers claimed paperwork had authorized his transfer.
No such paperwork existed.
By noon, one officer was missing.
The other was dead.
Someone powerful was cleaning the board.
Salvatore called at 2:17 p.m.
Elias put the phone on speaker.
“I assume you survived.”
“Where are you?”
“Somewhere your shooters haven’t found yet.”
“They weren’t mine.”
“I know.”
“Who attacked the pier?”
“Ask Isabella.”
Elias went still.
I watched his hand tighten around the phone.
“You knew.”
“I suspected.”
“For how long?”
“Seven years.”
“And you said nothing?”
“Your mother made me promise.”
Elias slammed his fist onto the desk.
“She let me bury her!”
“She was protecting you.”
“From what?”
“Vincent.”
Silence.
Salvatore continued.
“The night Thomas died, Isabella was supposed to leave New York with your sister. Thomas had arranged everything.”
“What happened?”
“Vincent discovered it.”
“And?”
“He ordered men to bring them back.”
“Did he order Thomas killed?”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
Salvatore hesitated.
“Your sister.”
Elias stopped breathing.
I stared at him.
He had told me he once had a sister.
Had.
Her name, I later learned, was Sofia Russo.
Seventeen years old when she died.
Officially, she had overdosed.
Salvatore told us the truth.
Sofia had discovered her father’s trafficking operation.
She recorded names.
Routes.
Payments.
She begged Thomas Bennett to help her mother escape.
During the warehouse confrontation, Vincent arrived with armed men.
Thomas tried to protect Isabella.
A gun discharged.
Sofia was holding it.
The bullet hit Thomas.
My father died almost instantly.
I sat completely still.
My father’s killer had been a terrified seventeen-year-old girl.
“She didn’t mean to,” Salvatore said.
“She was trying to shoot Vincent.”
Elias closed his eyes.
“What happened to Sofia?”
“Vincent blamed her.”
His uncle’s voice became quieter.
“Three months later, she was dead.”
“Overdose.”
“No.”
Elias opened his eyes.
Salvatore said, “Your father had her killed.”
The glass in Elias’s hand shattered.
Blood ran between his fingers.
I grabbed a towel.
He didn’t seem to notice.
“And Mother?”
“She realized he would kill her too.”
“So she disappeared.”
“With my help.”
Elias stared at the phone.
“You helped her vanish.”
“Yes.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“She contacts me. I don’t contact her.”
“When?”
“Rarely.”
“What does she want with Khloe?”
Salvatore hesitated.
“That I don’t know.”
The call ended.
Elias sank into a chair.
I wrapped his cut hand.
He watched me.
“You should hate my family.”
“My father died protecting your mother.”
“My sister killed him.”
“She was seventeen and trying to stop a monster.”
“That doesn’t change what happened.”
“No.”
I tied the bandage.
“But truth and blame aren’t always the same thing.”
He looked at me for a long time.
“You should leave.”
“What?”
“I can arrange protection somewhere else.”
“Why?”
“Because everyone near me becomes a target.”
I almost smiled.
“That sounds familiar.”
His eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“It’s what Derek used to say.”
His face changed.
“Don’t compare me to him.”
“I’m not.”
I stepped closer.
“I’m saying fear can sound reasonable when you dress it correctly.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Stop deciding I’m safer without asking me.”
He exhaled.
“All right.”
“Ask.”
“Do you want to leave?”
“No.”
His jaw tightened.
“Why?”
“Because this started with my father too.”
A knock came.
Marco entered holding an envelope.
“No return address.”
Inside was a key.
An address.
And a photograph of Elias as a boy.
On the back:
COME ALONE IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY I LEFT YOU.
He stared at it.
May you like
I knew before he spoke.
“My mother.”
