Chapter 5 - The Lie Luca Believed for Twenty Years
Luca sat on the kitchen floor with blood running from a cut above his eyebrow.
The house looked as though someone had detonated a storm inside it.
A security guard had been injured near the rear entrance.
Sophia had escaped only because she had kicked Serena hard enough to break free while Anthony tackled the driver waiting outside.
The driver escaped.
Serena escaped.
Sophia remained wrapped in a blanket on the couch.
Luca refused medical attention.
“What did she mean?”
Sophia looked at him.
“What?”
“Serena said I needed to admit what I did to Elena.”
“You didn’t do anything.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Dad.”
Luca stood.
“Everyone leave.”
Anthony frowned.
“Dad—”
“Except Sophia.”
Anthony reluctantly stepped into the hall.
Luca sat opposite his daughter.
“When your mother disappeared, we had been fighting.”
Sophia watched him.
“About what?”
“She wanted to take you children away from Boston.”
“Why?”
“She said my business had become dangerous.”
“Was it?”
“Yes.”
He looked ashamed.
“I thought she was overreacting. I thought she hated the life we had built.”
Sophia pulled the blanket tighter.
“The night before she disappeared, she asked me to leave everything.”
“Everything?”
“The company. Boston. The house.”
“And you said no.”
“I told her she could leave if she wanted.”
Sophia’s face crumpled.
Luca closed his eyes.
“I said the children stayed with me.”
Silence.
“She cried.”
He swallowed.
“She told me one day I would understand that she was trying to save us.”
“What happened next?”
“I slept in the guest room.”
“And the next morning?”
“She was gone.”
Sophia stared at him.
“Dad…”
“I spent months looking.”
“I know.”
“Then Serena contacted me.”
Sophia froze.
“What?”
“Not directly. A colleague delivered an evaluation suggesting Elena had been emotionally unstable before disappearing.”
“Serena wrote it?”
“I didn’t know.”
“What did it say?”
“That Elena had developed paranoid beliefs. That she feared people were following her. That she had become fixated on escaping.”
Sophia whispered:
“And you believed it.”
“Eventually.”
Her eyes filled.
“You thought Mom abandoned us because Serena told you she was crazy.”
Luca could not defend himself.
“Yes.”
Sophia stood.
“Do you know what Isabelle always told me when I asked about Mom?”
Luca looked up.
“She said, ‘Your mother loved you before I ever knew you, and nothing I do should erase that.’”
His throat tightened.
“She never told me Mom abandoned me. Even when I said it myself.”
Sophia wiped her face angrily.
“And you believed Serena when she said Isabelle was unstable too.”
Luca looked away.
That silence answered everything.
Sophia shook her head.
“You nearly lost two mothers because you trusted the same woman.”
Then she walked out.
Luca remained alone.
The words struck harder than any accusation.
Two mothers.
Same woman.
Same lie.
Thirty minutes later, he called Isabelle.
She answered on the first ring.
“Is Sophia okay?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“She escaped.”
Isabelle closed her eyes.
“Thank God.”
“Isabelle…”
“What?”
“I need you to hear something.”
She waited.
“I was wrong.”
Her eyes opened.
“That’s not enough.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“No, Luca. You believed another woman when she said I was dangerous. You let her evaluate children she had personal history with. You removed me from our home. You let my children sit across from me and reject me using words Serena placed in their mouths.”
His face tightened.
“I know.”
“You don’t get forgiveness because the conspiracy finally frightened you too.”
“I’m not asking.”
“Good.”
He looked toward the table where Isabelle’s wedding ring lay.
“I’m asking you to help me find Elena.”
Isabelle went still.
“You think she’s alive?”
“I don’t know.”
“After twenty years?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why now?”
“Because Serena didn’t tell me to confess what I did to Elena.”
Isabelle frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“She said I needed to admit what I did.”
“Yes.”
“But Serena knows I never physically harmed Elena.”
“How?”
“She treated her.”
Luca stood.
“So either Serena wanted Sophia to believe I did…”
“Or there’s something Serena thinks you did without realizing.”
Silence.
Isabelle stared at the old photograph.
“Luca.”
“Yes?”
“What if Elena didn’t disappear because she was running from you?”
“What if she disappeared because someone needed you to believe she was?”
His breathing stopped for a second.
That night, Michael finally arrived at Naomi’s office.
He was pale, exhausted, and carrying a key.
Isabelle hugged him before he could speak.
For one second, Michael stood stiffly.
Then he collapsed into her arms.
“I’m sorry.”
She held the back of his head.
“No.”
“I signed it.”
“I know.”
“I said you weren’t safe.”
“I know.”
“She told me—”
“I know enough.”
He pulled back crying.
“Can you forgive me?”
“You’re my son.”
Three words.
No condition.
No hesitation.
Michael broke completely.
When he finally calmed, he placed the key on Naomi’s desk.
“I hid a drive in a storage locker.”
Ethan leaned forward.
“What’s on it?”
“I copied everything I could from Serena’s office.”
“Did you access it?”
“Some.”
“Any passwords?”
“One folder opened.”
“Which?”
Michael looked at Luca, who had arrived minutes earlier but remained near the door because Isabelle had not invited him closer.
“Elena.”
Luca’s face went white.
Michael continued.
“There are recordings.”
“What kind?”
“Audio sessions.”
Luca gripped the chair.
“Therapy?”
Michael nodded.
“One recording was dated six days before she vanished.”
Silence.
“What did she say?”
Michael looked directly at his father.
“She said Serena was obsessed with getting you back.”
Luca’s face collapsed.
“And?”
“She said Serena had threatened her.”
Isabelle whispered:
“With what?”
Michael swallowed.
“With making Luca believe she was mentally ill.”
Nobody moved.
Then Michael added:
“There was one more voice on the recording.”
“Whose?”
“I don’t know.”
“A man?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
Michael looked toward Ethan.
“He said, ‘Once Elena is gone, Cross gets Luca, and we get the harbor.’”
Ethan stood.
“The harbor?”
Luca’s shock turned instantly into something colder.
Business instinct.
“Twenty years ago, Russo Maritime owned the only privately controlled deep-water parcel on the East Boston redevelopment line.”
Naomi understood.
“How valuable?”
“Back then? Maybe forty million.”
“And now?”
Luca looked at Isabelle.
“Almost two billion.”
The room went silent.
This had never been only about love.
Serena had not returned merely to steal a husband.
May you like
Someone had been waiting twenty years to finish a business plan.
And Isabelle’s unborn child was standing in the way.
