Chapter 5 - What Elena Left Behind
Darkness swallowed the locker room.
June heard metal scrape.
Matteo’s hand found her waist immediately.
“Stay down.”
“I can’t see anything.”
“That’s the point.”
A crash sounded near the entrance.
One of Matteo’s guards shouted from the opposite side of the locked door.
June crouched behind the locker bank.
Matteo moved in front of her.
“Do you have a gun?” she whispered.
“Yes.”
Of course he did.
She should have been horrified.
Instead she felt relieved.
That realization bothered her.
Footsteps moved through the darkness.
Inside the locker room.
Someone had already been there.
Matteo heard them too.
His posture changed.
One step.
Two.
A silhouette appeared between the rows.
Matteo lunged.
June heard a grunt.
Something struck metal.
The lights flickered back on.
A young man lay facedown on the floor with Matteo’s knee between his shoulders.
He wore maintenance clothing.
No weapon.
Only a phone.
Matteo twisted his wrist.
“Who sent you?”
“I don’t know!”
“Wrong answer.”
“I swear!”
June approached.
“Matteo.”
His face frightened her.
Not rage.
Absence of emotion.
“Matteo.”
He looked at her.
“Check the phone,” she said.
The man gasped.
Matteo released enough pressure for him to breathe.
June picked up the phone.
One message appeared on screen.
CONFIRM THEY OPENED 317.
She looked at Matteo.
“Someone only wanted confirmation.”
The young man nodded desperately.
“They paid me five hundred dollars. That’s all. I lock the door, turn off the breaker, send confirmation.”
“Who paid you?” June asked.
“Woman. Maybe fifty. Dark glasses.”
Matteo’s expression hardened.
“Sofia?”
“I don’t know.”
The police were not called.
June objected.
Matteo ignored her.
The maintenance worker was photographed, questioned, and released after Daniel obtained identifying information.
Then they returned to Matteo’s estate with Elena’s ledger, recorder, and red envelope.
Matteo refused to open the letter immediately.
June understood.
Eight years of grief could not be treated like evidence.
So they began with the ledger.
Numbers.
Dates.
Initials.
Payments.
June spread copies across Matteo’s study table.
“This isn’t standard accounting.”
Daniel agreed.
“It’s coded.”
June tapped one entry.
“Maybe not entirely.”
She pointed to a case number.
NJ-14-88421.
“That looks like a civil docket.”
Daniel searched.
Property dispute.
Settlement sealed.
Another number corresponded to a divorce.
Another to a construction injury claim.
Every case involved companies connected indirectly to DeLuca holdings.
“What are we looking at?” Matteo asked.
June leaned back.
“Money being hidden inside settlements.”
Daniel nodded slowly.
“Inflated payouts.”
“Then redirected.”
“Through attorneys’ trust accounts.”
June looked at him.
“Exactly.”
Matteo walked toward the window.
“How much?”
Daniel began calculating.
After twenty minutes, he stopped.
“At least forty million.”
Matteo turned.
“Eight years ago?”
“Yes.”
“Current value?”
“Could be much more.”
June stared at the ledger.
Forty million dollars.
Enough to kill for.
More than enough.
“What initials repeat?” she asked.
Daniel scanned.
“S.D.”
June looked toward Matteo.
His expression had already changed.
“Sofia DeLuca.”
Silence.
It seemed too easy.
June frowned.
“No.”
Matteo looked at her.
“What?”
“If Elena figured this out, she wouldn’t write the culprit’s real initials repeatedly.”
Daniel nodded.
“She might have copied them from source records.”
“Or S.D. means something else.”
Matteo crossed his arms.
“You’re defending my aunt.”
“I’m defending logic.”
“That might be worse.”
June almost smiled.
Then noticed another pattern.
Every Thursday.
The dated entries were Thursdays.
She pulled her own divorce petitions from her bag.
Four envelopes.
Four documents.
Different case numbers printed faintly along the bottom.
She had assumed they were sample forms.
They were not.
June entered the first number into the court database.
A sealed divorce from 2009.
Second.
Third.
Fourth.
All processed on Thursdays.
All involving spouses connected to executives within DeLuca-controlled companies.
Daniel stared.
“These are breadcrumbs.”
June nodded.
“The envelopes aren’t warnings.”
Matteo looked at her.
“Then what?”
“Someone is helping us.”
Silence.
That changed everything.
The threatening photograph of Rose might have come from another source.
Perhaps two factions were communicating through the same method.
One guiding.
One threatening.
June picked up the fourth petition.
“There could be hidden transfers in these cases.”
Daniel began requesting access through legal channels.
Matteo finally looked at Elena’s red envelope.
June saw his hands tighten.
“You don’t have to open it now.”
“Yes.”
He sat.
For the first time, Matteo looked tired.
Not feared.
Not powerful.
Simply human.
He opened the envelope.
Inside was one sheet of paper.
His eyes moved across Elena’s handwriting.
June looked away.
She did not belong inside that grief.
Then Matteo said her name.
“June.”
She turned.
He held out the letter.
“You should read this.”
She hesitated.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
June took it.
Matteo,
If you are reading this, something happened before I could show you what I found.
Do not blame yourself.
That will be your first instinct.
It will also be wrong.
Someone has been stealing from the family for years, but the money isn’t the worst part.
The accounts are paying people outside the business.
Judges.
Inspectors.
Police officers.
Maybe politicians.
I found one payment tied to your father’s death.
June stopped reading.
Matteo had become stone.
“Your father?”
“Car accident,” he said.
The similarity hit her.
Elena.
His father.
Both vehicles.
Both accidents.
June continued.
I don’t know who is behind it.
I know only this:
The person signs instructions as “Saint.”
S.D. does not mean Sofia DeLuca.
It means Saint’s Directive.
Do not trust anyone who tells you the family must survive at any cost.
That sentence had been underlined.
June finished.
If they ever force you to choose between the family and an innocent person, choose the innocent person.
Otherwise they have already turned you into them.
I love you.
Elena.
The room remained silent.
June folded the letter carefully.
Matteo stared at nothing.
His grief felt too private to touch.
Still, June sat beside him.
Not close enough to imply romance.
Close enough that he would not be alone.
After several minutes, Matteo spoke.
“I thought she died because of me.”
June said softly, “Maybe she died because she was brave.”
His eyes closed.
That sentence seemed to break something open.
Not visibly.
Just enough.
Later that night, June went upstairs.
The red wedding gown had been replaced with simple clothes sent from her apartment.
She stood in front of the mirror removing hairpins.
A knock came.
“Come in.”
Matteo entered.
He had removed his jacket.
His sleeves were rolled to the elbows.
June noticed the tattoos across his hand and wrist.
“I wanted to say thank you.”
“For what?”
“Today.”
“You nearly crushed a maintenance worker.”
“I meant the letter.”
“Oh.”
He stepped closer.
“Elena would have liked you.”
June looked down.
“That’s a strange thing to say to your temporary wife.”
“Yes.”
Neither moved.
The space between them became unexpectedly charged.
June’s breath changed.
Matteo noticed.
He leaned slightly closer.
Then stopped himself.
“This is a contract.”
June nodded.
“Yes.”
“Good night.”
He turned.
A loud crack sounded downstairs.
Then glass shattered.
Matteo spun.
Another crack.
Gunfire.
He grabbed June and pushed her behind the bedroom wall.
“Stay here.”
“Matteo—”
“Lock the door.”
He ran into the corridor.
June heard shouting.
Footsteps.
Then her phone buzzed on the bed.
Unknown number.
One message.
DON’T LET HIM GO DOWNSTAIRS.
June’s blood froze.
May you like
A second message appeared.
THE SHOOTER IS ALREADY INSIDE THE HOUSE.
