Chapter 4 - The Girl Who Never Left Chicago
The trunk opened and Elena cried, “Elisa?”
A woman’s hand appeared beneath the lid.
A hospital bracelet circled her wrist.
The printed name was Sofia Bellandi.
Victor reached the trunk first.
Inside lay not Elisa.
Sofia.
Bellandi’s twenty-five-year-old daughter.
The same woman Victor had refused to marry less than an hour earlier.
She was conscious.
Barely.
Her red silk dress had been torn at the shoulder.
There was blood near her hairline.
Her wrists had been bound with white plastic ties.
Victor cut them immediately.
“Sofia.”
Her eyelids fluttered.
Elena stared.
Half sister.
The word existed between them even before either woman spoke it.
Sofia focused on Elena.
Then began to cry.
“You’re alive.”
Elena did not move.
For years, she had imagined meeting her father again.
Her lost sister Elisa.
Her brother Elias.
Never this woman.
Sofia had been a child when Elena disappeared.
A little girl from Bellandi’s second household.
Born after Margaret and Carlo’s marriage had already become cold enough that everyone in Chicago whispered about it.
Elena had seen Sofia only a handful of times.
She remembered dark curls.
A missing front tooth.
A little voice asking why Elena never stayed for dessert.
Now that child lay beaten in the trunk of a car registered to a dead police officer.
Victor lifted Sofia carefully.
“Doctor,” he told Matteo.
“On the way.”
“No hospital.”
Sofia’s hand clutched Victor’s shirt.
“No.”
Victor looked down.
“No hospital,” she whispered. “He has people there.”
“Your father?”
Sofia nodded.
Victor carried her into the house.
Elena followed.
Her mind could barely keep pace.
In the sitting room, Sofia was placed on a sofa while the household doctor examined her.
Victor remained nearby.
Elena stood near the door.
Sofia kept looking toward her.
Finally, she whispered, “I thought you were dead.”
Elena’s throat tightened.
“So did everyone.”
“No.”
Sofia shook her head weakly.
“Father knew.”
Victor’s gaze sharpened.
“Knew what?”
“That Elena was alive.”
Elena went still.
“How?”
Sofia looked frightened.
“I heard him talking about you years ago.”
“To whom?”
“My uncle.”
“What uncle?”
“My mother’s brother. Dominic.”
Victor knew Dominic Rinaldi.
A broker.
A middleman.
The kind of man who never carried a gun because he was usually surrounded by men who did.
He had moved money between Chicago organizations for years.
Bellandi trusted him.
Too much, according to Victor.
Sofia swallowed.
“They said you had something Margaret stole.”
Elena’s eyes flashed.
“My mother didn’t steal anything.”
“I know.”
“You don’t know anything.”
Sofia flinched.
Elena instantly regretted the words.
Sofia looked down.
“No. I don’t.”
Silence.
Victor watched both women.
Two daughters shaped by the same man in different ways.
One forced to disappear.
One displayed as a bargaining chip.
Neither had chosen.
“Why were you in the trunk?” Victor asked.
Sofia looked at him.
“Because I heard too much.”
“What?”
“My father told Dominic he had finally found Elena.”
Elena’s breath caught.
“When?”
“Three days ago.”
That meant Bellandi had known before tonight.
Victor felt irritation give way to something colder.
Then why bring Sofia to the marriage meeting?
Distraction?
Trap?
A test?
“He came here knowing Elena worked for me,” Victor said.
Sofia nodded.
“Yes.”
“Why offer you?”
Sofia laughed bitterly.
“To see what you knew.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
“And when I rejected you?”
“He knew you hadn’t discovered Elena yet.”
Victor understood.
Bellandi had been watching his face.
Waiting for recognition.
Waiting for Victor to glance toward the staff.
He had used Sofia as bait.
Elena sank into a chair.
“So tonight wasn’t about an alliance.”
“No,” Sofia said.
“It was reconnaissance,” Victor finished.
Sofia nodded.
The doctor cleaned the wound above her eyebrow.
No fracture.
No concussion symptoms severe enough to require immediate transfer.
For now.
Victor waited until he was finished.
Then sent everyone except Matteo from the room.
Sofia caught Elena’s hand.
“Please don’t leave.”
Elena froze.
Victor watched.
Slowly, Elena sat beside her.
Sofia’s fingers tightened.
“I tried to warn you.”
“The car?”
Sofia shook her head.
“No. That wasn’t me.”
“Then who?”
“I don’t know.”
Elena glanced at Victor.
“Daniel?”
Sofia reacted to the name.
Victor saw it.
“You know him.”
Sofia looked toward the door.
“Father keeps a photograph of him.”
“Where?”
“In his safe.”
Victor stepped closer.
“Why?”
“He looks at it every year on October seventeenth.”
Elena’s face drained.
The date on the cuff link.
Daniel’s supposed death.
“What photograph?”
Sofia swallowed.
“Daniel standing next to Elisa.”
Elena rose so fast the chair scraped the floor.
“What?”
Sofia began crying again.
“I’m sorry.”
“Where?”
“In a train station.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Elisa was with Daniel?”
“I think so.”
Elena’s breathing changed.
Victor touched her elbow.
Lightly.
“Sit.”
She didn’t.
“Why would Daniel be with my sister?”
Sofia shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Victor’s mind moved faster than everyone else’s.
If Daniel survived the car fire, he could have taken Elisa.
If Elisa never left Chicago, why stage a photograph at a station?
If Bellandi had the picture, did he know where they were?
Or had he spent years trying to find out?
Victor looked at Sofia.
“What happened after you heard your father and Dominic?”
“I went to the study.”
“To do what?”
“I wanted to know why he was afraid of Elena.”
“He’s afraid?”
Sofia nodded.
“He never says your name unless the doors are shut.”
Elena stared.
Sofia continued.
“I found a file.”
“What file?”
“Your mother’s.”
Elena’s hand trembled.
“What was in it?”
“Photographs. Copies of bank transfers. A letter.”
“To whom?”
Sofia looked at Victor.
“You.”
Victor frowned.
“Me?”
“A letter addressed to Victor Russo.”
Elena turned toward him.
Victor had never met Margaret Bellandi.
At least not in any meaningful way.
He had been twenty-six when she died.
Still working beneath his father.
Still learning how Chicago power actually functioned.
“Did you read it?”
“No. Father came in.”
“That’s when he hurt you?”
Sofia looked down.
“He asked what I saw.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
“Then?”
“He called Dominic.”
Victor’s expression hardened.
Sofia’s voice shrank.
“I woke up in the car.”
“Elena’s half sister gets dumped inside a car registered to Daniel Cross outside my estate,” Victor said. “That’s not random.”
“No.”
“Whoever put you there wanted us to connect you.”
Sofia nodded.
Elena looked toward the garage.
“The photograph.”
Victor thought of the red circle around Elisa.
SHE NEVER LEFT CHICAGO.
A breadcrumb.
Too neat.
Someone was steering them.
He hated being steered.
“Victor,” Elena said.
He looked at her.
“We need the letter.”
“You’re not going into Bellandi’s house.”
“I didn’t say I was.”
“You were thinking it.”
“I lived there.”
“Six years ago.”
“I know every service corridor.”
“Six years ago.”
“People don’t remodel secret rooms.”
Victor almost smiled.
“Rich men do.”
Sofia spoke.
“There’s another way.”
They turned.
“My father keeps copies off-site.”
“Where?”
She hesitated.
“A chapel.”
Victor frowned.
“Which chapel?”
“St. Vincent’s.”
Matteo swore softly.
St. Vincent’s was not just a chapel.
It sat behind an old Catholic cemetery on land owned through layers of Bellandi shell companies.
Quiet.
Private.
Perfect for meetings no one wanted recorded.
Victor looked at Sofia.
“You’re sure?”
She nodded.
“There’s a crypt under the east wing.”
“Of course there is,” Matteo muttered.
Elena’s eyes narrowed.
“My mother used to take me there.”
Victor looked at her.
“When?”
“Before she died.”
Now he understood why.
Margaret may have hidden copies herself.
Victor turned to Matteo.
“Cars in ten.”
Sofia pushed herself upright.
“Don’t.”
Victor looked at her.
“My father will know.”
“He already does.”
“No.” Her voice shook. “You don’t understand.”
Victor waited.
“There’s someone at St. Vincent’s tonight.”
“Who?”
Sofia looked at Elena.
“I heard Dominic say the name.”
Elena’s face tightened.
“Whose?”
Sofia swallowed.
“Elias.”
Silence.
Elena stared at her.
“My brother is dead.”
Sofia whispered, “Then someone is using his name.”
Victor’s phone rang.
Matteo glanced at the display.
Unknown number.
Victor answered.
A man’s voice said only one sentence.
“Bring Elena to St. Vincent’s before midnight if she wants to see her brother alive.”
The call ended.
Elena looked at the clock.
11:41.
May you like
Nineteen minutes.
And someone had just invited them into a trap.
