Chapter 11 - The Woman Who Disappeared
Silas replayed the sentence three times.
“She is alive.”
Victor sat down.
“That’s impossible.”
Silas didn’t look at him.
“You were there.”
“I saw the body.”
“Did you see her face?”
Victor opened his mouth.
Stopped.
Silas turned slowly.
“Did you?”
“No.”
Khloe felt the room shift.
Silas looked sick.
“My mother told me Elena died from complications.”
Gemma whispered, “Rosa believed Elena was forced out.”
“Why?”
“Because she discovered the trust changes.”
Silas closed his eyes.
Six years.
For six years he had grieved a woman who might have been alive.
Khloe asked, “Does the drive say where she is?”
Victor searched.
One encrypted address file.
He opened it.
Rural Pennsylvania.
Twenty-six miles away.
Silas looked at the clock.
Forty-two minutes until Helena’s deadline.
Victor said, “This could be bait.”
Silas stood.
“Everything is bait.”
They drove.
The address led to a modest farmhouse surrounded by wet trees and darkness.
Silas approached the porch alone.
Khloe remained behind him.
He knocked.
Nothing.
Again.
A light turned on.
The door opened.
A woman in her thirties stood there.
Dark hair.
Pale face.
One scar along her jaw.
Silas stopped.
She dropped the mug in her hand.
It shattered.
“Silas?”
His knees nearly gave out.
“Elena.”
She covered her mouth.
Then he crossed the porch.
For a moment Khloe thought he would hug her.
He didn’t.
He stopped two feet away.
“You’re alive.”
Elena started crying.
“I tried to come back.”
“For six years?”
“Your mother threatened Matteo.”
Silas flinched.
“You knew about him?”
“Every day.”
“Then where were you?”
“Running.”
His face hardened.
“From me?”
“From Helena.”
Elena looked past him.
“Where is Matteo?”
Silas said nothing.
Elena’s face changed.
“Where is my son?”
Silas finally answered.
“Taken.”
Elena nearly collapsed.
Inside, she told them everything.
After Matteo’s birth, Helena had shown her documents claiming Silas planned to remove her from the child’s life.
Fake police reports.
Fake recordings.
Threats.
Then Elena found financial documents connected to Silas’s father.
Helena gave her a choice.
Disappear.
Or watch Silas and Matteo die.
“I was twenty-four,” Elena whispered. “I believed her.”
Silas looked shattered.
“You believed my mother over me.”
“I believed what she could do.”
Khloe understood that.
Fear didn’t need truth.
It only needed evidence.
Elena wiped her face.
“Where did they take Matteo?”
Silas shook his head.
“We don’t know.”
Elena stood.
“I do.”
Everyone turned.
“There’s a Costello property nobody uses anymore.”
Victor frowned.
“Which property?”
“The old steel mill outside Gary.”
Silas shook his head.
“That place has been closed fifteen years.”
“Not underneath.”
Elena looked at him.
“Your father built a secure records vault there.”
Victor checked his phone.
Gary, Indiana.
Hours away.
Too far.
Silas’s phone rang.
Helena.
Twenty-eight minutes remaining.
He answered.
“You have the papers?”
Silas looked at Elena.
Then at Khloe.
Then at the USB drive.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“Where is Matteo?”
Helena laughed softly.
“Home.”
Silas’s face changed.
“What?”
“Where every Costello learns obedience.”
The line died.
Silas stared at Elena.
“The mill.”
She nodded.
Victor checked the distance again.
“We’ll never make it.”
Silas turned toward the airport map.
“No.”
A dangerous calm entered his face.
May you like
“But I know someone who can.”
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