Chapter 9 - ELENA
Maya screamed.
She ran to the ledge.
Adrian had landed on a lower loading roof ten feet below and rolled hard.
By the time officers reached the stairs, he had disappeared into the maze of shipping containers behind the building.
Mercer swore.
Maya barely heard him.
Your mother is alive.
“No,” she whispered.
Her mother had died in St. Joseph’s Hospital.
Maya had held her hand.
She had watched the monitor go flat.
She had signed papers.
She had buried her.
Adrian was lying.
He had to be.
Back inside, Eleanor watched Maya carefully.
“He told you, didn’t he?”
Maya turned.
“You knew?”
Eleanor laughed weakly.
“Oh, Charles really kept that from you too.”
Maya stormed toward her.
Mercer intercepted.
“Easy.”
“Where is my mother?”
Eleanor looked delighted to finally hold power.
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t play with me.”
“I know Elena survived.”
“How?”
Eleanor’s smile faded.
“The woman you buried wasn’t Elena Reyes.”
Maya felt the room tilt.
“Stop.”
“She was Elena’s sister.”
“My aunt Rosa died when I was a child.”
“So you were told.”
Maya stared at Charles when he arrived under police escort twenty minutes later.
He saw her face.
Then Eleanor’s.
And understood.
“No.”
Maya slapped him.
Hard.
Everyone froze.
Charles touched his cheek.
“You lied to me about my mother.”
“Maya—”
“You let me bury someone else!”
“It wasn’t my decision.”
“Whose was it?”
Charles said nothing.
Maya stepped closer.
“Whose?”
“Your mother’s.”
Maya stopped.
Charles looked exhausted.
“Elena came to me three years ago.”
Maya’s chest tightened.
“Three years?”
“She said someone had found her.”
“Who?”
“Adrian.”
Charles sat on a crate.
“She had been hiding under another name for years. After Adrian’s supposed death, she learned he had taken the money she gave him and used it to build a network around the evidence against Sterling.”
“So she helped him?”
“At first.”
That phrase again.
At first.
Everything in this family began as an alliance and ended as a betrayal.
“Then what happened?”
“Adrian became obsessed.”
“With exposing you?”
“With punishing everyone.”
Charles looked toward Eleanor.
“He believed suffering was justice.”
Maya whispered, “Why fake Mom’s death?”
“To protect you and Luis.”
Maya shook her head.
“She watched us bury somebody.”
“She thought it was the only way Adrian would believe she was gone.”
“But he knew.”
“Eventually.”
Mercer stepped in.
“Where is Elena now?”
Charles looked at Maya.
“I don’t know.”
Eleanor laughed.
“Liar.”
Charles turned on her.
“You poisoned me.”
“And you ruined every person who ever got close to you.”
“Where is Elena?”
Eleanor stared at Maya.
“Your mother contacted me last month.”
Maya stopped breathing.
“What did she say?”
“She said Adrian was planning something big.”
“What?”
“To destroy Charles publicly.”
Eleanor swallowed.
“And kill him privately.”
Mercer’s phone buzzed.
He checked an incoming alert.
Then looked at Maya.
“We traced the warehouse network.”
“To where?”
“A motel outside Camden.”
Maya’s heart hammered.
Mercer showed her a still image captured from a traffic camera thirty minutes earlier.
A gray-haired woman stepped out of a motel room.
Maya knew the way she carried her left shoulder.
The shape of her hands.
The tilt of her head.
Older.
Thinner.
May you like
But unmistakable.
“Mamá.”
