Chapter 3 - THE ENEMY WHO KNEW HIS HOMEThe letters VRR had once frightened men almost as much as Victor Romano’s name did now.
Valenti-Russo-Rinaldi.
Three families.
One alliance.
Twelve years earlier, they had controlled shipping terminals, construction contracts, gambling rooms, and half the politicians willing to pretend they did not know where their campaign money came from.
Then Victor’s father died.
And Victor refused to play by their rules.
Within eighteen months, the alliance collapsed.
Russo fled the country.
Rinaldi accepted a twenty-year federal sentence.
And Carlo Valenti disappeared after a violent internal power struggle nobody publicly discussed.
Victor had assumed the past was buried.
Apparently the past disagreed.
Luca placed surveillance photographs across a table in the private waiting room.
“The sedan was stolen yesterday afternoon.”
“Driver?”
“Security camera caught a male figure leaving it.”
“Face?”
“Covered.”
“Height?”
“Approximately six feet.”
Victor stared at the grainy image.
Elena lay forty feet away fighting through pain because someone wanted revenge against him.
It was almost too easy to believe.
Which meant Victor distrusted it immediately.
“VRR was painted after the crash?”
Luca nodded.
“Paint was still tacky when police found it.”
Victor leaned back.
“So whoever did this wanted us looking backward.”
“You think it’s misdirection.”
“I think anyone competent enough to steal plates and disappear wouldn’t leave their signature unless they wanted it found.”
Luca considered that.
“Who benefits?”
Victor’s eyes hardened.
“That is what you’re going to tell me.”
A knock interrupted them.
Dr. Mercer entered.
“Your wife is asking for her sister.”
Victor stood.
“Is she worse?”
“No. She’s stable.”
“Then why—”
“She wants someone she trusts.”
The sentence landed harder than the doctor probably intended.
Victor nodded.
“I’ll call Gabriella.”
“No need.”
Victor looked at him.
“She’s downstairs.”
Twenty minutes later, Gabriella Bellini marched through the ICU doors wearing yesterday’s jeans, a black coat, and an expression that could have cracked marble.
She was Elena’s younger sister by four years.
She had never liked Victor’s world.
This morning, she hated Victor himself.
Gabriella stopped two feet from him.
“What happened?”
“The police are investigating.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Victor didn’t answer.
Her eyes narrowed.
“Elena called me from the car.”
Victor looked up sharply.
“When?”
“Before the crash.”
“What did she say?”
“That she had something to tell you.”
Gabriella’s voice trembled.
“She was happy, Victor. Do you understand me? She sounded happy.”
Victor looked away.
“She told me she bought a tiny pair of Yankees socks because she knew you’d pretend they were ridiculous and then keep them forever.”
Victor’s composure slipped.
Gabriella saw it.
Then something in her expression changed.
“What did you do?”
Victor remained silent.
She stepped closer.
“What did you do?”
“My relationship with Elena had problems.”
“No.”
“Gabriella—”
“What. Did. You. Do?”
Victor swallowed.
“I was with another woman.”
Gabriella stared at him.
The slap came so quickly Luca couldn’t have stopped it.
The sound cracked through the hallway.
Victor didn’t move.
Luca did.
Victor raised one hand, stopping him.
Gabriella’s eyes filled with tears.
“She almost died trying to call you while you were cheating on her?”
“Yes.”
Her face twisted.
“You disgusting coward.”
Victor accepted that too.
“She knows?”
“Yes.”
Gabriella gave a humorless laugh.
“Of course she does.”
“She heard the other woman.”
Gabriella went completely still.
“How?”
Victor could barely say it.
“She answered Elena’s call.”
For one second, Gabriella looked genuinely confused, as if the cruelty were too absurd to process.
Then she shoved Victor in the chest.
“You let your mistress answer my sister’s phone call?”
“My phone.”
“Don’t correct me!”
Her voice rose.
Nurses looked over.
Gabriella lowered it again.
“My sister worshiped you.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
“That was part of the problem.”
Gabriella stared.
“She kept turning you into someone better than you were.”
Victor said nothing.
“She defended you when you missed dinners. She defended you when you forgot anniversaries. She defended you when men with guns started sitting outside her house because she married you.”
Victor’s fists clenched.
“And now she lost her baby.”
“Our baby.”
Gabriella’s eyes became cold.
“You gave up the right to use that word when she begged for you and you chose silence.”
Victor looked toward Elena’s room.
Perhaps Gabriella was wrong legally.
Perhaps biologically.
But emotionally?
Victor had no defense.
Gabriella walked past him.
At Elena’s door, she stopped.
“You know what Elena told me six months ago?”
Victor looked at her.
“She said you still loved her.”
Gabriella’s mouth trembled.
“She said you were just lost.”
Then she entered the room.
Victor sat alone for several minutes.
His phone buzzed.
Selena.
He stared at the name.
Twenty-four hours earlier, seeing it would have created excitement.
Now it created nausea.
He declined the call.
A message arrived.
Please let me explain.
Another.
I never meant for this to happen.
Another.
Victor, I’m scared.
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
He called.
Selena answered immediately.
“Oh God. Victor.”
“Why are you scared?”
Silence.
“Selena.”
“I think someone followed me home.”
Victor stood.
“Who?”
“I don’t know. A black SUV.”
“Where are you?”
“My apartment.”
“Lock the door.”
“I already did.”
“Stay away from the windows.”
“Are you coming?”
Victor looked toward Elena’s room.
“No.”
Selena fell silent.
“I’ll send someone.”
“Victor—”
He hung up.
Luca appeared moments later.
“Send Marco to Selena’s building.”
Luca raised an eyebrow.
“Protection?”
“Observation.”
“You think she’s involved?”
“I think everybody is involved until they aren’t.”
Luca nodded.
Victor’s phone rang again.
Unknown number.
He answered.
No voice came.
Only breathing.
Victor waited.
Then a distorted male voice said:
“How did it feel?”
Victor’s expression changed.
“Who is this?”
“To hear your wife begging.”
Victor’s blood turned to ice.
The caller laughed.
Victor stepped away from the nurses’ station.
“You were listening.”
“We hear everything.”
“What do you want?”
“You already know.”
“No. If you wanted me dead, you know where I work.”
Another laugh.
“We don’t want you dead.”
Victor’s gaze drifted toward Elena’s room.
The voice continued:
“Death is mercy.”
Victor’s hand tightened around the phone.
“We want you to understand loss.”
The call ended.
Victor immediately handed the phone to Luca.
“Trace it.”
Luca dialed his technical team.
Victor stared through the ICU window at Elena.
She was asleep.
Gabriella sat beside her.
Then Elena’s phone rang on the table.
Gabriella picked it up.
Her face changed.
She opened the door.
“Victor.”
He entered.
“What?”
“There’s a voicemail.”
“From who?”
“No number.”
Gabriella pressed play.
Static.
Then the same distorted voice.
“Mrs. Romano, your husband has spent years making widows.”
Victor’s face went pale.
“Now he gets to learn what it feels like to almost become one.”
The recording ended.
Gabriella looked at Victor.
“What the hell is this?”
Victor couldn’t answer quickly enough.
Because Elena’s eyes had opened.
And she had heard every word.
Her gaze moved from Gabriella to Victor.
Slowly.
Painfully.
Understanding what her marriage to him had truly cost.
“You brought them to me,” Elena whispered.
Victor shook his head.
“No.”
“You brought all of this to me.”
“Elena, I will protect you.”
Her eyes filled with something worse than anger.
Disbelief.
“You?”
Victor stopped.
She looked at Gabriella.
“Call an attorney.”
Victor’s heart dropped.
“Elena.”
“I want a divorce.”
The words struck him harder than any threat.
“Elena, not now.”
“Now.”
“You’re in pain.”
“For the first time in years, I’m thinking clearly.”
Gabriella squeezed her hand.
Victor stepped toward the bed.
“Elena, whoever did this may try again.”
“Then put guards outside.”
“I will.”
“But you stay outside too.”
Victor stared at her.
“I don’t want you in this room.”
“Elena—”
“And I don’t want you in my home.”
His voice lowered.
“It’s our home.”
She looked him directly in the eyes.
“No, Victor.”
A tear moved down her cheek.
“It stopped being our home the night you made another woman more important than my voice.”
Victor had no answer.
So for once in his life, the most powerful man in the room obeyed.
He walked out.
Luca was waiting again.
“We traced the call.”
Victor looked at him.
“Where?”
Luca’s expression was grim.
“You’re not going to like it.”
“Tell me.”
“The signal bounced through several relays, but the original device connected briefly to a private network.”
“What network?”
Luca swallowed.
“Yours.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
“The call came from inside one of our properties.”
“Yes.”
“Which one?”
Luca hesitated.
Victor stepped closer.
“Which one?”
“The Romano Foundation headquarters.”
Victor stopped breathing.
The foundation was Elena’s charity.
Her building.
Her employees.
Her staff.
Her world.
Which meant whoever had targeted her wasn’t merely watching Victor.
May you like
They had been standing close enough to Elena to know exactly when she left work.
And perhaps close enough to know she was pregnant before Victor did.
Related Stories
