Chapter 4 - THE SECRET IN ELENA’S OFFICEThe Romano Foundation occupied six floors of a renovated building in Midtown.
Elena had created it nine years earlier to help families displaced by domestic violence, medical debt, and housing emergencies.
Victor had provided the initial funding.
Elena had built everything else.
Hundreds of families knew her as the woman who returned calls personally.
Thousands knew her name without knowing anything about Victor’s darker reputation.
By noon, the building was quietly locked down.
Nobody was told why.
Victor entered through the underground garage with Luca.
“No visible weapons,” Victor ordered.
Luca glanced at him.
“These people aren’t soldiers.”
“Exactly.”
Victor had spent years keeping Elena’s charitable work separate from his world.
Now his world had invaded hers.
He hated himself for it.
Security director Martin Hale met them near the elevator.
Hale had worked for Elena for five years.
Former NYPD.
Fifty-six.
Divorced.
Two daughters.
Victor knew all of that because Victor knew everything about everyone who stood near his wife.
Or he had believed he did.
“Mr. Romano.”
“Show me last night’s access logs.”
Hale hesitated.
“Police already requested—”
“I’m requesting them too.”
Within fifteen minutes, they were inside the security room.
Victor studied the records.
Elena had left the building at 8:42 p.m.
Seven minutes later, an unidentified administrative card had accessed the fifth-floor server room.
“At 8:49?” Victor asked.
Hale nodded.
“The card was assigned to general IT.”
“Who used it?”
“No camera in the server room.”
“Hallway?”
Hale pulled up footage.
The screen showed an empty corridor.
Then static.
Twenty-six seconds later, the picture returned.
Victor’s eyes hardened.
“Camera interruption?”
“Looks deliberate.”
Luca leaned toward the monitor.
“Someone knew the system.”
Victor turned to Hale.
“Who?”
Hale looked offended.
“If I knew, we wouldn’t be standing here.”
Victor studied him.
Hale didn’t look away.
Good.
Fear made honest men avoid eye contact.
Trained liars sometimes didn’t.
“Give Luca every employee file.”
Hale frowned.
“Elena would never allow—”
“Elena almost died.”
That ended the argument.
Victor went upstairs to Elena’s office.
The room looked painfully normal.
Her coffee mug sat beside her computer.
Reading glasses rested on an open grant proposal.
A framed photograph stood on the shelf.
Victor and Elena in Tuscany eleven years earlier.
He remembered the day.
She had forced him to rent bicycles.
Victor had complained for two hours.
Then she had raced him down a hill and won.
He had never told her he let her win.
Now he wondered if she would have believed him anyway.
Luca entered carrying a small envelope.
“What’s that?”
“Found taped beneath Elena’s desk.”
Victor immediately put on gloves.
Inside was a flash drive.
No note.
They took it downstairs.
Luca’s cybersecurity specialist opened it on an isolated laptop.
One file.
A video.
Elena appeared onscreen.
Victor stepped closer.
The timestamp showed three days earlier.
Elena sat in this very office.
Her expression was serious.
“If you’re seeing this,” she began, “something happened before I could confirm what I found.”
Victor’s chest tightened.
Luca looked at him.
Elena continued.
“I’ve spent the past four months reviewing irregularities in foundation accounts. Initially I thought it was accounting error. It isn’t.”
Documents appeared onscreen.
Transfers.
Shell corporations.
Millions.
Victor’s jaw tightened.
The Foundation had been used to move money.
Dirty money.
Without Elena’s knowledge.
“I believe someone inside Victor’s organization has been routing funds through our international relief accounts.”
Victor turned slowly toward Luca.
Luca’s face had gone white.
Elena’s recorded voice continued.
“I haven’t told Victor because I don’t know who he trusts.”
That sentence hurt.
Not because Elena suspected his men.
Because she no longer trusted his judgment.
“I met with federal prosecutor Rebecca Sloan yesterday.”
Victor cursed under his breath.
Luca stared.
Elena had gone to a federal prosecutor.
Secretly.
“If my suspicions are correct, somebody may realize I’ve found the transfers.”
Elena paused.
Her hand moved to her stomach.
Victor noticed.
His face broke for half a second.
“I also learned something personal this week.”
She smiled faintly.
“I’m pregnant.”
Victor looked away.
Even Luca lowered his eyes.
“I wanted to tell Victor tonight.”
Elena’s smile disappeared.
“But first I need to decide whether telling him about the financial records puts him in danger… or puts me in danger.”
The video ended.
Nobody spoke.
Then Victor said:
“Find Rebecca Sloan.”
Luca hesitated.
“A federal prosecutor isn’t exactly going to—”
“Find her.”
Two hours later, Rebecca Sloan agreed to meet.
Not because Victor requested it.
Because Elena’s sister did.
Sloan arrived at the hospital wearing a gray suit and carrying a leather briefcase.
She refused Victor’s private room and insisted on speaking near two uniformed officers.
Smart woman.
“Mr. Romano.”
“Ms. Sloan.”
“I assume you found Elena’s recording.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed.
“You knew about it?”
“I told her to create insurance.”
“Insurance against whom?”
Sloan studied him.
“That was the problem.”
Victor leaned against the wall.
“She thought the person stealing from the Foundation was close to me.”
“She believed that.”
“Did she name anyone?”
“No.”
“Did you?”
Sloan opened her briefcase.
She removed a printed financial chart.
“Five million dollars moved through foundation accounts during the past fourteen months.”
Luca stepped closer.
“Where did it end?”
“Several offshore companies.”
“Owned by?”
“We’re still tracing them.”
Victor scanned the pages.
Then he stopped.
One transfer contained an authorization code.
He knew it.
Every senior member of his legitimate business empire had an encrypted identifier.
Victor’s was R01.
Luca’s R02.
This code was R07.
Victor closed his eyes.
Sloan noticed.
“You recognize it.”
Victor handed the page to Luca.
Luca’s face changed.
“No.”
Victor said nothing.
R07 belonged to one man.
Dominic Romano.
Victor’s younger cousin.
His childhood friend.
The boy Victor’s father had raised after Dominic’s parents died.
The man Victor called a brother.
Luca whispered, “Dom?”
Rebecca Sloan looked between them.
“Who is Dominic?”
Victor folded the paper.
“Someone who was at my house yesterday morning.”
Sloan’s eyes sharpened.
“Why?”
“Elena invited him for breakfast.”
“Did he know she was investigating?”
“I don’t know.”
Victor’s phone buzzed.
A security alert.
He opened it.
One of the cameras outside Elena’s hospital room had gone offline.
Victor’s head snapped toward the ICU corridor.
“Luca.”
They ran.
Victor reached Elena’s room just as a man wearing hospital scrubs stepped through the side stairwell.
He was carrying a syringe.
Their eyes met.
The stranger ran.
“Stay with Elena!” Victor shouted.
Luca chased him.
Victor pushed into the room.
Gabriella was asleep in the chair.
Elena was awake.
“What happened?”
Victor locked the door.
“Nothing.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Victor.”
He checked the bathroom.
Window.
Cabinet.
Then returned to her bed.
“Elena, someone got onto this floor.”
Fear entered her eyes.
“For me?”
Victor didn’t answer.
That was answer enough.
She tried to sit.
Pain stopped her.
“Gabriella.”
Her sister woke immediately.
“What?”
Victor called hospital security.
Then his phone rang.
Luca.
“He got away.”
Victor’s jaw clenched.
“How?”
“Service elevator. Someone had it waiting.”
Victor looked at Elena.
An inside plan.
Again.
“Description?”
“Male. Approximately thirty. But listen.”
“What?”
“He dropped something.”
“What?”
“A Saint Christopher medal.”
Victor went still.
Elena noticed.
“What is it?”
Victor ended the call.
“Nothing.”
“Stop lying to me.”
“Elena—”
“Tell me.”
Victor looked at the woman he had already betrayed too many times.
So he told the truth.
“Everyone in my inner circle receives one when they become made men.”
Gabriella stared at him in horror.
Elena went pale.
Victor continued.
“It means whoever came through that door wasn’t an outsider.”
Elena’s breathing changed.
“You said you would protect me.”
“I will.”
“You don’t even know who your enemies are.”
Victor had no defense.
Then Elena said something that terrified him more than the man with the syringe.
“I do.”
Victor stared at her.
“What?”
She looked at Gabriella.
“Bring my purse.”
Gabriella retrieved it from the cabinet.
Elena reached inside slowly and removed a folded photograph.
She handed it to Victor.
It showed Dominic Romano standing outside the Foundation building.
Talking to Selena Vale.
The photograph had been taken three weeks earlier.
Victor’s blood went cold.
“Elena…”
“I didn’t know she was your mistress then.”
Elena looked directly at him.
“I thought she was part of the money laundering.”
Victor stared at Selena’s face beside his cousin.
And suddenly his affair no longer looked like a private betrayal.
May you like
It looked like a doorway.
One he had opened himself.
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