Chapter 6 - THE MAN ELENA NO LONGER KNEWVictor returned to Mercy General shortly before midnight.
He expected Elena to refuse to see him.
She did.
So he sat outside her room.
No threats.
No bribed nurses.
No demands.
He simply waited.
At 3:00 a.m., Gabriella came out.
“She’s sleeping.”
Victor nodded.
Gabriella studied him.
“You’re still here.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Victor almost laughed.
The question would have offended him once.
Now it seemed fair.
“I don’t know where else I should be.”
Gabriella crossed her arms.
“Selena?”
“It’s over.”
“That supposed to impress me?”
“No.”
“Good.”
She sat three chairs away.
For a while neither spoke.
Then Gabriella asked, “Did Elena ever tell you why she stayed?”
Victor looked over.
“With me?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Gabriella looked toward the floor.
“She wanted children.”
Victor’s chest tightened.
“We tried.”
“I know.”
Elena had suffered two early miscarriages years earlier.
Then doctors told them natural pregnancy would be difficult.
After that, Elena stopped mentioning babies.
Victor assumed she had accepted it.
He had never asked whether acceptance and grief were the same thing.
Gabriella continued.
“She thought maybe if the two of you stopped living like business partners, it would happen.”
Victor swallowed.
“She thought stress was part of the problem.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t ask.”
Victor accepted that.
“Elena planned a trip for your anniversary last year.”
He remembered.
He had canceled.
A port dispute required his attention.
“She cried for two days.”
Victor looked down.
“She told me she had allergies.”
Gabriella shook her head.
“How could a man who notices every enemy within a hundred yards fail to notice his wife disappearing in front of him?”
Victor had no answer.
At sunrise, Elena’s door opened.
A nurse stepped out.
“Mrs. Romano would like to speak to her husband.”
Victor stood immediately.
Gabriella pointed one finger at him.
“If you upset her—”
“I’ll leave.”
Elena was sitting slightly upright when he entered.
Color had returned to her face.
Not much.
But enough to make Victor breathe easier.
He stopped several feet from the bed.
“You wanted me?”
“I spoke to Rebecca Sloan.”
Victor nodded.
“She told me about Dominic.”
“Yes.”
“And Selena.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
Elena stared out the window.
“So your affair wasn’t even real.”
Victor flinched.
“My betrayal was.”
She looked at him.
That answer surprised her.
Victor continued.
“Selena was recruited by Dominic. But I made every choice that mattered.”
Elena’s eyes remained cold.
“I’m not going to blame manipulation for cheating on you.”
“Good.”
“I’m not asking you to forgive me.”
“Also good.”
Victor almost smiled.
Almost.
She looked down at her hands.
“Rebecca says I may need protection after discharge.”
“You will have it.”
“Not from your men.”
Victor paused.
“Federal protection?”
“Yes.”
His instinct immediately rejected the idea.
Federal marshals near Elena meant scrutiny.
Questions.
Loss of control.
Then Victor saw the fear beneath her calm expression.
And swallowed his instincts.
“All right.”
Elena blinked.
“You agree?”
“If that makes you safer.”
She studied him.
“The Victor I married would never have agreed.”
“The Victor you married promised to protect you.”
He looked away.
“I confused protection with control.”
Silence.
Elena’s expression softened for barely a second.
Then she remembered why they were there.
“The divorce still stands.”
Victor nodded.
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
“I won’t come back because you suddenly became remorseful.”
“I know.”
Anger flashed across her face.
“Stop saying that.”
Victor’s eyes met hers.
“What do you want me to say?”
“That this hurts you.”
He stared at her.
Then the walls finally cracked.
“It is killing me.”
Elena stopped.
Victor’s voice shook.
“I wake up every ten minutes thinking I hear your phone ringing.”
He swallowed.
“I play your voicemail until I can’t hear anything except you saying you loved me.”
Elena’s eyes filled.
“I imagine our son.”
Victor looked toward the window.
“I imagine holding him. Teaching him baseball. Listening to you tell me I’m holding him wrong.”
A tear moved down his cheek.
“I imagine every year he will never have.”
Elena covered her mouth.
“And then I remember where I was when you were driving to tell me.”
Victor’s shoulders dropped.
“I don’t know how to live with that.”
For several seconds, Elena said nothing.
Then she whispered, “Neither do I.”
Victor looked at her.
They were both crying now.
Not husband and wife.
Not yet enemies.
Just two parents mourning a child neither had held.
Victor took one step toward the bed.
Then stopped.
He didn’t assume he had permission.
Elena noticed.
After a moment, she extended her uninjured hand.
Victor stared.
Then approached carefully.
He took it.
They sat like that in silence.
No forgiveness.
No promises.
Only grief.
Eventually Elena spoke.
“I was going to name him Matteo.”
Victor closed his eyes.
“My father would’ve liked that.”
“I know.”
“He would’ve spoiled him terribly.”
A faint laugh escaped Elena through tears.
“So would you.”
“Yes.”
Silence again.
Then Elena withdrew her hand.
The moment ended.
“Victor, I need to tell you something about Dominic.”
Victor straightened.
“What?”
“I saw him copying documents in my office two months ago.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because when I confronted him, he told me you authorized it.”
Victor’s face hardened.
“What documents?”
“Foundation donor lists, property records, insurance policies.”
Victor’s pulse quickened.
“Insurance.”
“Elena, did you recently change your life insurance?”
She frowned.
“No.”
“Any new policy?”
“No.”
Victor called Nathan Brooks.
“Nathan. Check every active policy connected to Elena.”
Ten minutes later, Nathan called back.
His voice sounded strained.
“There is one.”
Victor’s grip tightened.
“Beneficiary?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s a key-person insurance policy.”
Elena looked confused.
Victor put the call on speaker.
Nathan continued.
“The Romano Foundation is beneficiary. Twenty-five million dollars.”
“I never approved that,” Elena said.
Nathan went silent.
“Mrs. Romano?”
“Yes.”
“The document contains your electronic signature.”
“It’s forged.”
Victor’s eyes hardened.
“When was it created?”
“Four months ago.”
“Who submitted it?”
Another pause.
“Dominic Romano.”
Elena looked at Victor.
Twenty-five million dollars.
A foundation Dominic had been secretly using to launder money.
If Elena died, the payout could disappear into accounts he controlled.
Now they had motive.
But Victor saw another problem.
“If Elena survived,” he said, “Dominic gets nothing.”
Nathan agreed.
Victor looked toward the door.
“That means he hasn’t finished.”
Almost immediately, the hospital alarm began screaming.
Red emergency lights flashed in the hallway.
A voice came over the speaker.
“Security alert. Third floor. Security alert.”
Victor’s body reacted instantly.
He moved between Elena and the door.
Gabriella rushed inside.
“What’s happening?”
Victor grabbed the phone.
No signal.
Then the lights went out.
Elena gasped.
Backup power flickered on.
Her monitor restarted.
Victor looked into the corridor.
Staff hurried past.
Smoke appeared near the stairwell.
A nurse shouted, “Fire reported on the second floor!”
Victor’s blood went cold.
Fire.
Saint Raphael’s.
Carlo Valenti.
Dominic.
“Elena, we’re leaving.”
A security guard entered.
“Patients need to shelter in place—”
“No.”
Victor pulled the wheelchair from the corner.
“Elena can’t—” Gabriella began.
“We are not staying on a floor with one controlled stairwell during a suspicious fire.”
The guard moved toward him.
Victor looked into his eyes.
“Call Rebecca Sloan.”
The guard paused.
Victor realized something.
Real hospital security would know Sloan was here.
This man didn’t.
Victor looked at his badge.
The photograph showed a different face.
Victor lunged.
The fake guard reached inside his jacket.
Luca appeared from the hallway and slammed him into the wall.
A handgun hit the floor.
Gabriella screamed.
Victor kicked it away.
The man struggled.
Luca pinned him.
“Who sent you?”
The attacker laughed.
“You’re too late.”
Victor grabbed his collar.
“For what?”
The man smiled through bloody teeth.
“Your empire is already Dominic’s.”
Victor stared at him.
Then Elena spoke behind Victor.
“He can have it.”
Everyone turned.
Elena sat pale in the bed.
Her voice remained steady.
“Give Dominic what he wants.”
Victor looked at her.
She swallowed.
“If your empire is what keeps bringing this to our door…”
Her eyes met his.
“Let it burn.”
Victor stared at the woman he had once promised everything.
Then at the gun lying on the hospital floor.
For the first time, the choice became perfectly clear.
May you like
And Victor Romano decided that if saving Elena required destroying the kingdom he had spent twenty years building—
Then Dominic could watch it collapse.
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