Chapter 5
Victoria started crying.
Not elegantly.
Not strategically.
Actual panic.
“I didn’t know.”
I looked at her.
“Which part?”
“That Preston changed the plan.”
Interesting.
Preston looked at his sister with hatred.
She continued.
“I wanted Elena sent away. I never wanted her dead.”
Elena laughed bitterly.
“Thank you?”
Victoria flinched.
Good.
Intent does not become virtue merely because someone else intended worse.
I asked Preston directly:
“Were you planning to kill her?”
He shook his head.
“No.”
“Then explain the sentence.”
Silence.
“Why is she still alive?”
He swallowed.
“I thought the men had handled it.”
“What does handled mean?”
No answer.
I stepped closer.
“I’m not asking twice.”
His voice dropped.
“They were supposed to leave her somewhere she couldn’t return from.”
Still euphemism.
“Alive?”
A pause.
“Maybe.”
The room went colder.
Not a direct murder order.
Something more cowardly.
Abandon her.
Remote.
No phone.
No money.
No certainty.
Let circumstance do what his hands would not.
Enough.
I looked at Rafe.
“Separate him.”
Preston laughed nervously.
“Dante.”
“No.”
He stopped.
Then I turned to Victoria.
The engagement ring still sat in my palm.
Tiny object.
Months of lies around it.
“You knew Elena existed.”
“Yes.”
“You knew she was pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“You knew she was being held.”
“Yes.”
“You knew Silvio intercepted messages.”
“Yes.”
“You knew Preston moved her.”
“I thought to another property.”
Not innocence.
Distance from the worst detail.
I slipped the ring into my pocket.
Not giving it back yet.
Not as revenge.
Because it belonged to a promise that no longer existed.
Then Elena said:
“There’s more.”
Of course.
“There was another reason they wanted the baby gone.”
I looked at her.
She held the scorched ultrasound against her chest.
“Your father knew about me.”
May you like
My father had been dead eight months.
And suddenly the ground shifted again.
