Chapter 6
We returned upstairs.
Bianca saw Elena’s bracelet in my hand.
Her face changed immediately.
I noticed.
“Recognize it?”
“No.”
“You looked at it.”
“It belonged to your wife.”
“You said you barely knew her.”
Bianca crossed her arms.
“I attended family events.”
Hannah whispered:
“She was in Elena’s hospital room.”
Bianca laughed.
“According to a frightened security guard.”
“Who vanished.”
“Maybe he ran.”
Hannah’s face hardened.
Bianca smiled at her.
“Poor men disappear all the time.”
That sentence nearly broke Hannah.
I stepped between them.
“Saint Alden Road.”
Bianca stopped breathing.
There.
I didn’t need more.
“What’s there?”
“Nothing.”
“Wrong.”
She smiled.
“An old family property.”
“What kind?”
“Storage.”
Marco shouted from behind me:
“Don’t.”
Bianca turned.
He had ruined it again.
I looked at Elias.
“Send men.”
Bianca immediately raised her voice.
“You don’t enter Wainwright property.”
I looked at her.
“I just did.”
Her jaw tightened.
She tried a different angle.
“Dominic, think about the girls.”
“I am.”
“You’re going to frighten them.”
“You withheld food from them.”
“That was discipline.”
“They’re two.”
“They need to learn.”
“Learn what?”
“That I’m their mother now.”
“No.”
The word came so quickly even she flinched.
“They already have one.”
“Dead.”
Maybe.
The thought hit both of us.
I looked at Elena’s bracelet.
If she moved after being declared dead—
what happened after?
Hannah whispered:
“My father went there.”
I nodded.
“We’ll find out.”
Bianca laughed.
“You think Samuel kept Elena alive in some cellar for two years?”
Hannah stared.
I stared too.
Bianca’s face changed.
She had said too much.
No one had suggested Elena was kept alive.
Not yet.
I stepped closer.
“Why a cellar?”
Silence.
Marco whispered:
“Bianca.”
She closed her eyes.
I felt the room shift.
Not proof Elena lived.
Proof Bianca knew more about Saint Alden than she admitted.
Then Elias’s phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
Looked at me.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“Our men reached Saint Alden.”
Pause.
“There’s someone in the basement.”
Hannah grabbed the table.
“Who?”
Elias looked at her.
“A man matching Samuel Mercer’s age.”
Hannah stopped breathing.
May you like
Her father had not vanished.
Someone had kept him.
