Chapter 7
Samuel Mercer walked into Bellafonte two hours later.
Thin.
Gray.
Alive.
Hannah reached him before anyone could stop her.
“Dad.”
He folded around her.
For a moment, there was no Mafia.
No Elena.
No conspiracy.
Just a daughter getting eight hundred missing nights back at once.
Then Samuel saw me.
His face changed.
“Dominic.”
“You know me.”
“I watched your wedding.”
My chest tightened.
“My wedding?”
“To Elena.”
Bianca shifted.
Samuel saw her.
Fear entered his face.
Not old fear.
Immediate.
He moved Hannah behind him.
“She’s still here?”
Bianca rolled her eyes.
“Oh, please.”
Samuel’s hands shook.
“You.”
I looked at him.
“What happened after Saint Alden?”
He hesitated.
Hannah squeezed his hand.
“Tell him.”
Samuel looked at Bianca.
Then Marco.
“They moved Elena there.”
My chest tightened.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She had seen something.”
“What?”
Samuel looked at Marco.
“Lists.”
Marco laughed.
“There were no lists.”
Samuel corrected:
“Names.”
Better.
Mafia memory.
Not paperwork.
Elena had learned which Bellandi men Marco had been secretly paying.
Routes.
Warehouse access.
Security rotations.
Bianca and Marco were building influence inside my organization before Elena died.
“She confronted them?”
Samuel nodded.
“At the hospital.”
Bianca scoffed.
“She was unstable.”
Samuel stared at her.
“She was furious.”
I almost smiled.
Even after two years captive, he corrected that lie.
“What did they do?”
“Bianca put something in Elena’s IV.”
Bianca shouted:
“Liar!”
Samuel flinched.
Hannah stepped in front of him.
That mattered.
Her father had protected her once.
Now she protected him.
Samuel continued:
“It made Elena collapse.”
“She didn’t die.”
“No.”
“What happened at Saint Alden?”
His face broke.
“They wanted her to tell them what she had told you.”
“She told me nothing.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
“Because she never got the chance.”
My throat tightened.
Samuel looked at the triplets through the glass doors.
“They threatened the babies.”
Everything in me went still.
“She stayed quiet to protect them.”
Bianca smiled bitterly.
“She always was dramatic about motherhood.”
Samuel turned.
“No.”
His voice strengthened.
“She was brave.”
Bianca’s face hardened.
Then Samuel looked at me.
“There’s more.”
I waited.
“Elena escaped Saint Alden.”
Bianca stopped moving.
“When?”
“Seven days after the hospital.”
My breathing stopped.
May you like
Samuel whispered:
“And I helped her.”
