# THE MAFIA BOSS WATCHED HIS FIANCÉE RIP UP HIS FATHER'S LAST LETTER—THEN THE MAID PULLED A SECOND ENVELOPE FROM HER APRON

Sebastian’s wound was serious enough to require surgery, but not life-threatening. The bullet had passed through his upper shoulder without striking an artery. At the hospital, I sat beside his bed while the doctor explained the risks, and I kept my eyes on Sebastian’s face so I wouldn’t imagine what might have happened if he had moved half an inch differently.

“You should go home,” he said when we were finally alone.

“Your family has a strange definition of home.”

He gave me a tired look. “You know what I mean.”

“I’m staying.”

He didn’t argue. Perhaps he was too exhausted. Perhaps, for the first time, he understood that ordering me away would not protect either of us.

Catherine arrived the next morning, accompanied by a nurse and two security officers. When she saw Sebastian’s bandaged shoulder, she began to cry.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“You didn’t shoot me,” he said.

“I brought this to your family.”

“No. Someone in my family did that long before you came back.”

Catherine sat down. Her hands trembled in her lap. She looked at me first, as though asking permission to speak, and I took her hand.

“Tell us what happened the night Elena died,” I said.

Catherine drew a long breath.

“I was working in the house then. Not as a maid exactly. Elena had taken me under her wing when I was young. She knew Antonio was my father, although he had never acknowledged me publicly. She wanted him to make things right.”

Antonio had confessed enough for that to make sense. Still, hearing it from my mother made my chest ache.

“On the night Elena died, she asked me to meet her in the east wing. She had found the ledger and discovered Michael was using the family accounts to fund illegal operations. She wanted to take the records to the authorities. I told her I had copies, but I was afraid. I thought if I handed them over, Michael would kill us both.”

“Did you argue?” Sebastian asked.

“Yes. I begged her to wait. She said waiting was how people like Michael survived. Then she told me she had already called someone she trusted.”

“Who?”

“I never learned the name. She said the person would arrive before midnight.”

Catherine’s gaze dropped to her hands.

“Michael came first. He wanted the ledger. Elena refused. They fought. I heard a crash and ran into the room. Elena was on the floor. Michael stood over her. He said she had fallen, but there was blood on his cuff.”

Sebastian’s jaw tightened.

“What did you do?”

“I tried to help her. Michael told me to leave. I refused. Then Antonio arrived. He saw Elena, saw Michael, and understood what had happened. He ordered Michael out. For a few minutes, I believed he would call an ambulance and tell the truth.”

“But he didn’t,” Sebastian said.

“He tried. Richard arrived before the ambulance. He said the police would turn the family inside out. He told Antonio that if the truth came out, you would be taken from him, the businesses would collapse, and every enemy the Romanos had ever made would come for you. Antonio was terrified. He let Richard control the story.”

“And the accident?”

“Richard arranged it. He moved Elena’s car, falsified the timeline, and paid a doctor to certify that she died from injuries consistent with a crash. But Elena was already dead before the car left the property.”

Sebastian closed his eyes.

“My father knew.”

“He knew enough to suspect the truth. He didn’t know all of it. I left with the copies I had and disappeared. Richard told me that if I ever returned, he would make sure you believed I had helped kill Elena.”

I looked at my mother. “Why did you never tell me who my father was?”

“Because Antonio was too frightened to claim me, and I thought the name would put you in danger. I was wrong to keep you in the dark. I’m sorry, Emma.”

The apology hurt more than I expected. I wanted to forgive her instantly, but years of questions had gathered inside me, and they could not all be answered in one morning.

Sebastian reached for a folder on the bedside table. “Michael said someone else gave the order.”

Catherine went pale.

“Did Elena tell you who she had called?”

“No. But she did say one thing that I never understood until now.” Catherine opened her purse and removed a small folded paper. “She gave me this the week before she died. I kept it all these years.”

The note contained a list of initials and a sentence in Elena’s handwriting:

If anything happens, look for the person who benefits when the family turns against itself.

Beneath it were three initials: R.S., M.R., and V.S.

Richard Sterling. Michael Romano. Vanessa Sterling.

Sebastian stared at the last set.

“Vanessa was a child then.”

“Not when the transfers began,” Catherine said. “She knew about the forged documents. I don’t know whether she knew about Elena’s death.”

“She admitted she knew the transfers were fraudulent,” I said. “She said her father told her they were necessary.”

Sebastian’s expression hardened. “We need her statement on record.”

A detective arrived an hour later. Michael had been charged with kidnapping, attempted murder, and multiple financial crimes. Richard was being questioned, but his attorney was already challenging the recording’s authenticity. The investigation would take time.

The detective asked Catherine to identify Michael formally. She agreed. Then he asked whether she knew who had made the call that brought Richard to the mansion the night Elena died.

Catherine shook her head.

But as the detective turned to leave, she caught his sleeve.

“There’s something else,” she said. “Elena wasn’t afraid of Michael that night. She was afraid of the person she had called.”

Sebastian sat up too quickly and winced.

“Why?”

Catherine looked at him.

“Because she said the person was someone she loved.”

The room went still.

Sebastian’s voice was barely audible. “My father?”

Catherine did not answer.

Instead, she reached into her purse and handed me one final photograph. It showed Elena standing beside a man whose face had been cut away with a blade.

On the back, Elena had written:

I should never have trusted him with my son.

Sebastian stared at the photograph.

Then he turned it over again, as if the missing face might appear if he looked long enough.

“Who is he?” I whispered.

Catherine’s eyes filled with tears.

“I don’t know,” she said. “But Elena believed he was the only person who could take Sebastian away from Antonio.”

Before any of us could speak, Sebastian’s phone rang.

The caller ID displayed a number that had been disconnected for twenty years.

His father’s old private line.

He answered.