Chapter 20: Chapter 20

Elara’s POV.

The basement was cold. There were no windows to mark the time, only the dripping of a pipe somewhere in the darkness.

I sat on the edge of the narrow cot, my hands resting on my stomach. The door pulled open.

I expected Dante or a guard with a tray of cold food.

"Lorenzo?" I whispered.

He looked haggard. His face was thin, his eyes sunken, and his clothes were filled with the red dust of the upstate facility. He held a finger to his lips and closed the door behind him.

"How are you here?" I asked. "Dante said the guards had orders to shoot."

"Sloane," Lorenzo said, his voice a low rasp. "She cut the feed to this sector for exactly twelve minutes. I came through the old coal chute. We don't have time for a reunion, Elara."

"He thinks the baby isn't his," I said. "Isabella and Serena framed me. They used Christian’s name."

"I know," Lorenzo said. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a stack of physical documents, tied together with a rubber band. "I didn't spend my time upstate painting, Elara. I spent it with the men Dante sent to watch me. Two of the guards were former Caldera security. They were the ones who moved the prostaglandin crates for Isabella."

I stood up, my legs shaking. "Is it in there? The proof?"

"Everything," Lorenzo said. "Signed manifests, the original order from Isabella’s private account, and the GPS logs of the truck that hit the warehouse. It wasn't just a Petrov hit, It was a joint venture. Isabella paid the Petrovs to pull the trigger, but she provided the bullets and the target."

"Why give this to me?" I asked. "Take it to Dante."

"Dante is too far gone," Lorenzo said. "He’s blinded by the heir. If I show him this, he might kill Isabella, but he’ll still keep you in this cellar until the baby is born. He’s obsessed."

"Then what do I do?"

"You have to be the one to break him," Lorenzo said. "You have to show him that the woman he’s trusted for twenty years is the one who took his son. And you have to do it when the board is watching. Marcus is calling a meeting for tomorrow night. The 'audit' is going live."

"He’ll kill her," I said.

"Let him," Lorenzo replied. "And while he’s burning her world down, we take the rest. Sloane has the backdoors to the accounts. We just need your biometric signature once you're back in the main house."

A sudden heavy thud echoed from the floor above.

"Go," I said. "If they find you here, it’s over."

"I still have twelve minutes, Elara," Lorenzo said, gripping my hand. "Don't let them see you're holding the winning hand."

He vanished back into the dark corridors.

I was alone again. I tucked the documents inside the mattress of the cot, then sat back down.

An hour later, the door opened again. This time, it was Isabella. She was alone, carrying a small electronic device.

"Dante is in a meeting with Marcus," she said, her voice filled with satisfaction. "I convinced him to let me oversee the 'preparation' for the DNA test tomorrow. He’s so disgusted by the thought of Christian that he can't even look at you."

"You lied, Isabella," I said.

"Lies are just unconfirmed truths," she said, sitting on the only chair in the room. "The board is already voting to remove Dante. By tomorrow night, I’ll be the interim head of the Syndicate. And you? You’ll be a tragic footnote. A girl who cheated and met a messy end in a basement."

"You really think you can take it all?" I asked. I moved my hand toward my pocket. I had been keeping the burner phone Lorenzo gave me, the one Dante thought he’d destroyed. He’d found the other one, but Lorenzo had given me two.

"I’ve already taken it," Isabella said. "The Caldera deal is finalized. The Petrovs are on my payroll now. Dante is a dead man walking; he just hasn't felt the bullet yet."

"And the warehouse?" I asked, my voice trembling for effect. "You really killed his son just for a merger?"

Isabella laughed. "It wasn't just for the merger, Elara. It was for the message. I wanted him to know that nothing he loves is safe from me. He thought he could replace me with a student? He thought he could bring a commoner into our bloodline? I didn't just kill the baby. I killed his future. And now, I’m going to take his chair."

"He loved you once," I said.

"He loved my father’s shipping lanes," she snapped. "Dante Moretti doesn't love anything. He’s a black hole. But I’m the one who knows how to navigate the dark. Tomorrow, after the test 'proves' the baby isn't his, I’ll have the guards handle the disposal. Don't worry, I'll tell them to make it quick. For the sake of our old friendship."

She stood up and walked out, the heavy door locking behind her.

I pulled the phone out and stopped recording.

I spent the night writing. I found a stub of a pencil in the corner of the room and used the back of the medical journals Serena had brought me.

The Moretti-Rossi Journal. Day 1.

I wrote down the dates, the names, the account numbers Lorenzo had told me and the exact words Isabella had used when she admitted to the warehouse hit.