Elena's Last Warning
Chapter 05 - Elena's Last Warning
Matteo recovered the memory card from the nursery drawer. The first file was a short recording of Elena speaking to the camera while sitting in a parked car. Her face was bruised, and she kept looking over her shoulder.
"If Luca sees this, I need him to know I did not leave because I stopped loving him. I left because someone threatened our son. The accounts Rocco asked me to sign were not ordinary business papers. I refused, and afterward people began following me."
She paused, wiping her face.
"I was afraid Luca would defend his brother. He always has. If anything happens to me, please keep Gabriel safe."
The clip ended. Luca played it twice, each time feeling a deeper shame. Elena had begged him months earlier to question a warehouse transaction. He had been too distracted by a labor dispute and told her Rocco knew what he was doing.
Now he could hear what she'd been trying to say.
A second file showed a sequence of documents. The files appeared to concern cash movements routed through a children's charity, but it would take forensic accountants to understand them. Luca sent copies to an independent attorney and appropriate investigators. He was no longer interested in handling everything by threatening people in back rooms.
Sophie, shown the recording with her consent, pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes.
"She was scared of you not believing her," she said.
Luca didn't deny it.
"I gave her reasons to be," he replied.
Sophie shook her head. "You can regret it later. Right now we have to find her."
He looked at the image of Elena on the screen. "Yes."
May you like
The next lead came from the clinic visible in the photograph. It had changed names, but a retired receptionist remembered a woman with Elena's description arriving with an older man who introduced himself as a relative. The man had used the name David Caruso.
Matteo recognized it as a business alias once used by Rocco.
