Chapter 5 - THE WITNESS IN MILWAUKEE
Elena Russo lived in a brick assisted-living residence outside Milwaukee, two hours from Lake Geneva.
By the time Dominic reached it, the sky had turned the color of steel.
Hannah had expected him to send her back to Chicago after the chapel.
Instead, he waited beside the car until Aunt Teresa helped her settle in the rear seat.
“You should be at home,” he said.
Hannah folded her hands.
“You keep saying that before taking me somewhere worse.”
Aunt Teresa laughed for the first time all day.
Dominic did.
Then he looked toward Charles’s car.
“Victoria is staying at Lake Geneva.”
Hannah glanced behind them.
“She agreed?”
“No.”
That answer was enough.
Daniel remained with the blue box while another security vehicle followed Dominic north.
At the residence, a receptionist led them to a private sunroom overlooking a frozen garden.
Elena Russo sat beside the window in a lavender cardigan.
She was eighty-three.
Her silver hair was cut short.
A small cross hung at her throat.
Dominic recognized it immediately.
The same silver cross from the edge of the childhood memory he had never trusted.
Elena looked at him for a long time.
Then she smiled.
“You frown before asking questions.”
Dominic stopped.
Aunt Teresa covered her mouth.
“Elena.”
The old women crossed the room toward each other.
No one spoke while they embraced.
Hannah looked away, suddenly feeling like an intruder.
Elena noticed.
“You’re Hannah.”
Hannah’s head lifted.
“How do you know my name?”
Elena’s smile disappeared.
“Because Victoria told me.”
Dominic became completely still.
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
The room changed.
Aunt Teresa sat beside Elena.
“She came here?”
“Twice.”
Dominic’s voice lowered.
“She told me she had never seen you.”
Elena gave a tired laugh.
“Then she lies more easily than her grandfather did.”
Hannah felt the hairs rise along her arms.
“What did she want?”
Elena looked at Hannah’s jacket.
“First, she wanted to know whether Lucia’s declaration existed.”
“And the second time?” Dominic asked.
“She wanted to know what Hannah Cole had found at the estate.”
Hannah stared.
“I hadn’t found anything three weeks ago.”
“No.”
Elena touched the cross at her throat.
“But Victoria expected you might.”
Before Dominic could answer, voices sounded in the corridor.
Daniel stepped into the doorway.
His expression was grim.
“Boss.”
Dominic turned.
Victoria appeared behind him.
White coat.
Perfect hair.
No apology.
“I told security I’m your fiancée.”
Dominic stared at her.
“I told you to stay at Lake Geneva.”
“And I decided not to be excluded from a conversation about my family.”
Elena looked at her.
“Which family?”
Victoria’s face hardened.
Hannah could feel the question strike.
She entered the sunroom.
“Mrs. Russo.”
“Miss Hale.”
“You look well.”
“You look worried.”
Aunt Teresa murmured, “I have missed you.”
Victoria ignored her.
Then her eyes moved to Hannah.
“You again.”
Hannah did not answer.
Victoria turned to Dominic.
“Surely she doesn’t need to be present for this.”
Elena spoke before he could.
“She does.”
Victoria looked at the old woman.
“She is an employee.”
“So was I.”
The words landed cleanly.
Elena leaned back.
“People like your family have always mistaken payroll for ownership.”
Hannah felt something inside her straighten.
Victoria smiled.
“dramatic.”
“No. Dramatic is framing a housekeeper because she found a jewelry switch you failed to hide.”
Dominic looked at Elena.
“How do you know about Hannah?”
Elena’s expression changed.
“Victoria told me she would make sure the girl stopped asking questions.”
Victoria laughed.
“That is not what I said.”
“You said, ‘She won’t be a problem after the wedding.’”
Silence.
Hannah looked at Dominic.
His face had gone cold.
Victoria folded her arms.
“You are twisting a private conversation.”
“Then untwist it.”
Elena’s voice remained calm.
“What did you mean?”
Victoria did not answer.
Dominic stepped closer.
“You visited Elena three weeks ago. You knew her name. You knew about the declaration. You knew Hannah might find something. Yet last night you told me you recognized nobody in the photograph.”
Victoria’s eyes flashed.
“I was protecting you.”
“From what?”
“From this.”
She gestured at the room.
“Old scandals. Sick people. Family shame.”
Elena’s face tightened.
Hannah saw Dominic notice the words.
Family shame.
He glanced toward Aunt Teresa.
Then back at Elena.
“My aunt said Gianna’s birth certificate does not tell the truth.”
Elena closed her eyes.
Victoria went still.
Dominic saw that too.
“You knew.”
Victoria shook her head.
“No.”
Elena opened her eyes.
“Yes, she did.”
Victoria turned on her.
“You promised.”
Elena’s expression sharpened.
“I promised a frightened twenty-three-year-old man thirty-one years ago. I promised Lucia. I promised Salvatore. I never promised you.”
Hannah’s heartbeat accelerated.
Dominic sat opposite Elena.
“Tell me.”
Aunt Teresa reached for Elena’s hand.
The old nurse looked at Charles’s empty chair as though he were present anyway.
“I loved Charles Hale.”
Dominic blinked.
Elena continued.
“Before your father’s crash. Before Lucia found the forged guarantees. Charles was nineteen. I was twenty-four.”
Aunt Teresa whispered, “Elena.”
“You never knew.”
“No.”
“No one did.”
Victoria’s face had lost color.
Elena touched the silver cross.
“When Charles’s father learned about us, he ended it. He told me his son would marry someone useful.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“And Gianna?”
Elena looked at him.
“She was born twenty-two months after the crash.”
Hannah stopped breathing.
Dominic stared.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“My mother gave birth to her.”
“Your mother raised her.”
The room became silent.
Victoria sat down as though her knees had failed.
Elena’s voice shook.
“I was Gianna’s biological mother.”
Hannah looked at Victoria.
Victoria looked sick.
Dominic whispered, “And Charles?”
Elena nodded.
“He was her father.”
Aunt Teresa began to cry.
Dominic stood and walked to the window.
For several seconds he said nothing.
His younger sister.
The girl whose scraped knees he had bandaged.
The teenager he had taught to drive.
The woman who had stopped answering his calls after Victoria entered his life.
Not his blood sister.
And still, somehow, entirely his sister.
He turned.
“Why did my parents take her?”
Elena wiped her eyes.
“Domenico threatened to have my child taken from me. Lucia knew what he was capable of after the attack on Salvatore. She and Salvatore offered Gianna their name.”
“Did Charles agree?”
“He begged me to accept.”
Victoria stood suddenly.
“That is a lie.”
Everyone looked at her.
“My father would have told me.”
Elena’s sadness became pity.
“Would he?”
Victoria’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Dominic’s voice was quiet.
“Gianna is your half-sister.”
Victoria stepped backward.
“No.”
“She is.”
“No.”
Hannah had never seen Victoria frightened by another person’s fear before.
Only by her own loss of control.
Now both seemed to meet.
Elena looked at her.
“You came here because you suspected.”
Victoria’s eyes filled.
“I came because my father said you were blackmailing him.”
“I asked him to tell Gianna the truth.”
“You threatened our family.”
“I tried to return a stolen history.”
Victoria turned to Dominic.
“Do you understand what happens if Gianna learns this? The press will destroy us.”
Hannah laughed at the word us.
Dominic did not.
“What happens is that my sister learns who her parents are.”
“She is not your sister.”
The sentence cracked through the room.
Dominic stared at Victoria.
Hannah saw the instant Victoria realized she had made another mistake.
His voice lowered.
“Say that again.”
She looked away.
Elena spoke softly.
“Blood made Charles her father. Love made Lucia and Salvatore her parents. Neither fact erases the other.”
Dominic sat again.
“What did Victoria want from you three weeks ago?”
Elena hesitated.
“Gianna’s original birth certificate.”
Victoria’s head snapped toward her.
Dominic looked at his fiancée.
“Why?”
“I didn’t take it.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Elena reached into a drawer beside her chair.
It was empty.
Her face changed.
Aunt Teresa leaned forward.
“What?”
“The certificate.”
Elena searched another drawer.
Then a small document case.
Nothing.
Victoria moved toward the door.
Daniel blocked it.
Dominic watched her.
“You said you didn’t take it.”
“I didn’t.”
Elena’s hands began to shake.
“I kept it here.”
“When did you last see it?”
“This morning.”
Hannah looked toward the corridor.
A nurse had passed twice since they arrived.
Daniel called the front desk and requested security footage.
Victoria laughed bitterly.
“Of course. Search everyone. Perhaps Hannah stole this too.”
The words hit harder because they returned to the same old weapon.
Poor girl.
Employee.
Convenient suspect.
Hannah stood. “You don’t get to do that again.”
Victoria blinked.
“I was afraid yesterday,” Hannah said. “I’m not now.”
Daniel’s phone rang.
He checked the hallway footage.
At 9:17 that morning, Charles Hale had entered Elena’s room alone.
Eleven minutes later, he left carrying her document case.
Dominic looked at Victoria.
“Where is your father?”
Daniel checked another alert.
“Airport security stopped his car.”
Victoria exhaled.
Daniel shook his head.
“Charles wasn’t inside.”
He turned the screen around.
Gianna DeLuca sat in the passenger seat.
May you like
And Elena’s missing document case rested on her lap.
Nobody in the room spoke afterward.
