Chương 4
“Marco.”
Her own voice sounded unfamiliar.
A whisper.
A question she already knew she was afraid to ask.
Tomas appeared in the doorway behind her.
“Elena?”
She lifted one finger, telling him to stay silent.
The man on the phone breathed slowly.
The same way Marco used to breathe when he was choosing words carefully.
“You need to listen to me.”
Her hand tightened around the phone.
“No.”
A pause.
“No?”
“You do not get to call me after eight years and tell me to listen.”
The silence that followed was not anger.
It was sadness.
That almost hurt more.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Elena walked farther into the room, past the open drawer and the photograph that someone had disturbed.
“You do not know what happened after you disappeared.”
“I know enough.”
“Do you know what your funeral did to people?”
“I did not have a funeral.”
“Everyone buried you.”
Another silence.
Then Marco said quietly, “I buried myself.”
The words should have softened her.
They did not.
Not completely.
Because grief was not a door that opened just because someone returned.
Sometimes grief was a locked room, and the person who came back was the person who had stolen the key.
“Where are you?” Elena asked.
“I cannot tell you.”
Her laugh came out without humor.
“Of course.”
“Elena.”
“No, I know how this works.”
She looked toward the hallway where Mia was waiting with Tomas.
“You disappear.”
“You survive.”
“You leave everyone else to explain your absence.”
“Listen.”
“I listened for eight years.”
Her voice cracked slightly, and she hated that he heard it.
“You were very convincing.”
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
“By leaving me alone?”
“Yes.”
The answer came immediately.
Too immediately.
For the first time, she stopped being angry long enough to hear the fear beneath his voice.
Marco had always been many things.
Stubborn.
Proud.
Impossible when he thought he was right.
But afraid was not something he showed easily.
“Who are you afraid of?” she asked.
He did not answer.
That was an answer.
Elena closed her eyes.
“Marco.”
“You cannot trust Carlo.”
The name changed something.
Not because she was surprised.
Because she had spent the entire night wondering if she was allowed to believe what she already suspected.
“You’re telling me this now?”
“I tried before.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
She frowned.
“What?”
“I sent messages.”
“I never received them.”
“I know.”
Her eyes moved back to the open drawer.
The missing item.
The reason someone had entered her house.
“What did they take?”
Marco did not respond.
Elena felt a chill move through her.
“You know they were here.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because they were looking for the same thing I was trying to keep hidden.”
“What thing?”
The line went quiet.
Then Marco said, “The truth about what happened the night I died.”
Her stomach tightened.
Not because she believed him.
Because part of her had never accepted the official story.
Marco’s death had always contained too many empty spaces.
Too many people with rehearsed answers.
Too many details that changed depending on who was speaking.
“You were there,” Elena said.
“Yes.”
“You were there when everyone told me you were killed.”
“Yes.”
“And you let me think you were dead.”
“I had no choice.”
“There is always a choice.”
“I know.”
That hurt because it sounded like he agreed.
A sound came from the hallway.
Mia.
“Elena?”
She turned.
The child stood there holding Tomas’s hand.
Her face was pale.
Elena covered the phone.
“Go back to the living room.”
Mia shook her head.
“Is it my mom?”
The question stopped her.
Children had a way of finding the wound everyone else walked around.
Elena looked at Tomas.
He understood without needing an explanation.
He gently guided Mia away.
When Elena returned to the phone, Marco was speaking.
“Is she there?”
“Yes.”
“Then they know.”
“Who?”
“Everyone who needs to know.”
“That means nothing.”
“It means you need to leave.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
“No.”
Her voice became steadier.
“You do not get to come back from the dead and start giving orders.”
“I am trying to save you.”
“You are still doing it.”
“Doing what?”
“Deciding what I can handle.”
Marco went silent.
She remembered that silence.
It was the same silence he used when he realized she had found the weakness in his argument.
For years, she had hated that part of him.
The part that loved her enough to protect her and respected her too little to let her choose the danger herself.
“What did Lena Russo find?” Elena asked.
A long pause followed.
Then Marco answered.
“She found the records.”
“What records?”
“The ones showing where the money actually went.”
Elena looked around the room.
The expensive furniture.
The old paintings.
The things people called tradition when they did not want to call them evidence.
“Carlo?”
“Not just Carlo.”
The words landed differently.
“Who else?”
“You need to stop asking questions on the phone.”
“Why?”
“Because they are listening.”
Elena looked at the device in her hand.
A simple phone.
A normal object.
Something millions of people carried every day without thinking about who might be watching.
“You’re saying my phone is compromised?”
“I’m saying nothing is private anymore.”
“Where are you?”
“I told you.”
“You cannot tell me.”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me something useful.”
Another pause.
“Marco.”
His voice changed.
Not much.
But enough.
“Elena, the person who brought Mia to you was not trying to protect her.”
She froze.
“What?”
“Mia was moved because someone wanted you involved.”
“That does not make sense.”
“It will.”
“Who moved her?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said—”
“I said someone wanted you involved.”
He sounded exhausted now.
“I do not know if Lena sent her or if someone used Lena’s plan after she disappeared.”
Elena felt anger return.
“You are telling me you don’t know.”
“Yes.”
The honesty was unexpected.
May you like
It made the fear worse.
Because Marco was not pretending to control the situation.
