The Mother Who Never Died
Chapter 08 - The Mother Who Never Died
Victor did not believe Mariana.
Not at first.
“No.”
Mariana held the pearl.
“You remember these.”
Victor did.
Their mother wore matching South Sea pearls on formal nights.
Enzo bought them for their twentieth anniversary.
Victor had buried one beside her.
Apparently not both.
“How?”
Dmitri asked.
Mariana looked at him.
“You tell me.”
He shook his head.
“I saw the body.”
“Did you see her face?”
Dmitri stopped.
Victor looked at him.
“Dmitri.”
The security chief’s silence became an answer.
The car crash that supposedly killed Eleanor Romano had burned beyond easy identification.
Dental records confirmed her.
Records controlled by a Romano dentist.
Funeral closed casket.
Victor had never questioned it.
Of course not.
Grief rarely audits paperwork.
Lena watched him unravel quietly.
First Mariana.
Now Eleanor.
Two women in his family had disappeared and allowed him to mourn them.
“Why?” he asked.
Mariana answered.
“I don’t know.”
Victor looked at Lena.
As if she might.
She had nothing.
Daniel tugged her sleeve.
He typed.
Woman smelled like roses.
Mariana closed her eyes.
“Mother’s perfume.”
Victor sat.
For once nobody rushed him.
Then Dmitri’s phone rang.
Hospital.
Rosa had regained strength.
She wanted Lena.
They went.
Victor came too.
Rosa looked at him for a long time.
“You have Enzo’s eyes.”
Victor did not smile.
“You knew my mother was alive.”
Rosa closed her eyes.
Lena stared.
“Mama.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Samuel.”
Victor stepped closer.
“Why did she disappear?”
Rosa looked at Mariana.
“Because Enzo learned Eleanor helped Samuel hide you.”
Mariana’s face changed.
“What?”
Eleanor had known.
Not everything.
Enough.
She knew Gerald Mercer wanted Mariana dead.
She helped Samuel create the fake fire.
Years later, when Enzo discovered the truth, their marriage broke.
Eleanor threatened to expose the old crimes.
Then Enzo died.
Gerald Mercer panicked.
Eleanor disappeared before he could reach her.
“Why fake her death?” Victor asked.
“To make Gerald stop looking.”
“And me?”
Rosa began crying.
“She believed you were safer if you thought she was dead.”
Victor laughed bitterly.
“Everyone keeps loving me by disappearing.”
No one answered.
Lena felt that sentence.
Victor looked at Rosa.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Samuel?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“He wrote one address.”
Rosa looked at Lena.
“In your father’s Bible.”
Lena frowned.
“We don’t have his Bible.”
Daniel typed.
Yes we do.
Lena turned.
He smiled slightly.
Top cabinet. Mama said never touch.
Rosa looked guilty.
“Mama.”
“I was preserving it.”
“You hid a dead man’s Bible from us?”
“I also hid a mafia witness. Perspective.”
Victor actually laughed.
Rosa smiled.
Good.
They retrieved the Bible.
Inside the back cover was an address.
A small town in Vermont.
Victor wanted to leave immediately.
Lena stopped him.
“Think.”
“I am.”
“No. You’re reacting.”
He looked at her.
She held his stare.
“Someone pretending to be your mother took Daniel.”
“Yes.”
“Then left a clue only Mariana would recognize.”
Victor stopped.
Mariana said, “She wanted us to follow.”
Dmitri nodded.
“Could be a trap.”
Lena looked at the address.
“Or an invitation.”
Victor rubbed his face.
“I’m tired of invitations.”
“Same.”
They went anyway.
Not with an army.
Victor brought Dmitri.
Lena brought Daniel because he refused to stay behind and because Rosa was furious enough to support him.
Mariana came.
The Vermont house sat beside a lake.
No guards.
No cameras visible.
A woman opened the door before they knocked.
Silver hair.
Dark eyes.
Victor’s face.
Eleanor Romano looked at her children.
Then cried.
Victor did not hug her.
Neither did Mariana.
Lena understood.
Reunions were not forgiveness.
Eleanor looked at Lena.
“Samuel’s daughter.”
“You took my brother.”
“I intercepted the woman Clara sent for him.”
Daniel looked at Eleanor, then nodded once.
Lena stepped forward.
“You still pointed a gun at him.”
“An unloaded one, because Leon’s men were watching the pier. If they knew I had pulled Daniel away from Clara’s people, they would have shot us both before I got him inside.”
“That does not make it normal.”
“No.”
Eleanor accepted the hit.
“It makes it the least terrible option I had, and I am still sorry I used him without asking.”
Victor stared at his mother.
“Why now?”
“Because Leon was never the top.”
Silence.
“Who was?”
Eleanor looked at him.
“Your father.”
Victor’s face emptied.
“Enzo is dead.”
“Yes.”
“He died sixteen years ago.”
“Yes.”
“Then how—”
“He built Route Seven with Gerald.”
Mariana shook her head.
“No.”
Eleanor continued.
“Gerald expanded it. Leon inherited it. But Enzo created the structure.”
Victor stepped back.
Everything Samuel wrote.
Everything Marcus said.
All of it incomplete.
Lena watched him.
Eleanor said, “Samuel discovered Enzo’s role.”
“And Enzo killed him?”
Lena asked.
“No.”
“Then who?”
Eleanor looked at her.
“Samuel.”
Lena stared.
“What?”
“Your father caused his own accident.”
The room went silent.
Lena laughed once.
“No.”
Eleanor’s eyes filled.
“He was being followed. He drove the construction truck off the unfinished ramp to stop Gerald’s men from reaching a school bus ahead.”
Lena stopped breathing.
“He chose the crash?”
“Yes.”
“He knew he’d die?”
“I don’t know.”
Daniel began crying.
Lena pulled him close.
Eleanor continued.
“Samuel saved thirty-two children that morning.”
Victor closed his eyes.
Lena hated the story.
Loved the story.
Wanted it to be false.
Wanted it to make the loss mean something.
None of those feelings changed the fact that her father had died.
Then Eleanor placed a final envelope on the table.
“He left this with me.”
Lena stared.
“To you?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you give it to us?”
“Because it names someone still alive.”
Victor looked up.
“Who?”
Eleanor pushed the envelope toward Lena.
She opened it.
One page.
One name.
MARCUS DALE.
Lena frowned.
“Marcus?”
The banquet server.
The man who claimed Leon held his daughter.
The man who taught Lena the table numbers.
Eleanor’s voice turned cold.
“Marcus wasn’t protecting you.”
Lena stared.
May you like
“He was protecting himself.”
**The oldest ally in Lena’s life—the man who had quietly watched over her family for years—had been standing inside Route Seven from the beginning.**
