3. Elena
3
Elena
I wake with a scream dying in my throat. It’s the same nightmare.
Mark's shocked face, eyes wide as the bullet pierced his chest, remains indelibly etched in my memory. The terror of that night lives in my bones now.
Every night, the same dream. For the past three months, I watch my husband die again and again and again, every time I go to sleep.
I sit up in the unfamiliar bed, my heart hammering. The clock on the nightstand reads 2:17 AM. Beside me, Fiona sleeps peacefully. At least the nightmares can’t touch her.
This safe house is sparse but clean—a modest one-bedroom apartment that Matteo Bellanti apparently owns through some shell company.
It’s intentionally small, easier to defend. The neighborhood is quiet, unsuspicious. No one would look for us here .
Three months ago, my life was normal. A husband who loved me, a beautiful daughter, a career I excelled at. Now I’m hiding in a mafia enforcer’s safe house with a price on my head.
I slip out of bed and pad barefoot to the kitchen, careful not to wake Fiona. I need water.
The apartment is dark except for a soft hallway nightlight. I pause in the living room. Matteo is asleep on the couch, his large frame barely fitting.
His feet hang over the armrest, his arm draped across his face. In sleep, the hard edges of his face soften. He looks almost vulnerable—not like the man who killed several people just hours ago.
I move quietly, wincing when the cabinet creaks as I grab a glass and take a bottle of water from the fridge.
Mark and I met six years ago at a financial forensics conference in Chicago.
We were the same nerd—detail-oriented, fascinated by tracing money trails. I never believed in soulmates until Mark.
When he got the job at Ashcroft & Partners, we were ecstatic. The prestigious firm offered him twice his previous salary. It was surreal. We bought our first house, had Fiona. Life was good.
Until he discovered the firm was laundering money for the Caruso crime family. His meticulous nature—the very thing that made him brilliant—led him to uncover their entire operation. The human trafficking. The ritual cult. All of it .
I didn’t know what he’d found until it was too late.
Until they broke into our home and shot him in front of me.
I set the empty glass of water down and notice a stack of blankets in the hall closet. Matteo must be cold.
Before I can think better of it, I grab one and approach the couch.
I’m about to drape it over him when his hand shoots out, gripping my wrist so tightly I gasp. His eyes are instantly alert, cold, assessing.
“What are you doing?” His voice is quiet, but dangerous.
He has rolled up his black shirtsleeves to the elbows, revealing forearms covered in intricate tattoos—dark spirals and symbols crawling from his knuckles all the way up his arms. More ink peeks above his collar, disappearing beneath the sharp line of his jaw. But what draws my eye are the scars—jagged, puckered burn marks spreading across the back of his hand and fingers.
“I—I was getting you a blanket. You looked cold.”
His eyes narrow.
“Not sure what you’re so worried about,” I retort, surprising myself.
He releases my wrist, sitting up in one fluid motion. His precisely cut dark hair doesn’t even look rumpled despite sleep. “Go back to bed.”
I drop the blanket beside him. “Fine. Sorry for trying to be decent.”
“You’re in a building with a killer who just slaughtered several men. Your concept of decency needs recalibration. ”
“Those same men worked for the people who murdered my husband,” I say, rubbing my wrist. “I have a perfectly calibrated sense of decency, thank you.”
My gaze drops to the burns on his hands. “What happened there?”
His angular face hardens. “Work,” he replies, tugging his sleeve down in a practiced motion, covering most of the tattoos, but not before I glimpse what looked like a saint’s face inked into his skin.
"Get some sleep," he finally said, his tone softer. “Tomorrow will be a long day."
I should go back to bed. Instead, I ask, “Do the nightmares ever go away?”
His expression shifts. “No,” he exhales sharply. “They change. Sometimes they fade. But they don’t disappear.”
A cry from the bedroom saves me from having to respond. Fiona is awake.
“Elena.” Matteo’s voice stops me. “The USB drive. Where is it?”
“Somewhere safe,” I reply. “I’ll give it to you when I know Fiona and I are safe.”
I feel his gaze on my back as I walk away, but he doesn’t follow. In the bedroom, I lift Fiona into my arms, soothing her with gentle words until she settles.
“We’re going to be okay,” I whisper, more to convince myself than her .
Tomorrow, I’ll share what I know about the Carusos’ operations. Tomorrow, I’ll have to navigate a world of killers to secure a future for my daughter.
Morning light filters through the thin curtains. For a moment, disoriented, I reach for Mark before reality crashes back. He’s gone.
We’re in hiding.
The smell of coffee drifts from the kitchen. I change Fiona’s diaper, dress her, and step into the living room.
Three people turn to look at me. Matteo, dressed in another impeccable suit, stands near the window. Beside him is a striking woman with warm green eyes.
The third man’s icy gaze makes my stomach tighten.
The Reaper. Nico Moretti.
“Elena,” Matteo says, his voice calm. “This is my sister Isabella and her husband, Nico.”
Isabella inhales sharply. “I heard about what happened….” She shakes her head. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”
I force a painful smile. “Thank you.”
She gestures to several bags on the counter. “Clothes for you and the little one, food, toiletries.”
I nod, unsure of what to say. I’ve seen their files, heard whispers about them while held by Massimo .
Isabella runs the Bellanti family’s legitimate businesses. Nico Moretti, once the Moretti family’s feared enforcer, married into the Bellanti to seal an alliance.
Massimo gloated that their marriage was a disaster, that the alliance would crumble. But looking at them now, I can see he was wrong.
“Thank you,” I say.
Isabella’s eyes soften as she looks at Fiona. “She’s beautiful. May I?”
I hesitate, then nod. She gently strokes Fiona’s cheek.
“We need to discuss security arrangements,” Matteo says. “Nico and I will step outside.”
The two men moved toward the door, their footsteps echoing slightly as they left Isabella, my daughter, and me alone.
Once they’re gone, Isabella guides me to the kitchen table. A cup of coffee sits there.
“He made that for you,” she says. “My brother.”
I take a sip. It’s perfect.
“How did he know I take it this way?”
Isabella smiles. “Lucky guess?”
“I have a son,” she says, playfully poking Fiona’s cheeks. “He’s with my sister today. Having children in this world… I understand your fear, Elena. The constant worry that they might become targets.”
“You chose this life,” I say before I can stop myself .
She doesn’t flinch. “Yes, and no. I was born into the Bellanti family. The business side was my choice. The rest…” She shrugs. “We do what we must with the cards we’re dealt.”
The door opens as Matteo and Nico return. Their expressions are grim.
“We need to see what’s on the drive,” Matteo says.
I take Fiona back from Isabella. “I need your word first. Your explicit promise that you’ll protect my daughter, no matter what happens to me.”
Matteo’s eyes lock with mine. “You have my word. I will protect Fiona and you with my life.”
I retrieve the USB drive from Fiona’s diaper bag and hand it to Matteo. He sets up a laptop.
"May I?" Nico asks, holding out his hands for Fiona.
I raise my brows, surprise coursing through my veins.
I guess having a kid has made him soft.
After a moment’s hesitation, I hand her over. She settles against him easily.
Then I insert the USB into the laptop and open the first video file. The room falls silent. Girls being loaded into shipping containers. Massimo Caruso inspecting the “merchandise.”
"Human trafficking," I explain. "Financial trails, client lists, routes. "
The second folder makes even Nico look away. Ritualistic murder scenes.
“They’re part of a Sicilian cult,” I explain, fighting nausea. “Mark found documentation linking them to at least thirty missing women.”
The final folder makes Matteo and Nico tense. A video of an elderly man. Moments later, Massimo enters—and the man is dead.
“That’s Don Vittorio Calabrese,” Nico breathes. “Head of the Sicilian Commission.”
“Yes,” I confirm. “Mark found proof the Caruso murdered him and blamed it on heart failure.”
Silence hangs in the air.
“This isn’t just about crimes,” Matteo says. “This information would make them targets of every mafia family.”
I meet his gaze. “Mark died for this. Now it’s all I have to bargain with.”
Matteo closes the laptop. When he looks at me, something like understanding flickers in his eyes.
“You were right to tell me,” he says. “This changes everything.”
“What happens now?”
Matteo glances at Nico, his eyes filled with something I can't decipher.
“Now,” Matteo says, “we go to war.”