22. Elena
22
ELENA
I force myself to stay busy in this gilded cage, analyzing intelligence and building new alliances while trying not to feel trapped. My conversations with Siobhan have become increasingly frequent—encrypted messages flying back and forth as we reshape the landscape of power.
Your little insurance policy is paying dividends , she texts. Sean says the shipping records alone are worth their weight in gold. And the banking trails? Pure poetry.
“The old men are scrambling,” she’d purred during our last call, delight dripping from every word. “They don’t understand how deeply you’ve mapped their networks. Using their own digital footprints against them—it’s beautiful really.”
“Your father’s traditional routes are particularly vulnerable,” I’d replied, pulling up files I’ve been compiling for months. “The way he moves money through shell companies…it’s so outdated it’s almost quaint.”
Her laugh had been sharp with ambition. “Oh, we’re going to have such fun rebuilding this empire, you and I.”
I spend my days coordinating multiple operations from behind bulletproof glass—managing my legitimate business remotely through Kate (who deserves a massive raise for handling this “family emergency” so smoothly), analyzing Siobhan’s modernization efforts, tracking the ripple effects of Anthony’s exposed trafficking routes.
And when that’s not enough to keep the walls from closing in, I research preschools. Baby gear. Birthing plans. All the normal things expectant mothers are supposed to care about, as if there’s anything normal about my situation.
My phone buzzes constantly with updates from Siobhan’s network. The Irish are moving digital currency through new channels. The younger captains are aligning behind her. The old guard is starting to notice something’s shifting, but they can’t quite see the pattern yet.
I try not to think about Bella, now thirty-two weeks pregnant with twins who could arrive any day. But it’s impossible to avoid her completely—she’s everywhere in the society pages I shouldn’t be reading. Photos of her at charity events, her belly huge but her smile radiant. Matteo hovering protectively behind her, one hand always resting where his children grow.
I was supposed to be there. To hold her hand through delivery, to meet my godchildren, to share every moment of this journey with my best friend. Instead, I’m hiding in a safe house, carrying another man’s child while helping dismantle the very world Bella’s children will inherit.
The irony is bitter enough to choke on.
My phone chimes again—not one of my usual contacts. The number isn’t familiar, but the message makes my blood turn to ice:
Code Blue in L&D. Preeclampsia confirmed, BP critical. Twin B showing severe decels. Dr. Chen requesting emergency team.
Then another:
You should know—it’s bad. Really bad.
“No, no, no…” The phone slips from my trembling fingers, clattering against imported marble. The sound echoes through the safe house like a gunshot.
Mario materializes instantly, elegance forgotten in his concern. “Elena?”
“Bella’s in trouble.” My voice breaks as I scramble for my coat, hands shaking so badly I can barely manage the buttons. “The twins—their heartbeats are unstable. Preeclampsia. I have to?—”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” He blocks the door, his expression thunderous. “You can’t go anywhere near that hospital. Matteo will have it locked down tighter than the Pentagon.”
“Get out of my way.” The words come out desperate, raw. But even as I say them, I know he’s right. The logical part of my brain—the part that’s kept me alive in this world—knows I can’t just storm Mount Sinai like I would have before.
That doesn’t stop me from trying to help remotely. My fingers fly over my phone as I contact trusted hospital staff, making sure the right specialists are called. Each update makes my chest tighter.
Status updates flood in, each one worse than the last:
BP 160/100 and rising.
Twin A showing decreased movement.
Protein in urine confirming preeclampsia diagnosis.
Preparing OR for emergency intervention.
Every message makes breathing harder, guilt and fear warring in my chest until I feel like I might shatter.
“They’re saying she might need an emergency C-section,” I report, refreshing messages compulsively as I pace the living room. “The boy’s heartbeat keeps dropping and—” Another text appears. “Fuck. She’s hemorrhaging.”
Mario watches from the doorway, his face carefully blank. “Your contacts have it handled. The best doctors are already there.”
“But what if they’re not enough?” My hand drifts to my own swollen belly, terror clawing at my throat. “What if she—” I can’t finish the sentence.
My best friend could be dying, and I can’t even be there to hold her hand. All because I chose Mario. Chose love over loyalty.
The guilt threatens to suffocate me.
“Going there is suicide,” Mario says quietly, his tone gentler than I’ve ever heard it. “After what just happened with Anthony? The hospital will be locked down tight. Every family in New York watching to see if the DeLuca twins survive. The Calabreses and Irish will be watching too. They know you’ll try to make a move.”
I shouldn’t care anymore. Shouldn’t feel this crushing weight of responsibility, this desperate need to help the woman I betrayed. Bella made her position clear—I’m dead to her, just like Mario is dead to his family.
But old loyalties die hard, especially ones forged through years of shared secrets and midnight confessions.
“You think I don’t know that?” But I’m already moving, grabbing my coat. My hands shake as I reach for my bag. “She’s my best friend, Mario, even if she hates me. The only real friend I’ve ever had. If she dies thinking I abandoned her completely…”
“ Elena .” His voice cracks slightly, an edge of desperation I’ve never heard from him before. The sound makes my chest ache—Mario DeLuca, who fears nothing, sounds terrified. “Please. Don’t do this.”
I cup his face in my hands, feeling the stubble rough against my palms, the tension in his jaw. His eyes hold a fear he’s trying desperately to hide—the same look he had when Anthony held that gun in my office. “I have to. You understand that, right? After everything that’s happened, all my betrayals…I have to try to do one thing right.”
He mutters something about me putting him in an early grave, but I can see the resignation in his eyes. He knows he can’t stop me. I kiss him quickly before rushing out to where his most trusted guard waits with a car.
The drive to Mount Sinai feels endless. Manhattan scrolls past my window—streets I used to walk freely are now full of potential threats. Every red light feels like torture as another update comes in about Bella’s failing condition.
I make it three levels into the parking garage before Matteo’s security spots me. Just as I knew they would. The guards’ hands move to their weapons, but it’s Matteo himself who emerges from the shadows, fury radiating from every line of his body.
My breath catches at the sight of him. Those blue-gray eyes are pure ice, promising revenge. For the first time, I truly understand why men fear him—why even Mario speaks of his brother’s rage with grudging respect.
“Give me one reason,” he says softly, that deadly quiet tone sending chills down my spine, “why I shouldn’t have you shot where you stand. After what you and my brother have done.”
“Because I know things about this hospital your men don’t,” I respond, lifting my chin even as fear makes my heart race. “Which doctors are compromised. Which nurses report to rival families. And right now, your wife and children need every advantage they can get.”
“You want to talk about advantages?” Bianca’s voice cuts through the tension like a blade. She emerges from behind her father, still a Mafia princess despite her obvious exhaustion. Dark circles ring her eyes, but her fury burns bright enough to scorch. “Like how you used your position to spy on us? How you betrayed Bella’s trust while pretending to be her friend?”
I force myself not to flinch at the raw hatred in those blue-gray eyes—so like Matteo’s, but the same shape as Mario’s. “Bianca?—”
“ Don’t .” Her hand twitches toward her hip where I know she carries a gun—a habit she started after Mario’s reappearance nearly a year ago. The gesture holds a promise of violence that makes my throat constrict. “Don’t you dare act like we mean anything to you. Not after what you and he did.”
“You’re right.” I keep my voice steady despite my pounding heart. “I betrayed your trust. All of you. But right now, Bella needs every ally she can get. Even ones you hate.”
“She’s not wrong.” Antonio materializes from the shadows, his usual stoic expression troubled. “Three different families have tried placing people on staff since Mrs. DeLuca was admitted. The Rossettis alone?—”
“I don’t give a fuck about rival families right now!” Bianca’s voice cracks with rage, her hands trembling with barely contained fury. The perfect DeLuca composure fractures as she advances on me. “I care about the woman who’s been feeding information to the monster who held me at gunpoint. Who chose him over us. Over Bella .”
“Then care about this,” I cut in sharply. “Dr. Marcus Hansen—Bella’s current ob-gyn? He has gambling debts to the Vituccis. The charge nurse on the maternity ward reports to the Calabreses. And the anesthesiologist on call? His brother disappeared three months ago. The Rossettis are holding him as leverage.”
I watch Matteo process this information, that brilliant tactical mind working behind his carefully blank expression. His head tilts slightly—a gesture I’ve seen a thousand times when he’s evaluating a threat.
“You have proof?” he asks finally, skepticism warring with necessity in his voice.
“Everything’s on my phone. Staff schedules, financial records, proof of compromised personnel. It’s yours—along with my network of trusted contacts who can replace them. All I’m asking is a chance to help. One last time,” I say as I fumble for my phone.
Relief courses through me as I pull up the files. Just let me do this one thing right.
The silence stretches like a wire about to snap. Finally, Matteo speaks into his comm: “Get me new staff. Full background checks. Use Ms. Santiago’s information to?—”
“Dad, you can’t trust her!” Bianca’s voice cracks with fury and fear. She stares at her father with wide eyes, looking suddenly young and vulnerable. “After everything she’s done?—”
“No.” Matteo’s eyes never leave my face, cold and assessing. “But right now, your stepmother and siblings need every advantage. Even dangerous ones.”
He steps closer, close enough that I catch the familiar scent of his cologne—the same one he’s worn since I first met him. His stubble is more pronounced than usual, evidence of hours spent worrying. “But understand this: the moment this is over, if I ever see you near my family again…”
He doesn’t finish the threat. He doesn’t need to.
I nod once, sharply. “Understood.”
What follows is a carefully choreographed dance. I work through Antonio, never getting close enough to actually see Bella. My phone becomes command central as I coordinate replacements.
“Dr. Sarah Chen is clean,” I tell Antonio. “Harvard trained, no family connections, and she specializes in high-risk multiples. Get her here now.”
“The Vituccis have someone in radiology,” he reports back twenty minutes later.
“Use Marcus Thompson instead—he’s on call at Presbyterian. His wife just had twins last year, he’ll understand the urgency.”
Every person who comes near the DeLuca family gets triple-vetted. I check credentials, financial records, family connections. One nurse gets pulled when I discover her cousin works for the Calabreses. An orderly is replaced after I find suspicious deposits in his account.
“The anesthesiologist from Mount Sinai Brooklyn,” I tell Matteo’s captain. “He’s clean and he’s the best with compromised patients. I’ll have him here in thirty minutes.”
Hours pass in a blur of coordination and careful maneuvering. Then finally, my phone buzzes with the update I’ve been praying for: Twins delivered safely. Boy 4lbs 2oz, girl 3lbs 11oz. Mother stable.
My knees nearly buckle with relief. I find an empty waiting area, needing a moment to process. My hand drifts to my own stomach, to my daughter who will never know her cousins. Who will never play with Bella’s children or hear them called family.
More family lost to choices I can’t take back.
Another text: They’re naming them Giovanni and Arianna. Both breathing on their own. Father hasn’t left their side.
Tears burn behind my eyes as memories flood back—late nights with Bella, planning the nursery while sharing gelato and dreams. How she’d grabbed my hands, eyes bright with joy, when asking me to be godmother. “You’re the only one I trust with them,” she’d said. “The only one who’s always been there.”
Now I’ll never even get to hold them.
My phone buzzes with a text from Mario: Tell me you’re alive.
They’re all safe , I reply. The twins are beautiful. Perfect.
His response makes my breath catch in my throat: You did the right thing, little planner. Even if they never know. Now get out of there before Matteo remembers he’s supposed to kill you.
I start to rise, to walk away from everything I’ve lost, when Bianca’s voice freezes me in place.
“I thought you’d still be here.”
I turn slowly. Bianca stands in the doorway, her face a battlefield of complicated emotions. For a moment, I see her as that scared twelve-year-old in the warehouse. Before any of us knew how choices could destroy everything we love.
“I was just leaving,” I say quietly.
“Good.” Bianca’s voice drips hatred. “But first—she asked for you. When she woke up. Even after everything, even knowing what you’ve done, her first thought was still to ask if you were here.”
She says that on purpose. To hurt me.
And it works.
I feel each word crack against my ribs, stealing my breath. Of course Bella would ask for me. Even after my betrayal, even after everything—that’s who she is. Who she’s always been. Better than all of us.
I force myself to breathe through the pain. “Tell her…” But what can I possibly say? What words could ever bridge this chasm I’ve created? “Tell her I’m glad they’re healthy. That I—” My voice breaks. “That I’m sorry. For everything.”
“Sorry doesn’t fix what you and he did.” Bianca’s hand drifts to her gun again. “If I ever see you near my family again…”
“You won’t.” I straighten my shoulders, squaring myself against the weight of all my choices. “Take care of them, B. Those babies are lucky to have you as their big sister.”
I walk away before she can respond, my heels clicking against hospital tiles for what I know will be the last time. The sound echoes through empty corridors like a funeral march. Everything I’ve built, every relationship I’ve cultivated, all of it sacrificed for a love that both saves and damns me.
My phone buzzes one final time—a photo from one of the nurses I trusted. The twins in their separate NICU incubators, tiny but fighting. Giovanni, slightly larger, dark hair visible beneath his breathing tubes. Arianna, smaller but already showing her mother’s determination in the way she grips her father’s finger.
Matteo stands between them, his usual controlled expression cracked with worry as he watches his children fight for every breath.
Bella isn’t in the photo—she’d still be in recovery after the emergency C-section. But I know she’s probably demanding updates every few minutes, refusing to rest until she can see them.
I delete the photo immediately, but the image burns behind my eyes. Those tiny babies, so fragile yet so loved, fighting to survive their early arrival into this dangerous world.
Babies I’ll never get to hold, never get to watch grow up.
In the parking garage, Mario waits in a borrowed car, his face tight with worry. He doesn’t speak as I slide into the passenger seat, just reaches for my hand. His fingers are warm against mine, an anchor in the storm of loss threatening to drown me.
“Take me home,” I whisper, and feel him squeeze my fingers in silent support.
I don’t look back as we drive away. I made my choice the moment I let Mario into my life, trading one family for another. The weight of it sits heavy in my chest.
A reminder that every choice has consequences, that love and loss are two sides of the same blade.
Now I have to learn to live with the scars.