Chapter 3 - My Mother Left Me a MapBy sunrise, the Velvet Crown no longer looked like a luxury club.
For several seconds I didn’t remember where I was.
Then my ribs hurt.
And everything came back.
Marcus.
The apartment.
The rain.
The Velvet Crown.
The photograph.
I sat up too quickly.
A woman in navy scrubs stepped toward me.
“Easy.”
“Where am I?”
“A private medical suite above the club.”
That sentence should have frightened me.
Instead, I stared toward the closed door.
“Where’s Adrien?”
The nurse gave me a look that suggested very few people asked for Adrien Viscari by his first name.
“He’s outside.”
“I need to speak to him.”
“You need imaging first.”
“I need answers first.”
The door opened.
Adrien entered alone.
He had changed shirts.
The black one he wore now made him look even less like a man I should trust.
Yet he was the only person who had stepped between Marcus and me.
Adrien stopped several feet from the bed.
“You have two cracked ribs, bruising along your shoulder and neck, and a mild concussion. No internal bleeding.”
I looked down.
My wrists had been cleaned and bandaged.
“Did you call the police?”
“Yes.”
My chest tightened.
Adrien noticed.
“They won’t speak to you until you want them to.”
“You don’t control the police.”
“No.”
The smallest pause.
“But I control who walks through my door.”
I believed him.
I reached toward the bedside table.
The photograph lay there.
My mother looked twenty-five.
Alive.
Beautiful.
Terrified.
She had died when I was eleven.
At least that was what I had always believed.
Cancer, my aunt Teresa told me.
Late diagnosis.
Nothing doctors could do.
No funeral because my mother wanted cremation.
No grave.
No hospital memories because Teresa said children shouldn’t see those things.
I had accepted every detail because children believe the adults who feed them.
Now I looked at Adrien.
“How did you know my mother?”
Adrien’s eyes moved to the photograph.
“She saved my life.”
That was not the answer I expected.
“When?”
“Twenty-seven years ago.”
“You were a teenager.”
“Eighteen.”
“What happened?”
He pulled a chair closer but didn’t sit immediately.
“My father was not a good man.”
The careful wording almost made me laugh.
“You’re a mafia boss.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“At least you’ve recovered enough to be rude.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
He sat.
“My father, Salvatore Viscari, controlled several businesses. Some legal. Some not. He had enemies. One of those enemies was a man named Victor Sorel.”
The name meant nothing to me.
“Your mother worked as a bookkeeper for a charitable foundation Victor used to wash money.”
I stared.
“My mother was a kindergarten teacher.”
“Later.”
“How do you know?”
“Because before she became Isabelle Hart, she was Isabelle Moreau.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
Adrien continued calmly.
“She discovered where Victor was moving money. More importantly, she discovered something else.”
“What?”
“That Victor was paying public officials, police officers, attorneys and judges. She copied the records.”
My mouth went dry.
Adrien nodded toward the photograph.
“She came to my father because she believed the Viscaris were Victor’s greatest enemy and therefore the only people powerful enough to keep her alive.”
“Did he?”
“No.”
I studied Adrien’s face.
“But you did.”
“I tried.”
He leaned forward.
“One night Victor’s men came for her. I got Isabelle out through the rear entrance of my father’s warehouse. She was carrying a baby.”
“Me.”
“Yes.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“Why have that picture?”
“She gave it to me the night before she disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
That word hit harder than anything Marcus had done.
“My mother died.”
Adrien didn’t answer.
“Tell me she died.”
“I can’t.”
My throat tightened.
“What are you saying?”
“We never found Isabelle’s body.”
I threw the blanket aside.
Pain shot through my ribs.
Adrien rose immediately.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t tell me what to do!”
The nurse moved toward us.
Adrien lifted one hand, and she stopped.
I pressed my palms against my eyes.
“My aunt raised me. She told me my mother died of cancer.”
“Your aunt Teresa?”
My hands lowered.
“You know her?”
Adrien’s jaw hardened.
“I knew of her.”
Before I could ask more, someone knocked.
A broad-shouldered man entered carrying a tablet.
“Sorry.”
“What?” Adrien asked.
The man glanced at me.
Adrien nodded.
“Speak.”
“We checked Marcus Vale.”
I froze.
The man continued.
“His name before eighteen was Marcus Bellini.”
Adrien became still.
“Bellini?”
“Yes.”
“What does that mean?” I demanded.
The man looked at Adrien.
I hated how everyone kept asking permission with their eyes.
“Tell me.”
Adrien finally said, “Marcus’s mother was Victor Sorel’s niece.”
For several seconds, there was no sound.
Then I laughed.
I couldn’t help it.
A strange, empty laugh.
“Okay.”
Adrien watched me.
“So my abusive boyfriend just happens to belong to the family that supposedly hunted my mother twenty-seven years ago?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“You just said—”
“I said his mother was connected to them. I did not say Marcus knew who you were when he met you.”
“How did we meet?”
Adrien frowned.
“At a coffee shop.”
“Who approached whom?”
“He approached me.”
“How soon did you move in together?”
My stomach twisted.
“Eight months.”
“Did he ever ask about your childhood?”
“All the time.”
“Your mother?”
“Yes.”
“Documents? Keepsakes? Jewelry?”
My fingers moved automatically to the locket.
Adrien saw it.
“Did he ever ask about that?”
I remembered Marcus standing behind me while I dressed six months earlier.
Pretty necklace.
Old?
My mother’s.
Anything inside?
No. It doesn’t open anymore.
I had laughed when he offered to get it repaired.
Three days later, I found the chain broken on the bedroom floor.
Marcus said it had gotten caught in the sheets.
I looked at Adrien.
“He tried to take it.”
Adrien stood.
His entire posture changed.
“What?”
“He said he was fixing the clasp. I thought—”
I stopped.
The locket.
My mother’s locket.
The photograph.
The secrets.
I pulled the chain over my head.
“Can you open it?”
Adrien took it carefully.
The silver oval looked solid.
He examined the edges.
Then pressed a tiny indentation near the hinge.
Click.
The locket opened.
I forgot how to breathe.
Inside was no portrait.
No engraving.
There was a tiny strip of transparent plastic.
Adrien called the man with the tablet closer.
“What is that?” I whispered.
“Microfilm.”
My stomach dropped.
Adrien looked up.
“Your mother hid something inside this.”
The man took it away to examine.
I stared at my empty hands.
Then Adrien’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression hardened instantly.
“When?”
Pause.
“Keep everyone out.”
He ended the call.
“What happened?”
Adrien looked at me.
“Marcus went back to your apartment.”
“So?”
“He wasn’t alone.”
Fear crawled across my skin.
“What did they do?”
“They tore the place apart.”
I closed my eyes.
Adrien continued.
“They weren’t looking for you, Elena.”
May you like
I already knew what he was going to say.
“They were looking for the locket.”
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