Chapter 7 - THE WOMAN BEHIND CERULEANHer name was Evelyn Kane.
Daniel Cross came with them.
Matteo didn’t trust him.
Luca trusted him less.
Elena barely seemed aware he existed.
Rose wasn’t her mother.
Victor’s words had lodged inside her mind like broken glass.
At the safe house, Isabella was waiting.
Elena entered first.
“Who was my mother?”
Isabella’s face changed.
That was enough.
Elena stopped.
“You knew.”
“Sit down.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“Who gave birth to me?”
Isabella looked toward Matteo.
He understood something terrible.
She had known this too.
“Elena—”
“Tell me!”
Isabella flinched.
“Rose raised you.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No.”
Isabella’s eyes filled.
“It wasn’t.”
Elena stepped backward.
For twenty-six years, every photograph of Rose, every birthday, every memory suddenly felt unstable.
“Who?”
Isabella whispered a name.
“Catherine Sloane.”
Matteo looked at Cross.
He recognized it.
“Victor’s wife.”
Isabella nodded.
Elena stared.
“Victor Sloane is my father?”
“No.”
The answer came fast.
Too fast.
Elena frowned.
“Then who was Catherine?”
“Victor’s wife.”
“And my father?”
Isabella closed her eyes.
“Antonio.”
Everything stopped.
Matteo stared at his mother.
Elena didn’t breathe.
Antonio DeLuca.
Matteo’s father by choice.
Elena’s biological father.
That made Elena—
“My sister,” Matteo whispered.
Elena turned toward him.
The attraction that had begun growing between them died instantly beneath shock.
Isabella saw their faces.
“No.”
She stood quickly.
“I explained it wrong.”
Matteo’s patience snapped.
“Then explain it correctly for once!”
Isabella recoiled.
“Antonio believed Elena was his daughter.”
“Believed?”
“He was told she was.”
“By whom?”
“Catherine.”
Daniel Cross stepped closer.
“This is why Victor wanted Rose.”
Isabella nodded.
Catherine Sloane had been terrified of her husband.
She began secretly helping Antonio after discovering the trafficking network.
When she became pregnant, she told Victor the child was his.
Later, she privately told Antonio the child belonged to him.
No DNA test was ever done.
Catherine died during childbirth.
Victor wanted the baby raised inside his household.
Antonio refused.
Rose took the infant and disappeared.
“Why?” Elena asked.
“Because Catherine’s last request was that you never belong to Victor.”
Elena hugged herself.
“Then who is my father?”
“We don’t know.”
Matteo felt sick.
Everything had become bloodlines and lies.
Cross spoke.
“Victor thinks Elena is his.”
“Then why hurt her?” Matteo asked.
“Because people like Victor don’t understand children. They understand possessions.”
Elena looked at Isabella.
“Rose knew?”
“Yes.”
“All my life?”
“She loved you.”
“That doesn’t answer anything.”
“She loved you as her daughter.”
Elena turned away.
Tears finally came.
Matteo wanted to comfort her.
Then stopped.
Until they knew the truth between them, he couldn’t.
And the realization hurt more than expected.
Cross broke the silence.
“We can determine paternity.”
Elena wiped her eyes.
“How?”
“Victor’s DNA exists in an old federal evidence file.”
Matteo stared at him.
“You have his DNA?”
“From a 1998 investigation.”
“Then do it.”
Cross nodded.
“But there’s another problem.”
“Of course there is.”
“The Cerulean ledger implicates current officials.”
“How high?”
“High enough that I won’t upload it into federal evidence until we know who is clean.”
Matteo smiled humorlessly.
“So the criminals can’t trust the police.”
Cross looked at him.
“Today, apparently neither can I.”
They created copies.
One went with Cross.
One into a private legal vault.
A third was encrypted and scheduled for release to multiple journalists if Matteo failed to cancel a digital timer every twelve hours.
Victor could kill them.
But he couldn’t bury the truth anymore.
That evening, Elena stood on the balcony.
Matteo joined her.
Neither spoke for a while.
Then she said, “This is awkward.”
He almost laughed.
“Understatement.”
“What were you thinking before?”
“When?”
“Before Isabella told us Antonio might be my father.”
Matteo looked out over the city.
“That you were reckless.”
She smiled slightly.
“Anything else?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“That I wanted to kiss you.”
Elena looked at him.
“And now?”
“Now I’d like DNA results.”
She laughed.
Actually laughed.
Matteo did too.
For thirty seconds, the nightmare loosened its grip.
Then his phone rang.
Cross.
“Results are back.”
Already?
Expedited federal lab.
Matteo put it on speaker.
Elena moved closer.
Cross spoke carefully.
“Victor Sloane is not Elena’s biological father.”
Elena exhaled.
Matteo remained rigid.
“And Antonio?”
“We obtained Antonio’s archived medical sample through an old hospital record.”
A pause.
“He isn’t Elena’s father either.”
Silence.
Elena gripped the railing.
“Then who is?”
“We ran familial comparisons.”
Cross hesitated.
“There’s a strong paternal relationship with someone already in the federal database.”
“Who?”
“A man named Thomas Marlowe.”
Elena stared.
“My mother’s brother?”
Cross corrected her.
“Rose’s husband.”
Elena covered her mouth.
Thomas Marlowe had died when Elena was six.
She barely remembered him.
“He was my father.”
“Yes.”
Matteo’s shoulders dropped.
Relief arrived before he could stop it.
Elena noticed.
Their eyes met.
Neither spoke.
Cross continued.
“Catherine lied to Victor and Antonio.”
“Why?” Matteo asked.
“To make both men protect Elena.”
Elena understood first.
“Because my real parents had something Victor wanted.”
Cross nodded.
“Exactly.”
“What?”
“The original records proving Victor’s network.”
Matteo frowned.
“We have the ledger.”
“No.”
Cross’s voice sharpened.
“The ledger is evidence of crimes.”
“What’s the difference?”
“What Rose and Thomas had proves who financed the entire operation.”
“Who?”
Before Cross answered, his side of the call erupted in noise.
A crash.
A shout.
Then gunfire.
“Cross?”
No answer.
“Daniel!”
Breathing.
Then another voice came through the phone.
A woman.
Calm.
Older.
“You should stop trusting federal agents, Mr. DeLuca.”
Matteo looked at Luca.
“Who is this?”
“The person Antonio should have feared from the beginning.”
A shot sounded.
The call ended.
Minutes later they received a photograph.
Cross tied to a chair.
Alive.
For now.
Beneath the photograph:
BRING ELENA AND THE LEDGER TO PIER 19 AT MIDNIGHT.
Elena whispered, “Who sent it?”
Matteo zoomed in.
A reflection appeared in a window behind Cross.
A woman wearing a dark suit.
And on her hand—
a blue stone.
Not Victor’s ring.
A matching one.
Isabella saw the photograph.
Her face went pale.
Matteo noticed.
“You know her.”
Isabella whispered, “Yes.”
May you like
“Who is she?”
“The woman who really ordered your father killed.”
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