CHAPTER 3 THE MESSAGE FROM A DEAD NUMBER
The police arrived before midnight.
They questioned Julian, Elena, the hospital staff, and the woman who had entered the room disguised as a nurse.
The woman refused to provide her name.
Her fingerprints did not match any European criminal database.
The syringe contained a powerful sedative mixed with a drug that could trigger dangerous contractions in late pregnancy.
Dr. Meyers explained the result in a quiet consultation room.
"Had she injected the full dose, we might not have been able to stop labor."
Julian looked through the glass wall toward Elena's room.
"Would the baby have survived?"
"At thirty-two weeks, survival is possible, but there would have been serious risks."
"And Elena?"
The doctor did not answer quickly enough.
Julian turned to face her.
"Tell me."
"The combination could have caused severe bleeding."
He walked to the end of the room because he did not trust himself near anything breakable.
Every instinct demanded action.
He wanted Niko Vass found before sunrise.
He wanted the fake nurse's face distributed across every border checkpoint.
He wanted Sebastian dragged out of bed and forced to explain why Elena's calls never reached him.
Most of all, he wanted to return to Elena and promise no one would ever touch her again.
He knew now that such a promise would sound hollow.
Someone had reached her inside a locked maternity floor.
Someone had monitored her pregnancy for weeks.
Someone had written his dead brother's name beneath her bracelet.
Power had not protected her.
It had built the hallways through which her enemies moved.
When Julian returned to the room, Elena was sitting upright.
A police detective named Mara Klein stood beside the window with a notebook.
Mara had a precise voice and tired eyes that missed very little.
"Mrs. Rossi says she has been living under the name Elena Marquez for the past five months," Mara said.
"That is her maiden name," Julian replied.
"The hotel has no record of her being married."
"The hotel also employed a security contractor who followed her here."
"We are checking that."
"Check faster."
Mara closed her notebook.
"Mr. Rossi, I understand you are accustomed to giving orders, but this is now an attempted homicide investigation."
"Then investigate it."
"I am trying."
Her gaze sharpened.
"You can help by answering a simple question."
"Ask it."
"Who benefits if your wife and unborn child disappear?"
Julian almost said no one.
Then he thought of the Rossi family trust.
His marriage contract named Elena as beneficiary if Julian died without living children.
If a child was born, the controlling shares would eventually pass into a protected line outside the reach of Vittoria or the executive board.
Sebastian had drafted the documents.
"Several people," Julian said.
Elena looked at him.
"The trust."
He nodded.
Mara wrote something down.
"I will need copies."
"You will have them."
"I will also need access to your corporate security records and household staff logs."
"You will have those too."
Elena gave a humorless smile.
"Unless they have already been cleaned."
Mara turned toward her.
"Why do you think that?"
"Because everything else was."
The detective sat in the chair beside the bed.
"Mrs. Rossi, you told me you left your home after receiving threats."
"Yes."
"From whom?"
"The messages were anonymous."
"But you have suspicions."
Elena looked at Julian.
He expected her to say Vittoria.
Instead, she said, "Someone inside Rossi Holdings."
"That could describe hundreds of people."
"Someone with access to Julian's voice, calendar, private estate, bank accounts, and security team."
Mara glanced at Julian.
"That narrows it."
"To people I trusted," he said.
The detective asked Elena to describe the night she vanished.
Elena drew a long breath.
"I was in the east library when the power went out."
Julian frowned.
"There was no outage in the estate logs."
"The main house went dark for four minutes."
"I reviewed every security report."
"Then someone changed them."
She continued.
"A man entered through the garden doors."
"Niko?" Julian asked.
"I never saw his face."
"What did he want?"
"The Marina Verde file."
"Did you give it to him?"
"I told him I did not have it."
"And then?"
Elena's hand drifted toward her ribs.
"He pushed me against the desk."
Julian's vision narrowed.
"He hurt you."
"I was not showing yet, but I knew I was pregnant."
"You knew?"
"I had taken a test that morning."
The room seemed to lose all sound.
Julian had imagined learning he would be a father in a dozen ordinary ways.
A gift box at breakfast.
A photograph tucked inside his briefcase.
Elena laughing as she placed his hand over her stomach.
Instead, she had learned alone and spent the same night fighting a man inside their home.
"Why did you not tell me?" he asked.
"I tried."
The answer was simple and devastating.
Elena looked at Mara.
"The intruder left when he heard a car outside."
"Whose car?"
"I thought it was Julian."
"But I was in Frankfurt," Julian said.
"Someone had sent me a message from your phone saying you would be home in ten minutes."
"I never sent it."
"I know that now."
Mara asked whether Elena still had the message.
"My phone was taken two hours later."
"By whom?"
"Sebastian Hale."
Julian's head snapped toward her.
"You saw him that night?"
"At the west gate."
"He told me he had not been at the estate for a week."
"He said you asked him to drive me to a private apartment until you returned."
"I did not."
"I refused to get into his car."
Elena's voice grew thinner.
"Then he played the recording of you saying you wanted me gone."
"And you believed it?"
"Not completely."
"What changed your mind?"
"He showed me a live video."
Julian felt cold.
"Of what?"
"Your car on a mountain road."
"I was driving from Frankfurt to Zurich."
"I know."
She looked at him fully.
"A black truck was following you."
Julian remembered the drive.
Rain had hammered the windshield.
A truck had stayed close for nearly forty kilometers before disappearing at an exit.
At the time, he had assumed the driver was reckless.
"Sebastian told me the truck would force you off the road unless I got into his car."
Mara stopped writing.
"Did he say that directly?"
"Yes."
"And you went with him."
"I believed I was saving Julian's life."
Julian gripped the back of the chair.
"Where did he take you?"
"A villa outside Como."
"Owned by whom?"
"The records said a shell company."
"How long were you there?"
"Eleven days."
"Were you free to leave?"
Elena looked at Mara.
"The doors were locked from the outside."
Julian's control broke.
He turned away and drove his fist into the wall.
Pain shot through his hand.
Elena flinched.
He saw it and hated himself for adding one more violent sound to her memory.
"I am sorry," he said.
Mara stood.
"Mr. Rossi, step into the corridor."
"No."
"You are frightening her."
"I am not afraid of him," Elena said.
Her voice was quiet.
"I am afraid of what he will do when he finally understands how many people lied to him."
Julian forced his hand open.
Blood marked his knuckles.
"Then tell me now."
Elena shook her head.
"There are things I do not know how to prove."
"Start with what happened at the villa."
"Vittoria came on the second day."
Julian stopped breathing.
"My mother?"
"She brought documents."
"What documents?"
"A separation agreement, a transfer authorization, and a statement saying I had stolen money from you."
"You signed them."
"Not at first."
"What made you sign?"
Elena's eyes glistened.
"She showed me the truck again."
Julian could barely hear her.
"She said accidents were a family tradition."
The words landed with terrible precision.
Alessio's car had gone through a mountain barrier.
Julian's father had died after a private helicopter malfunctioned.
Two tragedies.
Two accidents.
A family tradition.
Mara looked between them.
"Did Mrs. Vittoria Rossi confess to causing either death?"
"No."
"But she implied it."
"She wanted me to understand that Julian was not untouchable."
"What did she want besides your signature?"
"The copies of the Marina Verde file."
"Did you give them to her?"
"I gave her one copy."
"How many existed?"
"Three."
Julian leaned closer.
"Where are the others?"
"Sofia had one."
"And the third?"
Elena's hand moved to the silver locket at her throat.
The locket was small, scratched, and inexpensive.
Julian remembered giving it to her during a weekend in Florence before they were married.
"Inside?" he asked.
"Not anymore."
"Where is it?"
"Somewhere only a Rossi would think to look."
Mara asked what that meant.
Elena did not answer.
Her gaze had shifted to Julian's bleeding hand.
"You need stitches."
"I need the truth."
"The truth will still be here after a doctor looks at you."
It was the first time she had sounded like his wife.
The tenderness lasted only a moment, but Julian felt it like warmth after a winter that had gone on too long.
A police officer entered and whispered to Mara.
The detective's expression changed.
"The woman disguised as a nurse has been identified."
"Who is she?" Julian asked.
"Her name is Anya Petrov."
"That means nothing to me."
"She worked as a private nurse at a rehabilitation clinic in Lugano."
Elena's face went rigid.
Mara noticed.
"You know the clinic."
"I was taken there after the villa."
Julian stared at her.
"You said you were held for eleven days."
"At the villa."
"How long at the clinic?"
"Six weeks."
He felt the room close around him.
"Why?"
"They said I was mentally unstable."
"Who signed the admission order?"
Elena looked at the bracelet on the table.
"According to the records, you did."
Julian's phone vibrated.
A message appeared from a number he had not seen in fifteen years.
It belonged to Alessio.
Julian had kept it stored long after the service was disconnected.
The text contained a photograph of the Grand Alcazar's laundry corridor.
A red arrow pointed toward a steel door behind a row of industrial dryers.
Beneath the photograph was a single sentence.
YOUR WIFE HID THE TRUTH WHERE OUR MOTHER BURIED MINE.
Julian stared at the screen.
May you like
A second message arrived.
COME ALONE BEFORE DAWN, OR THE ROOM WILL BE EMPTY.
