Chapter 5 - The Convent

Saint Agnes had been abandoned for twelve years, but the chapel still had stained glass.

Rain painted red and blue shadows across the stone floor as Galen entered through a side passage with Matteo and six men.

No lights.

No voices.

Just the dripping roof and the distant groan of old wood.

Ainsley had insisted on coming.

Galen had refused.

Then she told him Celeste used verbal codes with her security teams and that one wrong response could get Lily killed.

So Ainsley came wearing a bulletproof vest beneath a borrowed coat.

“If this is a trick,” Matteo whispered, “I shoot you first.”

Ainsley did not look at him.

“That seems fair.”

Galen glanced toward her.

“You do not get points for accepting consequences.”

“I know.”

They moved deeper into the convent.

At the end of a corridor, they found a fresh candle burning.

Beside it sat a white rose.

Elena’s flower.

Ainsley stopped.

“My mother left that.”

“How do you know?”

“She puts white roses at funerals.”

Galen’s blood cooled.

Then a speaker crackled overhead.

Celeste’s voice filled the corridor.

“Galen.”

Ainsley closed her eyes.

Galen looked up.

“Where are they?”

“You always were impatient.”

“Lily and Elena.”

“Alive. For the moment.”

Ainsley shouted, “Mother!”

Celeste laughed softly.

“You disappoint me.”

“You kidnapped my daughter.”

“I protected your daughter for nine years while you pretended she was your sister.”

Ainsley’s face twisted.

“You made me.”

“No. I offered you survival.”

Galen moved while she spoke, signaling Matteo toward the stairwell.

Celeste’s voice continued.

“You were never strong enough for Marco. You were never strong enough for Galen. You confuse being desired with being valuable.”

Ainsley shook.

Galen leaned close.

“She wants you unstable.”

“I know.”

“Then disappoint her.”

Ainsley inhaled slowly.

“Where is Lily?”

“Ask Galen where his wife hid my ledger.”

Galen stopped.

“You have Elena.”

“Yes.”

“Ask her yourself.”

“I have.”

“And?”

“She is still stubborn.”

Something violent moved through him.

“If you hurt her—”

Celeste interrupted.

“Do not threaten me with emotions, Galen. Your father tried. Marco tried. Elena tried. You Rossi men keep believing love makes you dangerous.”

Ainsley whispered, “She’s in the old infirmary.”

Galen looked at her.

“How do you know?”

“The echo. The speaker system was installed near the infirmary wing.”

Matteo nodded.

They turned.

Gunfire erupted from the far corridor.

The convent exploded into motion.

Galen fired twice.

Matteo’s team spread.

Ainsley ducked behind a stone column.

“Blue door!” she shouted. “Service passage!”

They reached it.

Behind the door was a narrow stairwell.

At the bottom, they found a locked steel gate.

Ainsley entered six numbers on a keypad.

Galen looked at her.

“Lily’s birthday?”

Ainsley nodded.

The gate opened.

The basement smelled of mildew and antiseptic.

They found Lily first.

She was locked in a small storage room, wrists bound, face streaked with tears.

When Ainsley saw her, she stopped as if struck.

“Lily.”

The girl looked up.

Her expression hardened.

“Don’t call me that like you’re my sister.”

Ainsley fell to her knees.

“I know.”

Galen cut Lily’s restraints.

“Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Where is Elena?”

Lily looked at him carefully.

“You’re Uncle Galen.”

He swallowed.

“Yes.”

“She said you’d come.”

“Where is she?”

“They moved her.”

“Which direction?”

Lily pointed.

“Through the old tunnel.”

Ainsley reached toward her.

Lily recoiled.

The movement devastated Ainsley.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“You lied to me my whole life.”

“Yes.”

“You let Grandma tell me my mother didn’t want me.”

Ainsley began crying.

“I was weak.”

Lily’s voice sharpened.

“That’s not an answer.”

“No.”

Ainsley lowered her hand.

“It’s only the truth.”

Galen looked at Matteo.

“Get her out.”

Lily shook her head.

“No. Elena said the tunnel has two exits. If you go the wrong way, they’ll reach the road.”

“Do you know which?”

“She told me to remember bells.”

Galen frowned.

“Bells?”

Lily nodded.

“When they took her, I heard church bells outside, but not from here.”

Matteo pulled up a map.

“There’s a functioning parish east of the property.”

“Tunnel east,” Galen said.

They moved.

The tunnel was barely wide enough for two people.

Halfway through, they found blood on the wall.

Galen touched it.

Fresh.

Ainsley whispered, “Elena?”

He kept moving.

At the eastern exit, two armed men waited.

The fight lasted seconds.

Then Galen burst into a wooded clearing behind a small cemetery.

A van was parked near the road.

Celeste stood beside it.

Her coat was immaculate despite the rain.

A gun rested against Elena’s ribs.

For five years, Galen had imagined his wife in dreams.

Sometimes she was still thirty-one.

Sometimes burned.

Sometimes silent.

Reality was worse.

Elena looked thinner. Her dark hair was shorter and streaked with gray at the temples. There was blood on her blouse and bruising around one eye.

But she was alive.

Their eyes met.

Neither spoke.

Celeste smiled.

“How touching.”

Galen could not breathe.

Elena did.

“Don’t.”

One word.

The same tone she had used when he was about to do something reckless.

Galen almost laughed.

Almost broke.

Instead he lifted his gun.

Celeste pressed hers harder against Elena.

“You shoot, she dies.”

“You kill her, you die.”

“I die eventually.”

Celeste looked toward Lily.

“The child comes with me.”

Ainsley stepped in front of Lily.

“No.”

Celeste’s expression changed.

“Ainsley.”

“No.”

“You have disappointed me enough.”

Ainsley’s voice shook.

“She is my daughter.”

“You gave up the right to say that.”

“You took the right from me.”

Celeste laughed.

“And now you have courage because Galen is here?”

Ainsley looked at Elena.

“No.”

Then at Eira’s bruise in her memory.

“I have courage because I finally understand what cowardice cost everyone else.”

Celeste fired.

Ainsley jerked.

Galen fired at the same instant.

Celeste spun backward, hit in the shoulder.

Elena dropped.

Matteo’s men rushed forward.

Ainsley collapsed beside Lily.

Blood spread across her coat.

“Mom!”

Lily’s scream tore through the clearing.

Ainsley stared at her.

The word seemed to hurt more than the bullet.

“Say it again.”

Lily dropped beside her.

“Mom.”

Ainsley laughed weakly.

“Good.”

Galen reached Elena.

For a second he could not touch her.

Five years of grief stood between them.

Elena solved it.

She put one hand against his face.

“You got older.”

He made a broken sound.

“So did you.”

“I’m sorry.”

He wanted to say a thousand things.

Instead:

“Eira is alive.”

Elena closed her eyes.

“I know.”

“She heard your call.”

“I know.”

“She’s waiting.”

Elena began crying.

“Then take me home.”

Behind them, Matteo shouted.

Celeste was gone.

The blood trail led into the cemetery.

A vehicle engine roared on the far road.

Galen looked toward it.

Elena tightened her fingers around his coat.

“Let her go.”

He stared.

“She’ll disappear.”

“Not for long.”

“What did you do?”

Elena reached inside her blouse and pulled out a tiny metal capsule on a chain.

“I gave her the ledger.”

Galen froze.

“You gave it to her?”

“A copy.”

A faint smile touched Elena’s mouth.

“With a tracker inside the spine.”

Even wounded, exhausted, and hunted for five years, Elena had planned three moves ahead.

Galen almost smiled.

Matteo approached.

“Ainsley needs a hospital now.”

Lily refused to leave her side.

Galen lifted Elena.

She winced.

“Can you walk?”

“Probably.”

“I’m carrying you.”

“You always were controlling.”

“You always complained.”

“I’m not complaining.”

Her arms went around his neck.

For one impossible second, the cemetery vanished.

Then Elena whispered against his ear:

“Damian betrayed me again.”

Galen stopped.

“What?”

“He told Celeste where I was eleven months ago.”

“No.”

“He did.”

“Why would he help us today?”

“Because the Concord owns his son.”

Galen stared at her.

Damian had never mentioned a son.

Elena’s eyes were grim.

“They took him twelve years ago.”

The world shifted again.

“Who is he?”

Elena looked toward the road.

“A young man you know as Matteo DeLuca.”

Before leaving the cemetery, Elena insisted on one thing.

“Lily comes with us.”

Ainsley, pale on the stretcher, tried to lift her head.

“Of course she does.”

Elena looked at her.

“I was not asking you.”

The words hurt, but Ainsley accepted them.

Lily stood between the paramedics and Galen, soaked by rain, her hands clenched around the straps of her backpack.

“I don’t want to go with Grandma.”

“You won’t,” Galen said.

“I don’t want to go with her either.”

Her eyes moved toward Ainsley.

Ainsley went very still.

“That’s okay,” she whispered.

Lily looked surprised.

Ainsley’s breath caught painfully.

“You don’t owe me trust because I finally admitted the truth. You don’t owe me anything.”

Lily looked at Elena.

“Can I go where she goes?”

Elena nodded.

“Yes.”

Galen glanced at her.

“You’re injured.”

“So is everyone.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It’s the answer you’re getting.”

For a moment, their old rhythm returned so naturally that Galen almost forgot the blood and sirens around them.

Elena noticed.

Her expression softened.

Then the softness vanished.

“Galen, listen to me. Celeste will not stop because she lost this location. She will run to whoever protected her from above.”

“Pike?”

“Maybe.”

“And Vittorio?”

Elena looked away too quickly.

He caught it.

“What?”

“Not here.”

“Elena.”

She met his eyes.

“There are things I still have to tell you.”

He laughed without humor.

“That sentence has become a threat.”

“I know.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because I do.”

The ambulance doors closed around Ainsley.

Lily watched them.

For all her anger, she stepped forward when the vehicle began to move.

“Will she die?”

Galen answered honestly.

“I don’t know.”

Lily nodded, trying to be brave.

Elena crouched despite the pain.

“You can be angry at someone and still be afraid to lose them.”

Lily’s face crumpled.

“I hate that.”

“So do I.”

Lily leaned into her.

Elena held her carefully.

Galen watched the two of them, one child abandoned by a mother who had been controlled, one mother who had abandoned a child because she thought control was impossible.

Different choices.

Same wound.

He understood then that bringing Elena home would not restore the family they had lost.

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They would have to build another one.

And building was slower than rescue.