Chapter 4 - The Sister Who Had His Eyes

Elena refused to tell us where she was.

Not at first.

Alexander stood in the nursery with the phone pressed to his ear.

“Are you safe?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is our mother with you?”

“No.”

His face changed.

“When did you last see her?”

“Twenty minutes ago.”

“What happened?”

“We left the hotel through the kitchen because Mother saw Leo’s driver.”

Alexander looked at me.

The black SUV.

Elena continued.

“She told me to get into another car.”

“And she?”

“She stayed behind.”

“Why?”

“To make them follow her.”

Alexander shut his eyes.

Victoria whispered:

“Sofia used herself as a decoy.”

Elena heard her.

“Victoria?”

Alexander looked at Victoria.

“You know her voice too?”

Elena was quiet.

“Yes.”

Alexander laughed once.

No humor.

“Of course.”

Elena gave us an address.

An old chapel near the river.

We arrived twelve minutes later.

She stood beneath the stone archway.

Thirty-three.

Dark hair.

Black coat.

No jewelry.

No makeup.

She looked nothing like Alexander.

Until she looked up.

Same eyes.

Same stillness when frightened.

Same habit of tightening the jaw before speaking.

Alexander stopped three feet away.

Elena did too.

Neither moved.

Mrs. Bell started crying.

“My babies.”

Elena looked at her.

“Margaret?”

The old nanny nodded.

Elena crossed the space first.

She hugged Mrs. Bell.

Then she looked at Alexander again.

He swallowed.

“You’re older than me.”

“By three days.”

“That sounds ridiculous.”

“It has sounded ridiculous my whole life.”

He almost smiled.

Almost.

Then he asked:

“Where is Sofia?”

Elena’s expression broke.

“I don’t know.”

She handed him a phone.

A tracking map was open.

One moving dot.

Heading north.

“That’s Mother’s pendant.”

Alexander looked at it.

“You put a tracker in her necklace?”

“She asked me to.”

Victoria looked surprised.

Elena stared at her.

“We learned not to trust quiet rooms.”

Alexander noticed a bruise on Elena’s wrist.

“Who did that?”

“No one.”

“Elena.”

She looked at him.

For the first time, the word sounded like family.

“One of Leo’s men grabbed me at the hotel.”

Alexander’s face hardened.

“I got away.”

Mrs. Bell whispered:

“They know.”

Elena nodded.

“They know I’m here.”

Alexander looked at the tracking dot.

Then Elena pulled a folded document from inside her coat.

“My mother told me to give you this if we were separated.”

He opened it.

A copy of Dominic Russo’s death report.

Car accident.

Eleven years earlier.

Across the bottom, Sofia had written:

ASK THOMAS WHO CHANGED THE BRAKE LINE.

Alexander stared.

“Thomas?”

Mrs. Bell went pale.

“Your father’s driver.”

“He disappeared after the funeral.”

“No.”

Alexander looked at her.

“You know where he is.”

Mrs. Bell hesitated.

“He lives under another name.”

“Where?”

“Pennsylvania.”

Elena shook her head.

“Not anymore.”

She took out another photograph.

An elderly man entering Victoria’s father’s office.

Date stamped six months earlier.

Alexander turned toward Victoria.

“Your father found him too.”

Victoria said nothing.

He stepped closer.

“Did your father investigate my father’s death?”

“Yes.”

“What did he find?”

Her eyes filled.

“That the crash wasn’t an accident.”

Nobody spoke.

Alexander looked down at the photograph.

Then at his sister.

Then at the moving dot on the phone.

His mother’s tracker stopped.

A warehouse near the old river docks.

Alexander’s voice became very quiet.

“Call the police.”

Elena stared at him.

“You trust the police?”

“No.”

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He picked up Dominic’s tape.

“But tonight I want witnesses.”