Chapter 8 - The Woman in MontrealThey reached Montreal twenty-two hours later.
Chloe did not sleep.
She sat beside Dominic on the private jet while the photograph and passport rested on the table between them like two pieces of evidence from a universe that had stopped obeying rules.
Elaine Bennett.
Alive.
The idea made Chloe angry before it made her hopeful.
Hope was dangerous.
Hope required accepting that the final three months of her life might have been built on deception.
She had watched a woman who looked exactly like Elaine become weaker every day.
Had sat beside her in Massachusetts General.
Had spoken to doctors.
Had signed hospice paperwork.
Had watched monitors go still.
Had kissed her forehead after death.
How did anyone fake that?
And why?
Dominic sat across from her reading Isabella’s ledger.
Gabriel occupied the seat near the back with one wrist handcuffed to Leo.
“This is humiliating,” Gabriel complained.
Leo looked at the cuff.
“I can put both wrists behind your back.”
“One is fine.”
Rosa had remained in Boston under medical care despite protesting for nearly forty minutes.
Dominic had won that argument.
Barely.
Chloe looked toward the ledger.
“What does it say?”
Dominic closed it.
“You should sleep.”
“Wrong answer.”
His mouth tightened.
“Isabella kept records.”
“Of?”
“Meetings. Payments. Names.”
“And?”
Dominic looked at Gabriel.
Gabriel suddenly became interested in the window.
Chloe noticed.
“And?”
“Andrew Bennett appears several times.”
Her stomach tightened.
“Victor said he worked for Carlo.”
“The ledger says Andrew met with Carlo privately four times during Isabella’s pregnancy.”
“That proves nothing.”
“No.”
“What else?”
Dominic hesitated.
Chloe leaned forward.
“Stop deciding which truth I can handle.”
He exhaled.
“Three weeks before Isabella gave birth, she wrote that Andrew was hiding something.”
Chloe looked toward the clouds.
“What?”
“She didn’t know.”
Gabriel spoke.
“My father believed Andrew was informing Victor.”
Dominic turned sharply.
“You never said that.”
“You never asked.”
Leo tightened the handcuff.
Gabriel winced.
“Everyone hates that answer.”
Chloe stared at him.
“Do you think Andrew helped kill her?”
Gabriel’s amusement faded.
“I think men like Carlo and Victor survived by making everyone betray everyone.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only honest one.”
The plane landed just before dawn.
Montreal was cold and gray.
Leo had traced the address from the photograph to a private rehabilitation clinic north of downtown.
The clinic had no Elaine Bennett listed.
Dominic expected that.
They used an alternate route.
A doctor on Dominic’s payroll arranged access to internal patient records.
There was no Elaine.
There was, however, a woman admitted three months earlier under the name Ellen Barrett.
Age sixty-two.
Terminal ovarian cancer.
Transferred from Boston.
Chloe’s heart pounded.
Room 418.
Dominic reached for her hand before they entered.
She looked down.
He almost withdrew.
Chloe tightened her fingers around his.
“Don’t.”
He stayed.
Room 418 smelled like antiseptic and lavender lotion.
The woman by the window was thinner than Chloe remembered.
Gray hair covered by a scarf.
Oxygen tube.
Blanket over narrow legs.
She turned when the door opened.
Chloe stopped breathing.
Elaine.
Her mother.
Alive.
The older woman’s eyes widened.
The coffee cup slipped from her hand.
“Chloe.”
The sound of her name destroyed everything.
Chloe could not move.
Elaine began crying.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
Chloe’s anger returned violently.
“Don’t.”
Elaine stopped.
“Don’t call me that.”
Dominic remained at the door.
Leo and Gabriel stayed outside.
Elaine looked at Dominic.
Recognition crossed her face.
“You found her.”
Dominic’s voice was cold.
“She found me.”
Chloe walked into the room.
“You died.”
Elaine closed her eyes.
“I know.”
“I held your hand.”
“I know.”
“I signed papers.”
“I know.”
“I watched them take your body away.”
Elaine’s face crumpled.
“I know.”
Chloe’s voice broke.
“How?”
Elaine reached toward her.
Chloe stepped back.
The hand dropped.
“There was another patient.”
Chloe stared.
Elaine spoke slowly.
“Same age. Similar appearance. No family. Late-stage cancer.”
“No.”
“Victor found me two weeks before the end.”
Dominic entered.
“How?”
Elaine looked at him.
“Someone at the hospital.”
“Russo?”
“I don’t know.”
She returned her gaze to Chloe.
“He told me if I died naturally, the archive protocol would activate. He wanted that. He wanted the key to lead him to you.”
Chloe frowned.
“So you faked your death.”
“I needed him to believe the protocol had activated while I was somewhere else.”
“But it did activate.”
Elaine looked confused.
“What?”
“The accounts. The drive. Everything.”
Elaine’s face went pale.
“Then Carlo changed the protocol.”
Dominic understood.
“Your death was not the trigger.”
Elaine looked at Chloe.
“What happened three months ago?”
Chloe laughed bitterly.
“I buried you.”
“No.”
“What else?”
Chloe thought.
The funeral.
The apartment.
Documents.
Hospital calls.
Then she remembered.
“I turned twenty-four.”
Elaine closed her eyes.
“Oh God.”
Dominic looked at the ledger.
“Isabella was twenty-four?”
“When she would have inherited?”
Elaine nodded.
“Carlo changed the trigger to Chloe’s twenty-fourth birthday.”
Chloe stared.
Her birthday had been eleven days after Elaine’s supposed death.
The archive activated then.
Victor’s men began searching.
Elaine had hidden in Canada believing she had saved her.
Instead she had removed herself precisely when Chloe needed answers.
“You left me alone.”
Elaine cried.
“I thought it was the only way.”
“You let me think you were dead.”
“I thought if Victor believed you had nothing—”
“I had nothing!”
Chloe’s voice filled the room.
“You were everything I had.”
Elaine flinched.
Dominic moved closer but did not touch Chloe.
She was grateful.
She needed to stand by herself.
“You watched me spend six weeks thinking you were dying.”
“I was dying.”
Chloe stopped.
Elaine touched the oxygen tube.
“The cancer was real.”
Silence.
“I was supposed to have weeks, maybe months. The treatment here extended it.”
Chloe’s anger fractured.
“You’re still dying?”
Elaine nodded.
“I’m sorry.”
Chloe turned away.
She hated her.
She loved her.
Both feelings occupied the same space.
Eventually she whispered, “Why didn’t you tell me anything?”
“Because your mother asked me not to.”
“Isabella.”
“Yes.”
Elaine smiled through tears.
“She was terrified you’d become a weapon.”
Chloe looked toward Dominic.
Elaine saw.
“She trusted Dominic.”
“He was twelve.”
“She trusted who he might become.”
Dominic’s face tightened.
Elaine looked at him.
“She loved you more than anyone except that baby.”
Dominic said nothing.
Chloe returned her attention to Elaine.
“Victor said Andrew helped kill Isabella.”
Elaine’s expression changed.
“No.”
“Is that another lie?”
“No.”
“Then tell me.”
Elaine closed her eyes.
“Andrew made a terrible mistake.”
Chloe’s stomach tightened.
“He met Carlo because he believed he could negotiate.”
Dominic laughed coldly.
“With Carlo.”
“He was young.”
“He was a surgeon.”
“He was in love.”
Elaine looked at Chloe.
“Carlo offered him money to leave Isabella. Andrew refused.”
“What was the mistake?”
“He told Carlo where they planned to run.”
Chloe went still.
“Why?”
“He thought Carlo had agreed.”
Elaine’s eyes filled.
“He believed Carlo would let Isabella go if Andrew signed away any claim to Moretti assets.”
“But Carlo told Victor.”
“Yes.”
“And Victor arranged the warehouse fire.”
“Yes.”
“So Andrew didn’t betray her intentionally.”
“No.”
Relief came with grief.
Her father had been foolish.
Not murderous.
“What happened at the hospital?”
Elaine looked toward Dominic.
“Victor bribed staff to delay the emergency surgery.”
“So the tape was true.”
“Yes.”
“Why did Victor say otherwise?”
“To destroy whatever trust exists between you.”
Dominic’s expression hardened.
It had almost worked.
Elaine looked at Gabriel outside the room.
“You brought him?”
“He followed.”
Gabriel called through the doorway.
“That is offensive.”
Elaine almost smiled.
“Still impossible.”
“Apparently.”
Chloe sat beside the bed.
“Where is your fragment?”
Elaine’s eyes sharpened.
“You know?”
“Most of it.”
Elaine looked at Dominic.
He nodded.
“Gabriel has Isabella’s ledger. Newport was compromised. Russo betrayed us. Callahan is probably dead.”
Elaine covered her mouth.
“Thomas?”
Chloe looked away.
“He was alive when we found him.”
Elaine closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
There it was again.
The phrase Chloe had heard for three months.
This time she understood how heavy it could be.
“Where is the fifth fragment?”
Elaine looked at Chloe.
“I don’t have it.”
“What?”
“I never did.”
“But your name—”
“I was a custodian of the key, not a fragment.”
Dominic opened the ledger.
“Then the fifth custodian whose name was blacked out?”
Elaine stared at him.
“Black ink?”
“Yes.”
Her face went pale.
“Carlo.”
Dominic frowned.
“That makes no sense.”
“He didn’t trust anyone else.”
“So where is his fragment?”
Elaine looked at Chloe.
“Inside his grave.”
Nobody spoke.
Gabriel entered the room.
“Of course it is.”
Leo sighed.
“Why can’t your family hide things in normal places?”
Gabriel looked offended.
“You’re Italian. You understand dramatic burial customs.”
“I understand lasagna. This is different.”
Despite herself, Chloe laughed.
Elaine smiled.
For half a second, it felt like before.
Then alarms sounded in the corridor.
Leo’s expression changed instantly.
He drew his weapon.
Dominic moved in front of Chloe.
“What?”
Leo checked the hall.
“Fire alarm.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“No smoke.”
Dominic looked at Elaine.
“They found us.”
Elaine’s face drained.
“How?”
The lights went out.
Emergency red lamps came on.
Screams sounded down the corridor.
Gunshots followed.
Chloe’s heart stopped.
Dominic grabbed her.
“Bathroom.”
“I’m not leaving her.”
“We move everyone.”
Leo pulled Elaine’s bed away from the wall.
Gabriel opened the service door.
Men appeared at both ends of the hall.
Dominic fired.
Leo returned fire.
Nurses screamed and ran.
Chloe pushed Elaine’s wheelchair through the emergency exit.
They descended by service elevator.
Halfway down, the elevator stopped.
Darkness.
Elaine gripped Chloe’s hand.
“Sweetheart.”
“Not now.”
“There’s something you need to know.”
“Not now.”
“Your mother left you more than the archive.”
The elevator lights flickered.
Chloe looked at her.
“What?”
Elaine reached beneath her hospital gown and pulled out a chain.
A silver ring hung from it.
Isabella’s.
“The Moretti trust.”
Dominic stared.
Elaine pressed the ring into Chloe’s palm.
“When Isabella died, everything transferred to her child.”
Chloe stopped breathing.
“What everything?”
Elaine smiled faintly.
“The organization Dominic thinks he owns.”
The elevator jolted.
Then dropped.
Chloe screamed.
Dominic grabbed her.
The emergency brake caught them two floors lower.
Smoke filled the shaft.
Leo forced the doors open.
They climbed into a parking level.
A black car waited.
Too conveniently.
Dominic stopped.
“Not ours.”
The doors opened.
Victor Vale stepped out.
Alive.
Bandage across his shoulder.
Three armed men surrounded him.
“Elaine.”
Elaine went white.
Victor smiled.
“You’ve made me wait twenty-four years.”
Dominic raised his gun.
Victor pressed a detonator.
“Shoot me.”
His thumb hovered.
“The explosives are beneath this hospital wing.”
Dominic froze.
Hundreds of patients above them.
Victor looked at Chloe.
“Give me the ring.”
Elaine whispered, “Don’t.”
Victor smiled.
“Or I kill everyone in this building.”
Chloe stared at the ring.
Then at Dominic.
May you like
For the first time, the choice was hers.
And nobody could protect her from making it.
