Chapter 2 - Sara Miller Does Not Exist
Landon did not return to the restaurant.
He returned to the Moretti residence on the Upper East Side with Leo sleeping against his shoulder.
The boy had cried himself exhausted.
Leo’s mother, Isabella, was waiting in the front hall.
She was Santino’s widow.
At thirty-one, Isabella Moretti had learned to hide worry behind composure nearly as well as Landon did. But the moment she saw Leo asleep in his uncle’s arms, the control vanished.
She rushed forward.
“What happened?”
“He’s fine.”
“You said he disappeared.”
“For seven minutes.”
“Seven—”
“He’s fine, Isabella.”
Her hands moved over Leo’s hair, his cheeks, his shoulders, verifying the truth with her own fingers.
Landon transferred the boy gently into her arms.
Leo stirred.
“Sara.”
Isabella looked at Landon.
“Who’s Sara?”
He did not answer immediately.
Leo opened his eyes halfway.
“She knows Papa’s song.”
The color left Isabella’s face.
Landon saw it.
Not confusion.
The same thing he had seen in the waitress.
Recognition.
“What did he say?” Landon asked.
Isabella looked at him.
“Nothing.”
“You reacted.”
“My son was missing. I’m reacting to everything.”
“He said Sara knew Santino’s song.”
Isabella’s eyes dropped.
Landon knew she was hiding something.
He had spent half his life surrounded by lies.
The lies told by enemies were easy.
The dangerous ones came from family.
“Put Leo to bed,” he said.
“Landon—”
“We’ll talk afterward.”
She hesitated.
Then carried Leo upstairs.
Dominic entered five minutes later carrying a tablet.
“Elias sent everything.”
Landon walked into his study.
The room had belonged to his father, then Landon.
Dark shelves climbed nearly to the ceiling. A fireplace burned quietly beneath a painting no one in the family actually liked but nobody had ever removed.
Dominic placed the tablet on the desk.
A photograph filled the screen.
Sara.
Except her hair was darker and shorter.
She wore jeans, a white shirt, and sunglasses pushed onto her head.
Behind her was a Sicilian harbor glowing beneath summer sunlight.
And beside her stood Santino.
Landon stared.
His brother looked younger.
Alive.
Careless.
Happy.
An arm rested casually around Sara’s shoulders.
“What archive?”
Dominic leaned over the desk.
“European news agency. Photo was taken after a charity sailing event near Cefalù.”
“When?”
“Four years, three months ago.”
“Two years before Santino died.”
“Yes.”
“Caption?”
Dominic enlarged the text.
Santino Moretti, American businessman, with local translator Serena Bellandi.
Landon read the final two words again.
Serena Bellandi.
Not Sara Miller.
“Run the name.”
“Already did.”
Dominic swiped.
A second screen appeared.
SERENA ELENA BELLANDI.
Born Palermo.
Age twenty-eight.
Dual Italian-American citizenship.
Former language specialist for an international corporate security firm.
Consulting work in Milan, Rome, London.
Then nothing.
The records stopped two years earlier.
Official status:
Deceased.
Cause:
Automobile accident outside Palermo.
Date:
The same night Santino Moretti died in New York.
Landon sat back.
“That’s impossible.”
Dominic agreed.
“Which part?”
“All of it.”
The study door opened.
Isabella entered.
She had changed into a robe.
Her face looked exhausted.
Her eyes moved to the photograph.
And stopped.
Landon watched.
“You know her.”
It was not a question.
Isabella closed the door.
“Where did you get that?”
“Answer me.”
She crossed her arms.
For the first time since Santino’s funeral, Landon saw something close to anger in her.
“You don’t get to interrogate me in my own home.”
“This is my home.”
“Then perhaps that’s always been the problem.”
Dominic shifted uncomfortably.
Landon looked at him.
“Give us the room.”
Dominic left.
The door clicked shut.
Landon turned back to Isabella.
“Who is she?”
Isabella walked toward the window.
Outside, Manhattan disappeared beneath rain.
“Santino knew her.”
“I can see that.”
“They met in Sicily.”
“For what?”
“You should ask her.”
“She disappeared.”
A bitter smile touched Isabella’s mouth.
“That sounds like Serena.”
“So you knew her name.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Since before Santino died.”
Landon stood slowly.
“You’ve known for two years that a woman connected to my brother supposedly died on the exact night he died?”
“Yes.”
“And you never told me?”
“Santino made me promise.”
The answer struck harder than Landon expected.
“My brother is dead.”
“I know.”
“His promises died with him.”
“No, Landon. Some promises become more important after the person is gone.”
“What promise?”
Isabella looked toward him.
“That I would never tell you about Serena unless she came back herself.”
“Why?”
“He said it was the only way to keep her alive.”
Silence.
The fire shifted behind them.
Landon walked around the desk.
“Start at the beginning.”
“I don’t know the beginning.”
“Then start with what you know.”
Isabella closed her eyes.
“Three months before Santino died, he changed.”
“How?”
“He stopped sleeping.”
Landon remembered.
Santino had always slept badly. Landon had assumed the late-night phone calls and sudden travel were business.
“He checked the locks constantly,” Isabella continued. “He started taking different routes home. Once I found him sitting in Leo’s room at three in the morning.”
“What did he say?”
“That he had made a mistake.”
“What mistake?”
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
“Did he mention Serena?”
“Not then.”
“When?”
“A week later.”
Isabella sat on the edge of a chair.
“Santino gave me an envelope.”
Landon stared at her.
“What envelope?”
“I don’t know.”
“You opened it?”
“No.”
“Where is it?”
“I gave it away.”
“To whom?”
“To Serena.”
Landon’s anger rose.
“When?”
“The morning after Santino died.”
That made no sense.
“You said she died the same night.”
“That’s what the official records say.”
“So she was alive.”
“Yes.”
“And you saw her?”
“No.”
Isabella looked down.
“Santino gave me instructions. If anything happened to him, I was supposed to leave the envelope in a locker at Grand Central.”
“Which locker?”
“I don’t remember the number.”
“Try.”
“I don’t remember.”
“What happened afterward?”
“Nothing. For two years.”
“Until tonight.”
Isabella nodded.
Landon returned to the photograph.
“Why the song?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe Santino trusted this woman with something important enough to fake her death, but you know nothing?”
“I know he trusted her.”
“With what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was he sleeping with her?”
Isabella’s expression sharpened.
“No.”
“You sound certain.”
“I am.”
“How?”
“Because Santino told me who she was.”
Finally.
Landon waited.
Isabella hesitated so long that he almost demanded the answer.
Then she whispered, “She saved his life.”
Landon frowned.
“When?”
“In Sicily.”
“How?”
“He never explained.”
“Why did he hide that from me?”
“Because apparently there were things your brother believed you weren’t ready to hear.”
Landon’s anger cooled into something worse.
Suspicion.
His younger brother had trusted Landon with everything.
At least Landon had believed so.
Money.
Family.
Business.
Secrets.
But perhaps that belief had been one more comfortable lie.
The study door opened abruptly.
Dominic entered without knocking.
That alone told Landon something had happened.
“What?”
“We found her.”
“Where?”
“Brooklyn.”
Dominic placed a phone on the table.
The screen displayed grainy security footage from a subway entrance.
Sara—Serena—stood beneath an awning.
She was wearing a dark coat.
She looked over her shoulder twice before descending the stairs.
“When?”
“Thirty-one minutes ago.”
“Where was she headed?”
“We don’t know.”
Landon reached for his coat.
Dominic blocked him.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“Elias found a financial account connected to Serena Bellandi.”
“So?”
“There was one transaction after her supposed death.”
“When?”
“Three days after Santino’s funeral.”
“How much?”
“One dollar.”
Landon frowned.
“From whom?”
Dominic turned the screen.
The sender’s name appeared.
SANTINO MORETTI.
Landon stared at it.
“That’s impossible.”
“The account was created before his death.”
“Message?”
“There was one.”
Dominic opened the transaction details.
Six words appeared.
IF LANDON COMES, DO NOT RUN.
Landon read them twice.
Then a third time.
Something old and painful shifted in his chest.
Santino had planned this.
He had known he might die.
He had known Serena might disappear.
And somehow he had known that one day Landon would find her.
“What does it mean?” Dominic asked.
Landon reached for his coat.
“I intend to ask her.”
They headed toward the door.
Behind them, Isabella spoke.
“Landon.”
He stopped.
“If Serena sees your men first, she’ll disappear again.”
He looked back.
“Then she won’t see my men.”
“What are you going to do?”
Landon’s expression became still.
“I’m going alone.”
An hour later, a black sedan stopped across from a narrow Brooklyn apartment building.
Rain continued falling.
Landon stepped out.
No guards.
No Dominic.
No weapon visible.
He entered the building and climbed three flights of stairs.
Apartment 3C.
Light showed beneath the door.
Landon knocked.
Nothing.
He knocked again.
“Serena.”
Silence.
“I know that’s your name.”
A floorboard creaked inside.
Landon waited.
Then he heard the lock turn.
The door opened two inches.
One gray-blue eye appeared.
“You shouldn’t have come.”
“My dead brother sent me.”
Her face changed.
“What?”
“He left you a message.”
Serena stared at him.
Landon repeated it.
“If Landon comes, do not run.”
The door opened slightly farther.
For the first time that night, the fear in her expression became something else.
Shock.
Then she looked past him toward the stairwell.
“You came alone?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
She whispered one word.
“Damn.”
Landon’s instincts tightened.
“Why?”
Serena suddenly grabbed his jacket.
She pulled him inside.
The hallway window shattered behind him.
And as glass exploded across the floor outside, Serena slammed the apartment door and shouted:
May you like
“They found me.”
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