Chapter 13 - Betrayal Had the Rossi Name
Police reached Saint Catherine's seventeen minutes later.
Mrs. Bell was gone.
There were signs of struggle but no blood.
Her car remained parked behind the abandoned school.
Matteo had likely taken her.
The ledger beneath the chapel altar was exactly where she said.
It contained decades of financial crimes.
Enough to connect old Rossi operations to modern shell companies controlled by Matteo.
Enough, according to federal investigators now involved, to dismantle the remaining criminal structure permanently.
Lorenzo handed it over.
Gabriel stared at him afterward.
"Your father would come back from the dead just to yell at you."
"He'd have to wait in line."
Maya sat beside Leo in the temporary safe house where authorities moved them.
The property belonged to Rebecca.
Small.
Quiet.
Anonymous.
No marble.
No armed men visible from every doorway.
Lorenzo seemed uncomfortable there.
Maya found that amusing.
"You don't know what to do without twenty rooms."
"I know exactly what to do."
"You've opened the same cabinet three times."
"I'm looking for coffee."
"It's above the sink."
"Why would coffee be above the sink?"
"Normal people put things in normal cabinets."
"My kitchen has a coffee station."
"Your kitchen has employees."
He frowned.
Maya smiled.
For ten minutes life almost felt ordinary.
Then investigators arrived with a sealed bag from Maya's apartment.
They had found another hidden object.
Not in Lily's rabbit.
Inside the cardboard backing of a framed ultrasound image.
A memory card.
Maya stared.
Daniel really had used Lily's belongings to hide everything.
She hated him for that.
But the memory card turned out not to contain Elena's second copy.
It contained Daniel's insurance.
Recordings of conversations with Matteo.
Daniel had secretly documented meetings in case Matteo turned against him.
One recording explained the rest.
Matteo: "Bell chose Maya because she's controllable."
Daniel: "She isn't."
Matteo: "Everybody is."
Daniel: "You don't know her."
Matteo: "Neither do you."
Then Daniel asked about Elena's evidence.
Matteo admitted there were two copies.
One was in the metal case.
The other supposedly hidden through Rebecca.
But he didn't know where.
Daniel lied.
"I can get Maya to find out."
Matteo answered:
"Then do it."
The recordings proved Daniel used his relationship with Maya to gain access.
They also proved he later tried double-crossing Matteo.
Nothing in them suggested Maya knew anything.
"Then why is Matteo still after me?" she asked.
Lorenzo leaned against the kitchen counter.
"Because he doesn't know Daniel lied."
"Can't someone tell him?"
"I'll send a polite email."
Maya glared.
"I'm serious."
"So am I. We need him to believe you know nothing."
"How?"
Lorenzo looked toward Gabriel.
Gabriel sighed.
"I hate that look."
"What look?" Maya asked.
"The one he gets before suggesting something difficult."
Lorenzo said, "We leak that the second copy has already been recovered."
"Has it?"
"No."
"Then why would Matteo believe it?"
"Because Rebecca will publicly confirm Elena's evidence has been transferred to federal authorities."
Rebecca nodded.
"Technically true. Some evidence has."
"And the second copy?"
"We don't know where it is."
Maya looked at Leo.
"What if Matteo does?"
"Then he'll go after it instead of you."
The plan went into motion.
By evening several business journalists received confirmation that Elena Rossi had compiled extensive evidence before her death and that federal investigators possessed it.
The Rossi story exploded publicly.
For years Lorenzo avoided headlines.
Now his family occupied all of them.
ROSSI EMPIRE UNDER FEDERAL REVIEW
SECRET RECORDS EXPOSE FINANCIAL NETWORK
LORENZO ROSSI COOPERATING WITH AUTHORITIES
Maya read the last one twice.
"You're really doing this."
Lorenzo stood beside the window.
"Apparently."
"What happens to you?"
"Depends what they find."
"Prison?"
"Possible."
Maya stared.
He didn't look away.
"I've signed documents I should have questioned. Owned companies involved in things I didn't personally authorize but benefited from."
"That's not the same as doing them."
"No."
"But?"
"But pretending not to see is still a choice."
Maya thought of her years with Daniel.
The moments she ignored.
Excused.
Minimized.
Not crimes.
But choices.
Lorenzo continued.
"Elena knew that."
"Are you afraid?"
"Yes."
Maya appreciated the answer.
"What about Leo?"
"He'll have legitimate assets protected through the trust."
"And if you're gone?"
Lorenzo looked toward the baby.
"Rebecca has guardianship instructions."
Maya felt unexpectedly sad.
"Who?"
"My sister Sofia."
"You have a sister?"
"In California."
"Does anyone in this family live normally?"
"She teaches elementary school."
Maya blinked.
"That is aggressively normal."
"She escaped."
"From you?"
"From all of us."
Lorenzo smiled faintly.
Then his phone buzzed.
Message from an unknown number.
A photograph.
Mrs. Bell tied to a chair.
Alive.
Below it:
SECOND COPY OR SHE DIES.
Maya exhaled.
"He didn't believe the leak."
"No."
Another message arrived.
MAYA KNOWS.
Lorenzo looked at her.
"Why is he convinced?"
"I don't know."
Rebecca, standing nearby, suddenly went still.
"What?"
Everyone looked at her.
She stared at Maya.
"Oh my God."
"What?" Maya demanded.
"Elena didn't hide the second copy somewhere."
"Then what did she do?"
Rebecca reached for her briefcase.
"She mailed it."
"To whom?"
Rebecca looked at Maya.
"Your daughter."
The room fell silent.
"What are you talking about?"
"Elena created a sealed legal packet for a child named Lily Bennett."
Maya's face went white.
"Lily wasn't born."
"Exactly."
"Why would Elena send anything to her?"
"Because a sealed custodial account created for an unborn child wouldn't appear in a search for Maya or Daniel."
Maya stared.
"Where is it?"
Rebecca whispered.
"The hospital."
Before Lily was born, Rebecca had arranged a sealed safe-deposit packet through a hospital-affiliated family trust service.
It was meant to be transferred after birth.
Because Lily was stillborn, the packet was never completed.
It remained in administrative storage awaiting closure.
Matteo didn't know the exact location.
Daniel apparently learned enough from stolen notes to know Lily was involved.
That's why he hid the key in her rabbit.
Why he hid recordings behind her ultrasound.
He wasn't being sentimental.
He was copying Elena's system.
Using Maya's daughter as camouflage.
Maya stood so quickly the chair fell.
"No."
Lorenzo approached carefully.
"Maya."
"No."
Everything inside her erupted.
"They don't get to do this."
"No one—"
"They used her name."
Tears came violently.
"She lived for thirty-eight weeks inside me. She existed. She was real."
Lorenzo said nothing.
"And now every one of them keeps turning her into a hiding place."
Her voice broke.
"Daniel. Matteo. Elena—"
She stopped.
Because Elena hadn't done it cruelly.
Elena had been trying to protect evidence.
Protect Maya.
Protect Leo.
But Maya was still angry.
Grief didn't care about intention.
Lorenzo stood close but didn't touch her.
"What do you want?"
That question again.
This time Maya knew.
"I want it finished."
He nodded.
"Then we finish it."
The hospital administrator agreed to retrieve the sealed packet under law-enforcement supervision.
They would go the next morning.
Nobody outside the operation would know.
Or so they believed.
But someone had already accessed the hospital archive system.
At 11:18 p.m., the electronic record for Lily Bennett's packet was opened remotely.
At 11:21, an employee badge was cloned.
At 11:26, a maintenance request was submitted for the basement archive.
May you like
And at 11:31, Matteo Rossi entered Mercy General Hospital wearing someone else's uniform.
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