Elena's POV
The front door slammed hard enough that a cracked picture frame on the wall rattled.
"You must be out of your damn mind?" Victor's voice blasted in from the living room. "You actually went back to his grave again?"
I stood in the hallway, clutching the rusty doorknob behind me, dust on my sneakers, dirt under my nails, my hands shaking from the weight of what I'd just done. I had taken fewer than three steps inside when he snapped.
"You really think this is going to help anything?" he bellowed, pacing in one spot as if he was caged. "You think bringing up the past is gonna bring him back?"
"I'm not trying to resurrect him," I said softly. "I'm trying to discover who killed him in the first place."
Victor's eyes darkened. "We know who laid him in the ground, Elena. A heart attack. We have the death certificate and don't forget we did his funeral! End of story."
"You don't really believe that," I said. "You never have. You just didn't ask anymore questions because it hurt too much."
He came at me like a switchblade. "Because there's no point! What the fuck do you want from me? You wanna stick around playing detective in this shithole of a house when the rest of us are just trying to survive?"
I swept across the living room and dumped the crumpled police report on the table. "Victor, they erased his name from every file in under a week. You don't find that suspicious?"
He looked down at the paper but didn't pick it up. His jaw clenched. "The only thing suspicious to me is that you think you can save this family by chasing shadows."
"No," I said, voice rising. "I feel like I can fix this family by revealing to the world the people who destroyed it."
Victor held back a laugh and shrugged away. "You're just like Mom. Obsessed. Paranoid. You think finding some deep conspiracy is gonna make you the hero.'
"I'm not interested in being the hero," I said. "I care about the truth."
Victor turned and slammed his fist into the wall, causing plaster to rain onto the floor. "The truth? You think you're going to heal this family by excavating corpses? You're going to bury yourself as well."
His words cut through me like a knife. My heart cracked wide open.
I didn't say anything. I brushed past him and went into my room. I grabbed my duffel. Tucked into everything that counted. My laptop. The shoebox. The photo. The files. Which was every piece of the puzzle I hadn't yet assembled.
Victor remained holding his fists in the hall. His voice broke behind me. "You go out that door, then you never come back."
I zipped up the bag and met his gaze. "Then let me rot. At least I will know the truth."
I stepped out of my house, pulling my bags.
*******
I was sitting cross-legged in the middle of my creaky bed, in an unkempt room that smelled like death itself. Alternately flipping through the case file I'd created like a shrine.
There were photographs, newspaper clippings and handwritten notes stuck up on the wall. On another side of the wall, a diagram in red thread and thumbtacks pointed from one face to another. My father. His customers, and all his potential foes. All of them disappeared or hushed up.
I opened the shoebox under the bed. It had cash in them. Seventy thousand and two hundred dollars in it. I had acquired it in a year spent working three part time gigs under an assumed name. I l saved every dollar as if it were my last.
And there was a photo of my father taped to the underside of the lid. His eyes were smiling in it. The corner had been covered with a sticky note. "Find the truth. No matter what."
I touched the note. Then reached for the envelope next to it — my escape plan.
I had gotten a new identity.
Samantha Carter was dead and Elena Collins was born.
I grabbed the scissors and began cutting my hair. Clumps of my long brown hair fell onto the floor. My hair was shorter and I applied the blonde dye.
Then came the lighter. I stood above the sink with my old ID and set fire to the corner of it. I saw my old self turn to ash.
"Goodbye," I whispered. "I never want to see you again."
With my heart in my throat, I opened my laptop and typed one phrase in the search bar.
Who owns Moretti Enterprises?
Thank goodness for Google because I was lost for a lot of it.
From there some pictures appeared and I clicked on the CEO and the name Xavier Moretti appeared along with his picture.
The headline identified him as the corporate assassin billionaire CEO, in suits.
I looked at the screen as if it would hit me.
He was chiseled like a Greek god, and built like a basketball model. He was Thirty years old. He had cold, pale blue eyes and looked the part of a player.
I kept scrolling reading through the court settlements and a bunch of failed companies that had come against him and he took them down.
I scrolled down and I saw it. It was a job opening. It read.
Moretti Enterprises is hiring.
Position for an Executive Assistant is open.
Apply Now.
My fingers quivered above the mouse.
I got close and whispered at the screen." "You'll never see me coming."
I clicked on the mouse and opened the application. I clicked the submit button when done.
An icon appeared on the screen and I smiled.
Application submitted.
*******
Three days later, I pushed my suitcase into a malfunctioning elevator in downtown Manhattan and hiked up five flights to my new apartment. If you could call it that. It was a mini condo.
It was worse than my old home. It smelled like mildew and old people. It needed a lot of work before I could get wherever it could take me. I looked at the flickering bulb and breathed out.
My fake name barely registered with the landlord before he turned over the keys. He probably didn't mind, as long as I paid in cash.
That night, after I'd cleaned it all up and had added some new rich taste. I unraveled every lie I had been forced to live. I had new clothes, a new voice, and a resumé. I rehearsed my new backstory in the mirror like an actress in a role I hadn't prepared adequately for.
"You're Elena Collins. You've never been anybody else."
The words felt phony coming from my mouth, but I recited them until I believed them or came close.
My savings were bleeding fast by the end of the week. No calls, no interviews from the other companies I applied to. Perhaps I should get another job part time.
Then the email arrived, as I was eating a cup of Korean noodles. My phone fluttered and I opened the message.
Subject: Interview Scheduled
Moretti Enterprises. Monday. 8:45 AM.
My stomach dropped. I reread it twice and screamed happily.
"This is it," I cheered loudly.
*********
It was Monday.
The Moretti skyscraper rose over the sky like a weapon. I was standing across the street, my heart racing, sweating beneath the newly rented blazer from the fashion shop on the other end of the block from my condo.
Inside, all was glass, busy people, high taste and silent judgment. The lobby sparkled. The receptionist barely looked up.
"I'm going to the executive floor," I told her. She nodded, and buzzed me in.
I got on the elevator and tried to force myself to breathe. I felt like once every floor that passed I was shedding my old skin.
I was on the sixty-eighth floor. The elevator dinged behind me and broke the trance.
I got out and saw a pretty girl dressed simply in a corporate attire who smiled at me. "Are you Elena Collins?" She asked.
"Yes," I answered.
"This way, please," she said. "Mr. Moretti is ready to see you."
My blood turned to ice. I couldn't feel my legs. But except for that certainty that entering that door would change my life forever, I couldn't feel anything.
I trailed her down a hallway and she knocked on the door, then opened it.
"He's waiting," she answered.
She went in, and I went after her.
And there he sat, fingers placed on each other on the chair. His profile was heart palpitating.
He looked like sin in a suit.
Our eyes locked, and I swallowed hard.
For a second, I forgot how to breathe."
The office was huge.
And in that one second…all my rehearsals went out the window.
Because the man I'd come to destroy…was looking at me like he already knew who I was.