Chapter 5

Elana POV

"You look like a ghost," Ayla whispered, her eyes scanning my face as if searching for the woman I used to be.

We met in the back booth of a roadside diner, three towns past the border. The lighting was dim, the air smelling of stale coffee and grease-perfect anonymity.

I pulled my hoodie tighter and adjusted my sunglasses. My leg throbbed inside its brace, a constant, grounding rhythm of pain.

"I feel like one," I murmured.

She checked the room once more before sliding a thick, manila envelope across the scratched table.

"Cash. A Swiss passport. The name is Elena Rossi," Ayla explained, keeping her voice low. "Close enough to your own so you won't hesitate when called, but different enough to clear customs without triggering a flag."

"Thank you," I said, tucking the envelope into my jacket.

"Emilio transferred ten million dollars into a trust in your name yesterday," Ayla added, watching me closely. "He calls it the 'Memorial Fund'."

"Blood money," I scoffed, a bitter taste rising in my throat. "He's trying to purchase a clear conscience."

"It isn't working," Ayla said grimly. "He looks like hell, Elana. He hasn't shaved in a week. He drinks until he passes out on the floor of your office, surrounded by your things."

"Does he know it was Hayden?"

"He suspects. The paranoia is eating him alive, but he has no proof yet. She covered her tracks well."

"She will slip up," I said, my voice cold. "Greed makes people sloppy."

Ayla reached into her bag and pulled out another document, sliding it toward me.

"This is the deed to the penthouse. He put it in your name before the funeral. He kicked Hayden out the night you... disappeared."

I stared at the paper. It represented a cage, not a home.

"I don't want it," I said, pushing it back. "I don't want anything from him."

"Take it," Ayla insisted, her tone urgent. "Sell it. Burn it. Whatever. It's not just a deed, Elana. It's leverage. It's power."

I shook my head. I didn't want his money. I wanted his ruin.

"I need you to do something for me instead," I said.

I reached into my pocket and handed her a small, silver flash drive.

"What is this?"

"Blueprints," I answered. "For the casino. For the central warehouses. For the estate itself."

"And?"

"And the structural weaknesses I built into every single one of them," I said softly. "Just in case."

Ayla's eyes went wide, the realization dawning on her.

"You were planning this?"

"I was protecting myself," I corrected. "The Omertà goes both ways, Ayla. If he breaks his vow, I break his walls."

She closed her hand over the drive, her knuckles white.

"What do you want me to do with it?"

"Keep it safe. Buried deep. When the time is right... leak it to the Commission. Leak it to his enemies."

"That will destroy him," Ayla whispered, fear and awe mingling in her voice.

"He destroyed me first," I said.

I stood up, wincing as my weight settled onto my bad leg. The pain was sharp, but it was mine. It was real.

"I'm leaving tonight," I said.

"Elana," Ayla grabbed my hand across the table, her grip desperate. "If you go, you can never come back. If he finds out you're alive..."

"He won't," I promised. "Because Elana Thomas is dead. She died on those rocks."

I pulled my hand away and walked out of the diner, leaving the ghost of my past in the booth.

I drove the Ranger's truck to the perimeter of the old estate one last time.

I parked in the shadows, watching from a distance.

I saw thin gray smoke rising from the chimney. Emilio was in there.

Probably mourning the idea of me, while ignoring the brutal reality of what his negligence had caused.

I reached into my bag and pulled out the blueprints. Not the digital ones I gave Ayla, but the original hand-drawn sketches of our dream home. The lines I had drawn when I still believed in fairy tales.

I struck a match. The flame flared, bright and hungry against the twilight.

I watched the paper curl and blacken. The fire licked at the lines I had drawn with so much love, turning memory into ash.

It felt cleansing. Essential.

My phone buzzed in my lap. A news alert.

Don Emilio Thomas under investigation by The Commission following wife's tragic death.

The sharks were circling. He was weak. Distracted. Vulnerable.

Good luck, Emilio.

I threw the burning paper onto the patch of dry grass near the gate. It wouldn't burn the house down. It would just singe the hedge. A mark. A warning.

I turned my back on the rising smoke.

I got back in the truck and put it in gear.

"To the airport," I told myself aloud, testing the sound of my new voice.

"To Zurich."

"To Ansel Acosta."

I didn't know Ansel yet. But I knew of him.

The neutral architect. The man who built empires without getting blood on his drafting table.

He was my ticket back to the world of the living.

And he was going to help me become the Queen I was always meant to be.

Goodbye, Mob Wife.

Hello, Nemesis.