Chapter 17 - Elena’s TruthLuca did not raise his voice.
That frightened Elena more.
“What did you know?”
She sat across from him.
“Not who you were exactly.”
“But I knew the name Costello.”
“Everyone in Chicago knew it.”
“That’s not what you said.”
“No.”
She swallowed.
“My father owed money to one of your father’s companies.”
Luca became still.
Elena continued.
“He lost his business.”
“Our house.”
“Everything.”
“When I was nineteen, he disappeared.”
“Did my family hurt him?”
“I don’t know.”
Luca looked away.
For years, he had told himself he understood what the Costello empire cost other people.
Now the woman he loved had lived beneath that cost before meeting him.
“I came to Chicago because I wanted answers.”
“So meeting me wasn’t an accident.”
“At first, no.”
That hurt.
Elena did not hide from it.
“I saw you at that neighborhood restaurant.”
“I heard someone call you Luca.”
“I wondered whether you were connected to the Costellos.”
“And you started talking to me.”
“Yes.”
Luca laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“So Vittorio was right.”
“No.”
Elena leaned forward.
“Vittorio knew only the beginning.”
Luca looked at her.
“The second week, I learned who you were.”
“You could have confronted me.”
“I planned to.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Her eyes filled.
“Because I had already started caring about you.”
The room became quiet.
“I hated your family name.”
“But you weren’t what I expected.”
“You ate terrible takeout.”
“You complained about baseball.”
“You fixed my broken kitchen chair even though you had no idea what you were doing.”
Luca remembered.
The chair collapsed the next day.
Elena almost smiled.
“You were awful at it.”
“I remember.”
“I stopped investigating.”
“I never asked you about my father.”
“I never took anything from you.”
“Then you disappeared.”
Luca stared at his hands.
“And you thought I discovered what you were doing.”
“Yes.”
“I thought you had left because you knew I approached you under false pretenses.”
She wiped her cheek.
“Then I discovered I was pregnant.”
“I wrote.”
“Again and again.”
“And nothing came back.”
Luca thought of the intercepted letters.
Twelve years of misunderstandings created by people who needed them separated.
“Why didn’t you tell me now?”
“Because Maya had just found her father.”
Elena’s voice broke.
“And you had just learned everyone around you had lied.”
“I couldn’t become another lie.”
“But you were.”
“Yes.”
She accepted the accusation.
No excuses.
No manipulation.
“I’m sorry.”
Luca looked toward the baseball field.
“What happened to your father?”
“I still don’t know.”
Luca called Marco.
Within hours, federal investigators searched old Costello records.
They found Elena’s father.
Thomas Harper had not been killed.
He had entered witness protection after providing evidence against one of Carlo Costello’s companies.
Elena stared at the report in disbelief.
“He survived?”
“Yes.”
For twenty years, she had assumed the worst.
Her father was alive.
Living under another identity.
Contact required federal approval.
Elena began crying.
Luca reached toward her.
Then stopped.
He did not know whether he still had that right.
Elena noticed.
She placed her hand inside his.
“I should have told you.”
“Yes.”
“Do you hate me?”
“No.”
“Do you trust me?”
Luca took longer to answer.
“Not completely.”
The honesty hurt.
But Elena nodded.
“That’s fair.”
Luca squeezed her hand.
“Trust can be rebuilt.”
She looked at him.
“So can legs, apparently.”
He laughed.
For the first time since Vittorio’s arrest, the room felt lighter.
May you like
Outside, Maya shouted that both of them were taking too long.
Life was already pulling them forward.
Related Stories
