Chapter 5
I stared at the label until the words stopped making sense.
Carmen’s first body.
The hospital room seemed to shrink around me.
Machines beeped.
A nurse spoke somewhere down the hall.
My mother whispered a prayer under her breath.
I looked at Aunt Valentina.
“What does that mean?”
She closed her hand around the key.
“It means your father was not the first person Carmen destroyed.”
“Body?” I repeated.
My voice sounded far away.
Marisol stepped between us and the door, lowering her voice.
“Valentina, be careful.”
“No,” my aunt said. “Careful is what got Antonio killed.”
My mother flinched at my father’s name.
I sat up despite the pain.
“Dad was killed?”
No one answered.
That was the answer.
For two years, I had been told my father’s heart gave out in his office.
Stress.
High blood pressure.
A bad artery.
I had blamed grief.
I had blamed work.
I had blamed myself for not calling him that afternoon.
My mother took my hand.
“We could not prove it.”
“But you knew?”
“We suspected.”
I pulled my hand away.
The hurt in her face almost stopped me.
Almost.
“You let me marry into the family you thought killed my father?”
My mother’s eyes filled.
“No. We tried to warn you.”
“You said Daniel was moving too fast. You said Carmen was cold. That’s not a warning. That’s gossip.”
Aunt Valentina stepped closer.
“We had no proof, Sofia. If we accused them and failed, Carmen would have buried us.”
“She almost buried me anyway.”
The words left my mouth before I could soften them.
My mother looked down.
I hated myself for hurting her.
I hated them for making me someone who hurt the people trying to save me.
Marisol touched the bed rail.
“We need to focus. Carmen is awake, warned, and likely destroying evidence.”
“Then go to the warehouse,” I said.
Aunt Valentina shook her head.
“You are staying here.”
“No.”
“Sofia.”
I swung my legs over the bed and gasped as pain tore through my ribs.
My mother reached for me.
I held up a hand.
“I spent last night being held down while everyone else decided what I would sign, where I would go, and what I was allowed to know. I am not doing that again.”
The room went still.
Aunt Valentina looked at my mother.
Then at Marisol.
Then back to me.
“Fine,” she said. “But you do exactly what I say.”
I almost laughed.
“Still bossy.”
“I am alive because of it.”
An hour later, I left the hospital in Mateo’s black SUV wearing hospital scrubs under my torn wedding coat.
The dress stayed behind as evidence.
Good.
Let the court see what my marriage did to me.
Marisol drove behind us with Paul D’Amico.
Aunt Valentina sat in the front passenger seat, the brass key in her palm.
My mother sat beside me.
For a long time, neither of us spoke.
Then she said, “I should have told you more.”
“Yes.”
“I was afraid if I pushed too hard, you would choose Daniel and stop calling.”
I looked out the window.
“I might have.”
“I know.”
That honesty hurt more than an excuse.
She touched my hand gently.
“I watched you smile again after your father died. I thought maybe I was seeing danger where grief had taught me to see shadows.”
“Mom.”
She wiped her cheek.
“Then Carmen looked at that condo during the engagement party, and I knew. I knew your father’s fear had finally arrived.”
I closed my eyes.
“I wish you had trusted me.”
“I wish I had taught you to trust yourself.”
That sentence settled in the SUV like a stone.
The Brooklyn warehouse sat between a shuttered auto shop and a storage yard near the water.
It looked abandoned.
It was not.
Mateo spotted the camera above the side entrance.
Marisol called Detective Grant, the officer assigned after the hotel footage changed everything.
He told us to wait.
Aunt Valentina ignored him.
“By the time police paperwork arrives, Carmen’s men will empty it.”
Mateo looked at me in the rearview mirror.
“You stay in the car.”
I opened the door.
He sighed.
“Of course.”
The brass key fit the side lock.
Inside, the warehouse smelled like dust, salt, and old wood.
Rows of file cabinets lined one wall.
Plastic-wrapped furniture stood in the center.
At the back was a walk-in freezer door with no power running to it.
My stomach turned.
Aunt Valentina opened a cabinet.
Folders.
Dozens.
Names on tabs.
Photos.
Contracts.
Blackmail.
The Russo family’s true business, filed alphabetically.
Marisol took photos without touching anything.
Then I saw my father’s name.
Antonio Reyes.
I pulled the folder before anyone could stop me.
Inside were pictures of him meeting Daniel.
Bank records.
Threat letters.
And a medical report from the night he died.
Cause of death: acute poisoning suspected.
My knees buckled.
Mateo caught me.
My mother covered her mouth and sobbed.
Aunt Valentina whispered, “Antonio.”
Then a sound came from the freezer.
A phone ringing.
We all froze.
Mateo pulled the door open.
Inside was no body.
Only a metal table.
A plastic storage bin.
And a phone lying on top of it, ringing under a single hanging bulb.
Unknown caller.
Aunt Valentina answered on speaker.
Carmen’s voice purred through the warehouse.
“You always were too sentimental, Valentina.”
My aunt’s face hardened.
“It’s over.”
Carmen laughed.
“No, sweetheart. That warehouse was the first box.”
A click sounded behind us.
May you like
The main lights went out.
Then Carmen whispered, “Sofia should have signed.”
