CHAPTER 6 — THE TRUTH SHE NEVER SAW
CHAPTER 6 — THE TRUTH SHE NEVER SAW
Elena couldn't sleep.
Every time she closed her eyes she saw the children behind the fence.
Or Luca's face when he admitted he had a daughter.
Nothing about the man she thought she knew was true.
Just before sunrise she finally asked the question burning inside her.
"Why me?"
Luca looked up from cleaning a pistol salvaged from one of Marco's men.
"What?"
"Why did you bring me on the plane?"
"You weren't supposed to be there."
She frowned.
"But your assistant said—"
"I fired him three days earlier."
A chill ran through her.
"I never ordered you onto that flight."
"What?"
"I ordered every civilian employee to stay home."
Elena's blood turned cold.
"Then..."
Someone else had sent her.
She remembered the email.
The signature.
Everything had looked genuine.
"Luca..."
She whispered.
"I think I was meant to die with you."
The realization settled between them.
The crash hadn't simply been an assassination attempt.
It had been designed to erase witnesses.
Erase the ledger.
Erase Elena.
Because whoever forged those orders knew she would be on the plane.
Someone inside Romano Maritime had betrayed them.
Someone still alive.
Someone powerful.
A sudden whistle echoed through the jungle.
Luca's hand instantly covered Elena's mouth.
"Don't move."
The whistle came again.
Not random.
A signal.
Three short notes.
Two long.
Luca answered by tapping twice against a tree trunk.
Seconds later...
A hooded figure stepped from the dense foliage.
A woman.
Mid-thirties.
Rain-soaked.
Carrying a suppressed rifle.
She lowered her hood.
Elena gasped.
It was the voice from the satellite phone.
"Luca."
The woman smiled faintly.
"You always look terrible after a plane crash."
"You sound disappointed."
"I expected worse."
Despite the joke, neither embraced.
Neither relaxed.
Trust was expensive.
"Lena..."
the woman said, extending a hand toward Elena.
"I'm the only reason he's still alive."
Elena blinked.
"And you are?"
The woman hesitated before answering.
"My name is Isabella Romano."
Luca closed his eyes.
"My sister."
Elena stared at him.
"You said your sister was dead."
"I believed she was."
Isabella's smile disappeared.
"Our father wanted him to believe it."
She reached into her backpack and spread several satellite photographs across the ground.
The images showed the compound from above.
Dozens of armed guards.
Boats.
Warehouses.
And one underground bunker.
She pointed to the bunker.
"Your daughter is here."
Luca stopped breathing.
"Are you certain?"
"I've seen her."
His hands trembled.
"She's alive?"
"For now."
Then Isabella looked directly at Elena.
"There isn't much time."
"Why?"
"Because tomorrow night..."
She swallowed hard.
"...our father is coming to the island himself."
Luca slowly stood despite his injuries.
His eyes hardened into steel.
For the first time since the crash...
He wasn't thinking about survival.
He was thinking about war.
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And somewhere inside the heavily guarded compound...
A little girl who had spent four years believing her father had abandoned her was waiting for a rescue she no longer believed would ever come.
