Chapter 17 – Elena Cruz is Born

Elena Cruz didn’t exist on paper until Elise decided she did.

The apartment came first — a walk-up above a closed florist on Via Danzico. Third floor. No elevator. The kind of place that didn’t ask questions and kept its lights dim even in daylight. She signed the lease in silence, using one of the old cover identities Gerardo Valez had drafted for her family’s “quiet accounts” back when she was still too obedient to know what they were for.

This time, she knew.

The walls were bare, the windows locked. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic, like someone had wiped away something that shouldn’t have been left behind. There were no family portraits here. No ancestral oil paintings. Just blank walls. Clean, unfinished. The way she liked it.

Elise set her single suitcase on the narrow table by the window. It held only what she needed: a gray coat, a burner phone, two folders, and a black fountain pen.

Then she waited.

Gerardo arrived at 9:03 a.m.

He had aged better than most men in his business — a little heavier, a little slower, but still careful. Still well-dressed. He wore a tailored navy overcoat and carried a manila envelope as if it were a second spine.

Gerardo stepped inside, glancing at the name on the lease.
“Elena Cruz,” he read aloud. “A new name for a new game?”

Elise met his gaze steadily. “A name that serves its purpose.”

They sat across from each other at the small window table. Between them sat a single coffee, untouched. Gerardo looked at her face, scanning the features. The resemblance to Elise Caro was subtle but there, softened by darkened hair, hardened by sharper posture. The glasses helped. The stillness did more.

“You don’t flinch anymore,” he said.

“I don’t need to.”

“Then why the alias?”

“Because Elise died,” she said. “And this time, I intend to live longer.”

She passed him a sealed black envelope.

Inside: a passport stamped with Elena’s name, a birth certificate from Madrid, two clean contact numbers. Three linked investment accounts already active. The Cruz Foundation — a newly formed front tied to postwar sculpture philanthropy — would serve as her cover.

But it was more than a disguise.

It was leverage.

Gerardo flipped through the documents, his thumb grazing over the banking pages. “Everything checks out. How’d you pull the Madrid registration?”

“I have friends who owe my father favors they can’t afford to speak of.”

He gave a dry laugh. “Your father would’ve hated this. But he’d have been proud you kept the ledger clean.”

“You’re becoming dangerous.”

“I was always dangerous,” she said calmly. “You just didn’t notice.”

He placed a thin folder on the table next.

It held the Cruz Trust agreement — a shell once used to sanitize high-value asset transfers, scrubbed and buried by his hand four years ago.

Elise didn’t touch it.

“You knew I kept a copy,” he said.

“I counted on it.”

“Why come to me now?”

“You owe me.”

“And if I said no?”

“I’d find someone hungrier.”

They stared at each other for a moment.

Then Gerardo sighed.

“You need the original?”

“Yes.”

“That’s locked.”

“Then unlock it.”

“You don’t want the copy?”

“I want what they used to bury the truth.”

He tapped the edge of the table with two fingers. “You’re digging in old graves, Cruz.”

She met his eyes. “Better than choking on dust someone else chose for me.”

Ten minutes later, he handed over a small brass key, tied with a red string.

“Locker 14. Industrial district. Same unit your family used during the 2011 audit season.”

“I remember,” she said.

“I haven’t been back in years,” he added. “But it’s still there.”

“If it’s not, I’ll be back.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

—

The storage unit smelled like concrete and damp metal. Elise unlocked the outer gate, then the inner lock on Unit 14. At the back sat a single fireproof box, wrapped in gray tape. A folded piece of paper rested on top.

She opened the note first.

I kept this in case I ever needed a clean conscience.

Take it and burn the rest.

— G

She didn’t smile.

And she didn’t burn anything.

She carried the box out with both hands.

—

That night, she returned to the apartment and opened the box on the table.

Inside were four documents: two bank logs, a signed amendment, and a ledger copy.

Matteo’s name was written in the margin.

Cassian’s initials marked an approval block.

The date was exact — three days before the engagement, five days before her arrest.

Her chest didn’t tighten. But her hand paused — for just one breath — over his initials.

She traced Matteo’s signature with her fingertip, once, and then closed the file.

She didn’t need to read it again.

—

Two days later, the courthouse loomed behind mirrored steel. Elise stood at the entrance to the records wing, dressed in the same gray coat, her face clean, her gaze neutral. She checked in under the alias Elena Cruz. The clerk barely glanced at her.

“Elena Cruz?”

She nodded.

“Room 3C. You’re cleared for thirty minutes.”

The terminal showed no flags, no alerts. The name had worked.

The room was too bright, too sterile, and buzzing with fluorescent tension. Elise walked past two officers in the corridor who paused when she passed. They didn’t stop her. But they watched. Her presence made them uneasy, not because they recognized her, but because power carried differently when it wasn’t expected.

Inside the viewing room, the file was already waiting. She untied the string and found what she had come for. Buried in the folder was a wire transfer record linked to the same family trust. Her name sat on the receiving end — forged cleanly, perfectly. The funds moved through a dissolved shell, one she now knew hadn’t existed beyond that transaction.

She photographed the page three times. One direct. Two angled. Enough to hold in court — or over someone’s head.

Then she sealed it again.

And left without a word.

—

Outside, the rhythm of the city ticked like a metronome. She moved down the avenue without altering pace, but watched everything. A man in a gray suit near the café door watched her for a beat too long. The courthouse guard reappeared, pretending not to trail her. Elise ducked into a bookstore, waited, then slipped through the back.

In the alley, she changed coats. Canvas this time. Neutral.

By the time she reached the private garage and stepped into the waiting car, Elena Cruz was the only name she wore.

The man inside was older, heavyset, and finely dressed — part of a legacy legal guild only the old-money families still bothered to maintain. Elise didn’t greet him. Just held out her hand.

“Miss Cruz,” he said. “I brought what you requested.”

He handed her a leather folder, thin and unmarked. She accepted it without comment, flipped it open, and scanned the contents. Transaction trails, digital authorizations, internal memoranda. Every page confirmed what she already suspected.

These were the records they used to bury her.

And now, they belonged to her.

As she closed the folder, his gaze lingered longer than it should have.

“You wear power differently now,” he said, with something between admiration and unease.

Elise met his eyes.

“I stopped mistaking it for permission.”

She waited just long enough for the discomfort to settle.

Then left.

—

At the Caro estate, the staff avoided her without seeming to. Their glances dipped quickly, and no one asked where she had gone. The house had begun to shift — not out of rebellion, but out of quiet, collective caution. Elise didn’t need to command the halls.

She just had to keep walking.

She returned to her suite without pause.

The door closed behind her like punctuation.

At the vanity, she studied her reflection. Hair still pinned. Shirt still buttoned. But something in her eyes had changed. Elena Cruz didn’t look like Elise Caro. But she felt like her evolution. Not a cover. A path.

She sat at the desk and opened the black journal.

On the first line, she wrote:

Elena Cruz exists. Not as a backup. Not as a shield. As a future.

They think she’s a mask.

But she remembers everything Elise forgot to say.

And this time, she’s writing the ending.

Cassian: His initials came first.

But did he know what they were building?

Or was he just trained not to ask?