All Chapters of THE REBIRTH OF ELENA : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

The summons comes at dawn, delivered by a maid I don't recognize, her face pale and her hands trembling as she hands me the folded note.Breakfast. My study. Alone.No signature. She never needs one.My hands shake as I read it a second time, then a third, like the words might rearrange themselves into something less terrifying if I just look hard enough."Elena." Matteo's voice, behind me, sharp with worry. "What is it?"I hand him the note without a word. I watch his face go through the same fear mine just did."You're not going alone," he says immediately."It says alone.""I don't care what it says.""Matteo." I take his hand, force my voice steady even though nothing inside me feels steady at all. "If I bring you, she'll know something's wrong.If I go alone, I might still be able to convince her nothing's wrong at all. We have four days. I can't burn that time on suspicion I could have avoided."His jaw works, tight and furious, but he doesn't argue further. He just pulls me clo

We run the whole way. Fog tears past my face, cold and wet, and the Marchetti gates come up faster than I expect, faster than I'm ready for.The front doors stand wide open."Elena, wait—" Matteo grabs for my arm, but I'm already through the gates.Already up the steps. My heart's pounding so hard I can barely hear anything past it.I stop dead in the entrance hall.Blood. On the marble floor. Not a lot — a thin, dark line leading from the stairs toward the study, like someone was dragged, or dragged themselves."Oh God." My voice comes out small. "Oh God, no.""Isabella!" Matteo's shout tears through the empty house. "Sal! Somebody answer me!"Nothing. Then, faint, from the east corridor — a voice. Weak. Alive."In here."We run again.We find Isabella first, slumped against the wall outside the study, one hand pressed hard against her shoulder.Blood's seeping through her fingers, dark and steady. Her face is white as paper.But her eyes are open, and when she sees us, relief floods

The dining hall is lit with too many candles, warm gold light everywhere, the kind of light that has no business existing in a house that still smells faintly of blood two floors down.Matteo's hand finds mine at the doorway. He squeezes once, hard, before we step inside together.The table is long, dark wood polished so smooth it throws back the candlelight like a mirror.Twelve chairs, only eight of them filled. Vittoria sits at the head, perfectly composed, a glass of red wine untouched in front of her, like nothing at all happened in this house tonight.Renzo sits to her right, jaw tight, staring at his plate, refusing to meet my eyes when we walk in. Isabella's chair sits empty — still upstairs, still recovering, still safe, and I hold onto that thought like a rope.Dante sits near the middle of the table, and when his eyes find mine, something steady passes between us. A promise from the garden two days ago. Still holding."Elena. Matteo." Vittoria's voice comes out warm, pleasa

I don't tell anyone. Not right away.The dining hall is still full of shaken relatives when I slide the page into my sleeve, my hands trembling so badly I nearly drop it twice before it's finally hidden against my skin.Police officers move through the wreckage taking statements.A nurse fusses over Isabella's sling, insisting she needs to sit down, needs to rest, needs to stop arguing about it.Nobody notices me at all. Nobody's looking for a scrap of paper when there's a matriarch being led out in handcuffs and a confessed murderer walking calmly beside her, hands out in front of him like he's finally set something down after carrying it far too long.I don't breathe easy until Matteo and I are alone in the hallway outside, the noise of everything falling apart fading behind the closed door."Elena." He catches my arm, and something in my face must give me away completely, because his whole expression shifts from relief to alarm in an instant."You've gone pale. What is it?"I pull

Sal's eyes are open when we walk into his hospital room the next morning, pale and thin against the white pillows, but alive.Awake. Watching the door like he already knew we were coming before we ever knocked."You look terrible," I say, my voice breaking with relief the second I see him sitting up on his own, without the tubes and machines crowding quite so close as they did three nights ago."You should see the other guy," he rasps, and it's such a strange, ordinary joke coming from a man who nearly bled out on his own study floor that I laugh despite everything, a wet, shaky sound that's half a sob.Matteo pulls two chairs close to the bed, and I sit, taking Sal's hand carefully, mindful of the IV line still running from his arm."How are you feeling," I ask."Old," Sal says. "Older than yesterday, anyway. The doctors keep telling me I'm lucky.I keep telling them luck had very little to do with it, considering Isabella's the one who pulled me through the worst of it, sitting righ