Chapter 4 - Elena’s Voice
Victor listened to his dead wife speak until dawn.
Not continuously.
He couldn’t.
Every few minutes he stopped the recording because memory became physical.
Elena laughing in the kitchen.
Elena barefoot on the terrace.
Elena arguing about curtains.
Leo asleep against her shoulder.
Ordinary fragments.
The cruelest kind.
Hannah had taken Poppy upstairs.
She offered to leave the estate entirely once morning came.
Victor told her no.
She misunderstood.
“I can find another job.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“I don’t want Poppy around this.”
“Neither do I.”
Hannah looked at him.
“Then what?”
Victor had no answer.
Harrow Point was compromised.
Gregory knew every system.
If he had partners still outside, Hannah and Poppy were safer under protection than alone in their apartment.
But saying that sounded like asking them to stay.
Victor was not ready to understand why that mattered.
“Give me forty-eight hours.”
“For?”
“To make sure you can leave safely.”
Hannah studied him.
“I don’t like being ordered around.”
“I noticed.”
“That wasn’t agreement.”
Victor almost smiled.
“Forty-eight hours.”
She sighed.
“Fine.”
Elena’s recording revealed what she had discovered before the fire.
Gregory and Delacroix Maritime had been moving undeclared cargo through Castellano terminals for years.
Not drugs.
That surprised Marcus.
High-value stolen art.
Sanctioned luxury goods.
Financial documents used for blackmail.
The operation required access to Victor’s schedules and shipping authorizations.
Gregory had both.
Elena found irregularities after a charity shipment disappeared.
She investigated quietly.
Then created copies.
The audio ended with:
“I haven’t told Victor because he trusts Gregory like family. I need proof he can’t explain away.”
Victor stopped the recording.
Marcus asked, “Why didn’t she tell you?”
Victor looked toward the dark fireplace.
“Because she knew me.”
Meaning what?
Meaning Victor would have confronted Gregory immediately.
Meaning Gregory would have denied everything.
Meaning evidence might disappear.
Meaning Victor’s temper could become the very weakness Elena feared.
Twelve years later, Hannah had also chosen not to tell him immediately about the medallion.
She had gone to Gregory first.
Same mistake?
Or same instinct?
Victor hated the comparison.
Detective Keene arrived at nine.
He brought warrants.
Questions.
And bad coffee.
Victor gave him the USB.
Marcus looked shocked.
“You’re giving him everything?”
“Yes.”
Keene stared.
“That may include evidence incriminating your companies.”
“I know.”
“Potentially you.”
“I know.”
“Are you ill?”
Victor looked at him.
“Do you want it or not?”
Keene took it.
The investigation into Elena and Leo’s deaths reopened.
Forensic review of the old fire file found inconsistencies.
The guest cottage’s electrical system had been modified shortly before the fire.
A circuit protection device had been deliberately bypassed.
Could it prove murder?
Not yet.
But it destroyed the neat accident narrative.
Gregory’s lawyer issued a statement.
He denied kidnapping Hannah voluntarily, claiming it was a misunderstanding connected to stolen corporate material.
Hannah read it over breakfast.
“A misunderstanding?”
Victor sat opposite her.
“He has expensive lawyers.”
“I noticed.”
Poppy ate cereal between them.
“Bad man is lying.”
Victor looked at the child.
Hannah sighed.
“We don’t call people bad.”
Poppy frowned.
“He pushed you.”
Hannah paused.
“Okay. In this case, maybe.”
Victor hid a smile.
Then Poppy pointed her spoon at him.
“Are you bad?”
Silence.
Hannah nearly dropped her coffee.
Victor considered.
It was not a question anyone in Baltimore would dare ask him.
He answered honestly.
“Sometimes.”
Poppy thought about that.
“Don’t.”
Victor blinked.
“That’s the plan.”
“Good.”
She returned to cereal.
Hannah looked at him.
“Life advice from a three-year-old.”
“Expensive?”
“Free.”
“Rare around here.”
The moment was almost normal.
Then Marcus entered.
“We have another problem.”
Victor stood.
Marcus laid out bank records.
Gregory had not acted alone inside Harrow Point.
Someone transferred three hundred thousand dollars to an offshore account the morning Hannah was taken.
Authorization came from a staff terminal.
Whose?
Chief of household payroll.
Margaret Sloane.
Sixty-one-year-old woman who had worked for Victor’s family since he was sixteen.
Hannah shook her head.
“No.”
Victor understood.
Margaret had taught Leo to make pancakes.
Elena trusted her.
Victor trusted her.
Again.
“Where is she?”
Marcus said, “Gone.”
“Car?”
“Still here.”
“Phone?”
“In her room.”
Hannah whispered, “She didn’t leave voluntarily.”
Victor looked at her.
“How do you know?”
“Margaret keeps medication for her arthritis in her handbag.”
“So?”
“Her bag is hanging by the staff entrance.”
Victor stared.
Hannah had noticed what security had not.
Again.
They searched the house.
Basement.
Service corridor.
Wine cellar.
Old laundry rooms.
Poppy stayed with Teddy and two guards.
Hannah insisted on helping.
Victor objected.
She ignored him.
They found Margaret inside a locked storage room below the east wing.
Alive.
Terrified.
Her ankle injured.
She had been there since the previous evening.
Victor crouched beside her.
“Who?”
Margaret began crying.
“Thomas.”
Victor frowned.
Thomas Reed.
Night maintenance supervisor.
Five years employed.
Marcus swore.
“He accessed the camera network.”
Margaret nodded.
“He made me approve the transfer.”
“Why?”
“He said Gregory would hurt my grandson.”
Hannah knelt beside her.
“Did you see where he went?”
“No.”
Margaret grabbed Victor’s wrist.
“Mr. Castellano, Gregory said something.”
“What?”
“He said if the maid talked, they would use the old fire again.”
Victor’s blood went cold.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
But Hannah did.
She looked toward Poppy’s floor above them.
“The house.”
Victor followed her thought.
Another fire.
A distraction.
Or worse.
He stood.
“Evacuate everyone.”
Marcus moved instantly.
Alarms were not used.
Too much panic.
Staff left in controlled groups.
Hannah ran upstairs for Poppy.
Victor followed.
When they reached the nursery corridor, they smelled smoke.
Not heavy.
Thin.
Chemical.
Hannah’s face changed.
“Poppy!”
She ran.
Victor caught up.
The smoke came from the service stairwell.
Someone had ignited cleaning chemicals and cloth near the electrical panel.
Not enough to engulf the mansion immediately.
Enough to create chaos.
Poppy was still in the room with guards.
Safe.
Fire crews arrived quickly.
Damage remained limited.
But Thomas Reed vanished during the evacuation.
Marcus reviewed footage from a functioning camera.
Thomas left through the south gate dressed as a fire technician.
Hannah held Poppy so tightly the child complained.
Victor watched firefighters clear the corridor.
Twelve years earlier, fire had taken Elena and Leo.
Tonight someone used fire again.
Not to kill him.
To frighten him.
And it worked.
That enraged him more than fear itself.
Hannah approached.
“Victor.”
First name.
She had never used it.
He turned.
“You need to sleep.”
“No.”
“You’re shaking.”
He looked at his hands.
She was right.
Victor Castellano had faced guns without shaking.
Smoke from a hallway had reduced him to memory.
Hannah lowered her voice.
“Poppy is safe.”
He nodded.
“So are you.”
He looked at her.
“Am I?”
She understood he wasn’t asking physically.
“No,” Hannah said.
“But maybe you could be.”
The answer stayed with him.
May you like
Because Victor had spent decades making other people afraid and calling that safety.
Now, for the first time, he began to understand the difference.
