Chương 3 - THE KISS ELENA WAS PAID TO GIVE
Elena asked to speak to Adrian alone.
He refused.
Marcus stayed.
So did a recorder.
Apparently my disappearance had changed Adrian's opinion of privacy.
Elena sat in the same study where I had watched her kiss my husband.
She looked exhausted.
Adrian stood across from her.
“Why did you kiss me?”
She said nothing.
“Elena.”
“I wanted to know.”
“Know what?”
“If there was anything left.”
Adrian's jaw tightened.
“And?”
“You kissed me back.”
“I know.”
No denial.
Again.
Then Elena began crying.
Marcus said Adrian didn't move.
Good.
She continued.
“It wasn't supposed to happen that way.”
Adrian's voice changed.
“What way?”
Elena covered her face.
“They told me to create distance.”
“Who?”
“My brother.”
Matteo Russo.
Current head of what remained of the Russo organization.
Adrian had known him twenty years.
Hated him for eighteen.
Elena continued.
“Matteo said Claire was interfering with something.”
“What?”
“I didn't know.”
“Try again.”
“He said certain Bellandi assets couldn't move while she remained legally tied to you.”
Adrian stared.
“What assets?”
“I don't know.”
“Then why help him?”
Elena's face twisted.
“Because he has my son.”
Silence.
Adrian stopped moving.
Elena had a nineteen-year-old son studying in Montreal.
Everyone believed he was safe.
He wasn't.
Matteo had brought him back to Chicago three weeks earlier and kept him hidden after the Russo organization fractured.
“He told me if I didn't cooperate, Luca would disappear.”
Marcus later told me Adrian's first question was:
“Why didn't you come to me?”
Elena laughed bitterly.
“Because asking the Bellandis for help is how Russos end up owing Bellandis forever.”
Fair.
Adrian then asked:
“What exactly were you told to do?”
“Get inside the estate.”
“Done.”
“Wait until Claire saw enough to leave.”
Adrian went pale.
“You knew she was watching.”
“No.”
That answer came immediately.
“The study door was supposed to stay shut.”
“Then?”
“Someone opened it.”
Marcus checked.
Hallway footage showed no one near it.
Meaning it had likely never latched.
Accident.
Or preparation.
Elena continued:
“Matteo said if Claire left voluntarily, nobody would question it.”
Adrian's voice became quiet.
“And you kissed me.”
“I kissed you.”
“You expected me to stop you.”
“Yes.”
He looked away.
“But I didn't.”
“For a second.”
“Do not make it smaller.”
Silence.
“I kissed you back.”
Marcus said Elena flinched.
Adrian continued:
“That part belongs to me.”
When I later heard that, it hurt.
And helped.
Both.
Elena said:
“I didn't think—”
“No.”
Adrian cut her off.
“You did think.”
Then:
“You thought my marriage was acceptable collateral for your son.”
Elena's eyes hardened.
“And what would you sacrifice for yours?”
Adrian had no children.
But he understood.
Still:
“I would like to believe I wouldn't volunteer someone else's family.”
Elena cried.
The interrogation moved on.
Matteo wanted Claire away from the estate.
Why?
A trust.
The Bellandi Legacy Trust.
I knew it.
Barely.
Adrian's grandfather had created it decades ago.
After our marriage, certain voting rights and property interests automatically transferred into joint marital control to prevent any single Bellandi successor from moving the family's legitimate holdings into criminal activity without spousal consent.
I had signed documents fifteen years earlier.
I thought they were estate planning.
Apparently not.
As Adrian's wife, I unknowingly controlled veto rights over hundreds of millions in property.
If I died?
Some reverted.
If we divorced?
Most control returned to Adrian alone.
If I simply disappeared?
There was a ninety-day emergency clause.
A temporary proxy could be appointed.
By the Bellandi family council.
And Vincent Bellandi sat on that council.
Adrian finally understood.
They did not necessarily need me dead.
They needed me absent.
Long enough.
The kiss was not the crime.
May you like
It was the door.
And Adrian had opened it himself.
