Chapter 10 - THE WOMAN BEHIND THE GLASS
The search led to a rehabilitation center in Vermont.
Elisa had been transferred there under another identity.
The facility's staff had been told she was a patient whose family wanted privacy.
But the story was false.
Elisa had been isolated.
Her communications restricted.
Her identity concealed.
Dante arrived with investigators and legal representatives.
He waited in a small consultation room.
His hands shook.
Then the door opened.
A woman entered.
She was thinner than he remembered.
Her hair was shorter.
A faint scar crossed her temple.
But her eyes—
Honey-colored.
Alive.
Elisa stopped.
For a moment, she stared at him.
Then whispered:
“Dante?”
He stood.
His knees nearly failed.
“Elisa.”
She began crying.
He crossed the room.
Then stopped.
He didn't know whether he was allowed to touch her.
She reached for him.
He took her hands.
And the world seemed to stop.
For eight months, he'd buried her.
Mourned her.
Dreamed of her.
Now she stood before him.
Breathing.
Crying.
Real.
“Where's our baby?” she whispered.
Dante's face crumpled.
He took out his phone.
Opened a photograph.
Lucia.
Smiling.
Holding Biscotto's remaining button eye between her fingers.
Elisa covered her mouth.
Dante whispered:
“She's alive.”
Elisa began sobbing.
May you like
He held her carefully.
And for the first time in eight months, the two people who had lost everything began to believe they might still have a future.
