Chapter 10 - MY MOTHER'S LAST RECORDING
I forgot how to breathe.
Mom looked tired in the video.
But unmistakably herself.
“My name is Grace Brooks,” she began. “If this recording is being watched, I probably failed to stop Matteo Russo.”
Dominic stood beside me.
His face had become stone.
Mom continued.
“Matteo used Daniel Vale’s construction companies to steal money for years. When Lucia discovered irregularities, she asked me to check the books.”
So my mother had not betrayed the Vales.
She had been helping Lucia.
“Matteo discovered what we were doing. He manipulated Lucia into changing security at Montrose, then sent men to recover the records.”
Dominic looked down.
Mom spoke directly to him.
“Dominic, Lucia did not betray you.”
His jaw clenched.
“She trusted the wrong man. That is not the same thing.”
I watched Dominic absorb the sentence he had needed for seventeen years.
Then Mom said something worse.
“Daniel Vale knew.”
Dominic froze.
His father had known Matteo was stealing.
But instead of stopping him, Daniel used Matteo to move money through illegal businesses he did not want connected to the Vale name.
When Grace and Lucia threatened to expose everything, Daniel decided both women had become liabilities.
“Your father ordered the Montrose break-in,” I whispered.
Dominic said nothing.
The video continued.
“Matteo was supposed to destroy evidence. Daniel never intended Dominic to be there.”
Then my mother looked directly into the camera.
“And when Dominic was injured, Daniel covered everything up.”
I felt sick.
Dominic’s scar had come from his own father’s conspiracy.
Mom had fled with me because she believed Daniel would come after anyone connected to her.
Years later, Matteo found us in Pennsylvania.
He sabotaged her car.
She knew someone was watching her before the crash.
That was why she made the recording.
Tears blurred my vision.
Then Mom smiled.
It broke me.
“Elena, I’m sorry I raised you inside a secret. I wanted you ordinary. Safe. Free.”
I covered my mouth.
The recording ended with one final instruction.
“The original financial proof is not at Montrose.”
Dominic looked toward the screen.
“It is hidden where Elena learned to take care of broken things.”
The projector went black.
I stared.
“Broken things.”
Dominic turned toward me.
“What did she mean?”
Then I remembered.
My mother had taught me property repair in the basement of our old apartment building.
She used to say:
If you can fix a pipe, patch a wall, and feed yourself, you’ll never be helpless.
The building still existed.
We drove there immediately.
In the basement, behind an old utility panel, I found a metal box.
Inside were original ledgers.
Photographs.
Bank records.
Enough to destroy Matteo’s protection.
But beneath them was something else.
A birth certificate.
Mine.
My mother’s name appeared exactly where expected.
The father’s line did not.
I read it twice.
Then looked at Dominic.
“My father wasn’t Robert Brooks.”
Dominic had gone pale.
Because the name printed on my birth certificate was one he recognized.
May you like
Nathan Russo.
Matteo Russo’s younger brother.
