Chapter 5 - Matteo’s Last MessageDamian did not return the next morning.
He left security outside.
He left instructions that nobody was to approach us without my permission.
And he disappeared.
I was furious.
Then his attorney brought me a package.
“Mr. Caruso asked me to give you this.”
Inside was Matteo’s phone.
Recovered from the wreckage two years earlier.
Damian had kept it.
Most files were destroyed.
One audio recording survived.
Recorded seventeen minutes before the crash.
I pressed play.
Matteo’s voice filled the room.
“Elena, if you ever hear this, I’m sorry.”
I began crying immediately.
“I wanted to come home.”
A pause.
“I wanted to tell you everything.”
His breathing sounded ragged.
“My father found us.”
I held Leah tighter.
“I asked Bianca to protect you if I couldn’t.”
Then:
“Damian is following me.”
My stomach twisted.
“He thinks I betrayed the family.”
A long silence.
“But he isn’t like Father.”
I froze.
“If something happens, don’t hate him for believing the lie. We were all raised inside it.”
Tears ran down my face.
“Damian will understand eventually.”
Matteo breathed.
“And when he does, he will protect our daughter better than anyone alive.”
I stopped the recording.
Couldn’t continue.
Ten minutes later, I forced myself.
Matteo’s final words:
“Tell our little girl her father wanted her.”
Then the recording ended.
I cried until I had nothing left.
That afternoon, I called Damian.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
His attorney finally told me where he was.
The cemetery.
Bianca and Matteo had been buried outside Milan.
I flew there with Leah.
Damian stood between two graves.
Alone.
He turned when he heard us.
His eyes widened.
Leah saw him.
“Dami!”
She ran.
Damian dropped to his knees.
She collided with him.
He held her like someone had returned oxygen to his body.
I watched.
Then walked toward Matteo’s grave.
His real name was engraved there.
MATTEO CARUSO
I placed my hand on the stone.
“You idiot.”
Damian remained silent.
“You should have told me.”
“I know.”
“About the chase.”
“Yes.”
“About Matteo.”
“Yes.”
“Everything.”
“Yes.”
I turned.
“I don’t forgive you.”
“I understand.”
“But Matteo did.”
Damian froze.
I told him about the recording.
His face crumpled.
“He said that?”
“Yes.”
Damian looked toward his brother’s grave.
For a long time, he could not speak.
Then he whispered:
“I’m sorry.”
Not to me.
To Matteo.
Leah placed her tiny hand on his cheek.
“Dami sad?”
We both froze.
Three words.
Damian laughed through tears.
“No, piccola.”
He kissed her hand.
“Dami’s okay.”
For the first time, I saw what Leah had always known.
Damian was dangerous.
Flawed.
Guilty of things I might never fully understand.
But with her, he was gentle.
And that gentleness was real.
We returned to Zurich together.
Rafael accepted a plea agreement after financial records linked him to witness intimidation, kidnapping conspiracy, and the trust fraud.
Then he revealed one final secret.
Vittorio had ordered Leah killed after Bianca took her.
Rafael refused.
Not from kindness.
From greed.
He wanted the inheritance accessible later.
His selfishness accidentally bought my daughter time.
The irony made me sick.
Within weeks, the criminal case expanded.
The clinic faced prosecution.
Victims from other suspicious cases came forward.
Apparently Leah had not been the only baby whose records had been manipulated.
My private tragedy became part of something larger.
Damian funded legal representation for every family.
Anonymously.
I found out anyway.
“You’re trying to buy forgiveness,” I told him.
“No.”
“What, then?”
“Usefulness.”
I understood.
Months passed.
I moved into a small house outside New York.
Not Damian’s mansion.
My house.
Leah lived with me.
Damian visited almost every day.
Sometimes for dinner.
Sometimes for ten minutes.
Sometimes just to read Leah a bedtime story.
May you like
He never demanded more.
That was probably why I slowly began giving it.
