Chapter 10
The rest of Elena’s Booth Three recording was recovered from an older preservation backup.
Harold called Andrew at 6:40 in the morning.
“There’s another file.”
Andrew drove to the archive alone.
He sat in the same booth.
Harold loaded the recording.
Elena’s voice returned.
“I’m tired of being told everything is for family.”
The familiar section played.
Then the audio continued.
“Marcus thinks I don’t know about the invoices. Lucinda thinks I don’t notice what happens after she pours my drinks. And Andrew thinks the worst thing that can happen to us is embarrassment.”
Andrew closed his eyes.
Elena continued.
“I kept thinking if I could prove Marcus was dishonest, Andrew would finally understand why I want distance.”
A pause.
“But this isn’t about Marcus anymore.”
Andrew slowly opened his eyes.
“I’m leaving Friday.”
His hand tightened around the desk.
“I asked Marcus to help because I thought he loved Alex enough to understand. I was wrong. Lucinda confronted me last night.”
Andrew stopped breathing.
“She said Alex is a Caruso before he is mine.”
Another pause.
“She told me women come and go, but children belong to the family.”
Andrew felt sick.
Then Elena said the sentence that changed everything.
“I told her I would take Alex and Andrew could come with us if he chose a different life.”
Andrew stared at the waveform moving across the screen.
Elena had not been planning to disappear with his son.
She had been giving Andrew a choice.
He had simply never known he was being asked.
The recording continued.
“Lucinda laughed. She said Andrew would never choose me over the family.”
Elena’s voice became quieter.
“The worst part is I think she may be right.”
The file ended.
Andrew remained inside the booth after Harold left.
For days he had treated himself as the betrayed husband.
Lucinda drugged Elena.
Marcus helped hide it.
Alex witnessed it.
All true.
But underneath those truths was another one.
Elena had been trying to save their marriage by leaving the world Andrew refused to question.
She had planned to ask him to choose.
She died before he heard the question.
And Lucinda had not drugged Elena merely to protect Marcus’s money.
She had been trying to prevent Elena from taking Alex outside the Caruso family’s control long enough for Andrew to intervene.
The earlier doses made sense now too.
Lucinda had been weakening Elena whenever arguments about moving, school, security, or Alex became serious.
Not to kill her.
To make her look exhausted.
Emotional.
Unstable.
Someone whose decisions could be dismissed.
Andrew remembered telling Elena she needed rest.
Telling her she was overreacting.
Telling her Lucinda was only trying to help.
He had unknowingly repeated the story Lucinda needed him to believe.
Andrew removed his wedding ring.
May you like
Not because he stopped loving Elena.
Because for the first time since her death, he understood how alone she had been while wearing hers.
