Chapter 22 - The Visitor from the Past The heavy iron doors of the estate’s grand foyer swung open with a slow, agonizing creak, letting in a swirl of blinding snow and sub-zero air. Standing on the threshold, wrapped in a threadbare wool coat soaked through with freezing slush, was a woman in her late forties. Her skin was pale, weathered by decades of hardship, but her eyes—those dark, abysmal pools—were unmistakable.
Elena Vance wasn't dead.
Dante froze halfway down the grand staircase, his hand resting tightly on the wrought-iron baneluster. Behind him, Leo stepped out from the shadows of the upper landing, his small frame rigid, his dark eyes locking onto the woman who had supposedly perished in the slums years ago.
"You..." Dante breathed, the word tasting like ash and old ghosts. "Marco told me you were erased. He said you died in the winter of your son's birth."
Elena offered a bitter, humorless smile, her breath pluming in the freezing foyer air. "Marco was a brilliant accountant, Dante, but he was a terrible executioner. He paid me off, yes—but he also locked me away in a medical facility in Wisconsin when I refused to hand Leo over completely. I only escaped when your compound in Indiana went up in flames."
Leo slowly descended the stairs, step by deliberate step, until he stood inches away from the woman who claimed to be his mother. He didn't smile. He didn't cry. He looked at her the way a general inspects a captured spy.
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"If you're here for money," Leo said coldly, his voice echoing in the vast hall, "you walked into the wrong fortress. My father owns the city, but currency is the cheapest thing we trade in here."
Elena looked down at the boy, a sudden tear cutting through the grime on her cheek. "I didn't come for money, Leo. I came to warn you. The man who funded Marco’s laboratory isn't dead. He’s sitting on the federal commission right now—and he’s coming to finish what Marco started."
