Chapter 3 - The Therapist Who Knew His SecretsFrancesca answered Dominic's call on the second ring.
“Dominic? I've been trying to reach you.”
He stood alone in his office, the city glittering beyond the windows and the wedding ring still resting inside the evidence bag on his desk.
“Where are you?”
A pause.
“At home. Why?”
“Have you spoken to Elena today?”
“No. Is something wrong?”
“My wife is missing.”
Silence.
This time, it lasted long enough for Dominic to notice.
“What do you mean, missing?” Francesca finally asked. “Was there an incident?”
“She left the estate.”
“Left?”
“She packed a suitcase, abandoned her car near a train station, and disappeared.”
“Oh, Dominic.”
Her voice softened into the tone he knew so well. The tone that had helped him breathe through panic attacks he never admitted to his men. The tone that had persuaded him he could speak without being judged.
Normally, he would have welcomed it.
Tonight, it made his skin crawl.
“Don't do that.”
“Do what?”
“Speak to me as though you're already preparing to explain my feelings.”
“I was trying to help.”
“Then help me find her.”
Francesca hesitated.
“Perhaps she needs some time alone.”
Dominic's hand tightened around the phone.
“How do you know that?”
“I don't. I'm only suggesting that if she was upset, she may have gone somewhere familiar.”
“Who is familiar to Elena?”
“I wouldn't know.”
He stared at the dark window.
Six months earlier, Francesca had made him list the people he trusted most. He had named Matteo, three senior captains, and Elena.
She had asked what made Elena different.
He had told her that his wife knew everything about him.
Now he wondered whether that answer had made Francesca curious, jealous, or simply more determined to understand the machinery of the Bellandi family.
“Francesca,” he said, “have you ever discussed my security arrangements with anyone?”
“Of course not.”
“Have you mentioned anything about my business to another client?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Did you tell anyone about the meeting with the Morettis last week?”
Her answer came quickly.
“No.”
Too quickly.
Dominic closed his eyes.
“Why did you hesitate when I asked about Elena?”
“I didn't hesitate.”
“You did.”
“Dominic, you've just told me your wife is missing. Forgive me if I'm concerned.”
He heard the irritation beneath her concern.
It was a tiny change, but he had spent his entire adult life listening for changes in people's voices. Men lied with their words. Their breathing, their pauses, and their sudden need to explain themselves often told him what he needed to know.
“I'll speak to you tomorrow,” he said.
“Dominic, wait. Are you sure you shouldn't come in for a session? You're under enormous stress.”
He looked at the ring on his desk.
“No.”
He ended the call.
For almost a minute, he remained perfectly still.
Then he opened the encrypted messaging application he used to communicate with his senior advisers.
Find everything you can on Francesca. Background, finances, family, professional history. Quietly.
The response came less than thirty seconds later.
Understood.
Dominic added another instruction.
No one contacts her without my permission.
He was about to put the phone away when Matteo entered.
“You spoke to her?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“She claims she knows nothing about Elena's disappearance.”
Matteo pulled out a chair.
“Do you believe her?”
Dominic didn't answer immediately.
He remembered the first day he had met Francesca. One of his captains had recommended her after Dominic suffered a series of sleepless nights and violent nightmares following an assassination attempt. The recommendation came through a respectable medical practice with a list of wealthy clients and strict confidentiality policies.
Francesca had been calm, intelligent, and completely unimpressed by his reputation.
She hadn't asked him how many men he commanded.
She had asked him what he thought about when the house became quiet.
No one had asked him that question in years.
He had found himself answering.
“I don't know what to believe,” he finally said.
“Then start with the facts.”
“The attacks were coordinated. Someone knew our schedules and our warehouse locations.”
“And Francesca?”
“She knew about some of the pressures I was under.”
“That isn't an answer.”
Dominic gave him a hard look.
Matteo folded his arms.
“You don't have to threaten me, brother. I'm the one trying to stop you from turning suspicion into a war.”
For several seconds, Dominic looked as though he might argue.
Instead, he sank into the chair opposite him.
“Do you remember the week after Father died?”
Matteo's expression changed.
“How could I forget?”
Their father, Alessandro Bellandi, had died leaving behind an organization that was wealthy, violent, and on the verge of tearing itself apart. Dominic had inherited the title of Boss at twenty-six, with enemies inside the family and a dozen rivals waiting for him to fail.
His uncle Vittorio had challenged him within the first month.
The dispute had ended in bloodshed, betrayals, and a public declaration that Vittorio was no longer welcome among the Bellandis.
He had vanished afterward.
Some claimed he had gone to Europe.
Others believed he was dead.
Dominic had never received proof of either.
“You think Vittorio is behind this?” Matteo asked.
“I'm beginning to think he never stopped trying to destroy us.”
“Then why involve a therapist?”
Dominic looked at the phone.
“Because people tell a therapist things they wouldn't tell a soldier.”
Matteo's expression grew grim.
For the next two hours, they reviewed the attacks, compared timelines, and identified gaps in their security records. One captain had failed to report for duty before the first explosion. Another had used a communication channel that should have been inactive.
The pattern was unmistakable.
Someone had not merely discovered the Bellandis' weaknesses.
Someone had helped create them.
At 11:38 p.m., a security analyst entered with a tablet.
“Boss, we recovered access records from the backup server.”
Dominic stood.
“Show me.”
The analyst displayed a list of encrypted files, including several documents related to the family's security rotations.
“Most of these were accessed from inside the organization,” he explained. “But three files were opened through a remote connection using a credential associated with the consulting network that manages your appointments.”
Matteo leaned forward.
“What consulting network?”
The analyst swallowed.
“The company that invoices Dr. Francesca Vale's practice.”
Dominic felt the room narrow around him.
“Can you prove she accessed the documents?”
“Not yet. The credential may have been compromised. We're tracing the connection.”
“Then don't accuse her until you have proof.”
“Yes, Boss.”
The analyst withdrew.
Matteo looked at his brother.
“You told her about the Moretti meeting.”
“Yes.”
“You told her about the security review.”
“Yes.”
“And the captain you suspected?”
Dominic said nothing.
Matteo shook his head.
“God help us.”
Dominic turned toward the window. Beneath the city lights, Chicago continued moving as though nothing had happened. Cars crossed intersections. Restaurants emptied. Apartment windows glowed over streets where people walked home believing their biggest problem was the weather.
Somewhere in that enormous city, Elena was gone.
And somewhere else, a person who understood his organization might be preparing the next attack.
He had spent six months believing Francesca helped him control his fears.
He now had to consider the possibility that she had been learning how to weaponize them.
At 12:12 a.m., his phone rang.
An unfamiliar number.
He answered without greeting.
“Mr. Bellandi,” a man's voice said. “We recovered additional footage from the station. Your wife wasn't forced into a vehicle. She left the Mercedes, walked through the west entrance, and boarded a train.”
“Which train?”
“We're verifying the departure.”
“Verify faster.”
“We're also checking the security cameras along the platform. She appears to have been alone.”
Dominic stared at the wall.
“Are you telling me nobody took her?”
“We haven't found evidence of an abduction, sir.”
He ended the call.
Matteo watched him carefully.
“She's alive, Dominic. That's what matters.”
“She left without a guard.”
“Maybe she didn't want one.”
“She could be anywhere.”
“Then we keep looking.”
Dominic picked up the ring.
He remembered Elena standing at the gates that afternoon, telling the guards not to disturb him. He imagined her driving through Chicago with that little suitcase on the passenger seat, waiting for a message that never came.
Eleven hours and nineteen minutes.
He had not known she was timing his silence.
He had believed she would always be there when he returned.
Now every minute of that day seemed to accuse him.
“Find her,” he said.
Matteo nodded.
“Alive and safe?”
Dominic's gaze sharpened.
“Alive, safe, and only if she's willing to be found.”
Matteo stared at him, surprised by the last part.
Dominic looked back at the ring.
Perhaps it was the first sensible thing he had said all night.
Perhaps it was already too late.
Across the city, in an apartment with its curtains drawn, Francesca Vale opened a second phone she had never used to contact Dominic.
A single message waited.
Did he suspect anything?
Francesca read it twice.
Then she typed:
He's asking questions. The wife is gone.
The reply came almost immediately.
Then the next phase begins.
Francesca's fingers went cold.
She had expected the Bellandis to suffer losses. She had expected Dominic to become distracted, angry, and vulnerable. She had even expected Elena to discover that her marriage had become a prison disguised as a palace.
But she had not expected Elena to leave so suddenly.
And she had certainly not expected the name that appeared in the next message.
Vittorio wants the wife alive. She knows more than we thought.
Francesca looked toward the locked door of her apartment.
For six months, Dominic had told her secrets because he believed she was safe.
Now an entire criminal family was searching for his missing wife, while the man who wanted Elena alive had been presumed dead for twelve years.
Francesca opened the last message.
Bring her to us before Dominic finds her.
For the first time since she had begun treating Chicago's most feared mafia boss, Francesca felt genuine fear.
Because there was one detail she had not told her handlers.
She had never spoken to Elena Bellandi.
May you like
Not once.
And yet the woman who had just disappeared might be the only person capable of destroying all of them.
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