Chapter 3 - THE MAN WHO SOLD THE HOUSE
For one long second, Damon considered killing Gabriel Velez where he stood.
Nine years.
Nine years of loyalty.
Nine years of Gabriel entering secured rooms without being searched, driving Damon through dangerous territory, arranging shipments, handling payroll, sitting at family dinners, carrying the coffin when Damon's sister Isabel was buried.
Nine years.
And now the man had just admitted he had made a deal with the Delgatos.
Marcus apparently shared Damon's instinct.
“Give me one reason,” Marcus said, gun leveled at Gabriel's chest.
Gabriel did not look at him.
He looked at Damon.
“Because I can get them out.”
“Who?”
“Selena. Ruby. You, if you'll listen.”
A low rumble moved through the walls.
Damon glanced upward.
“What did they put in the house?”
“Nothing.”
“Wrong answer.”
“The house isn't the target.”
Gabriel looked toward the ceiling.
“The gas line beneath the west kitchen is.”
Marcus cursed.
Damon's expression did not change.
“How long?”
“Maybe five minutes.”
“You said sixty seconds.”
“Until their team reaches this hallway.”
Selena tightened her arms around Ruby.
Damon stared at Gabriel.
“You gave them the route.”
“Yes.”
“Security positions.”
“Yes.”
“Camera access.”
“Yes.”
“North gate.”
“Yes.”
With every admission, Marcus looked closer to firing.
Damon asked the question that mattered most.
“Why?”
Gabriel finally looked away.
“They have my son.”
Damon's anger paused.
Marcus lowered his weapon by less than an inch.
“You don't have a son,” he said.
Gabriel laughed bitterly.
“Not one anybody here knows about.”
Damon knew Gabriel had been married once.
The marriage ended before he joined the Reyes organization.
No children had ever been mentioned.
Gabriel's face tightened.
“He's seventeen. His name is Noah. His mother kept him away from me because she knew what I was. I paid for school through a trust. Watched him from a distance. That was the deal.”
“When did the Delgatos find him?”
“Six weeks ago.”
Damon felt the pieces aligning.
“That's when the route changes started.”
Gabriel nodded.
Marcus swore.
“You let men into Damon's house because they grabbed a boy none of us knew existed?”
Gabriel looked at him.
“What would you have done?”
“I would've told us.”
“They sent me a video.”
His voice cracked for the first time.
“My son tied to a chair. A gun at his head. Mateo Delgato told me if I warned Damon, they'd mail him back to me in pieces.”
Selena covered Ruby's ear.
Gabriel continued.
“So I gave them information.”
Damon stared at him.
“And then you called Selena.”
“Yes.”
“Why her?”
“Because I realized what they actually wanted.”
His eyes moved toward the rabbit.
“That drive.”
Damon glanced at Ruby.
“You knew about Javier?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Barely. Javier Castillo was Rafael Delgato's accountant for eighteen months.”
Selena flinched.
“He wasn't an accountant.”
“He was whatever he told you he was because he was trying to keep you clean.”
She looked devastated.
Gabriel kept talking.
“Javier copied the Delgato financial archives before he ran. Names. Judges. Businesses. Contractors. Shell companies. Payments. Everything.”
Damon looked toward Selena.
She shook her head.
“He never told me.”
“He wasn't supposed to.”
Gabriel pointed toward the rabbit.
“They've spent four years looking for that drive.”
“How do you know it's real?” Marcus asked.
“Because Delgato intelligence found a photograph from Javier's apartment. Ruby's nursery. Same rabbit.”
Selena looked down.
“That was Javier's gift to her.”
Gabriel nodded.
“He must have hidden the drive before he died.”
The fire alarm continued shrieking.
Damon's patience ended.
“Move.”
Gabriel stepped toward the east staircase.
Marcus blocked him.
“He leads, we die.”
“If he wanted us dead,” Damon said, “he could've said nothing.”
Marcus looked sharply at Damon.
“You're trusting him?”
“No.”
Damon drew his weapon.
“I'm using him.”
Gabriel nodded once.
“That works.”
They moved quickly.
Down one floor.
Across a gallery filled with old photographs Damon suddenly hated because every framed memory made the house feel more vulnerable.
A sharp crack sounded behind them.
One of the windows shattered.
The lead guard dropped.
Selena screamed.
Damon grabbed her shoulder and shoved her toward the interior wall.
“Keep moving!”
Marcus fired toward the broken window.
Gabriel kicked open a side door.
“Here!”
They entered a storage room.
At the rear stood an iron shelving unit.
Gabriel yanked it sideways.
Behind it was a narrow stone doorway.
Damon stopped.
“You knew about this.”
Gabriel laughed without humor.
“I know everything about this house. Remember?”
That was precisely the problem.
The tunnel smelled of dust and old earth.
Damon sent Selena and Ruby ahead.
Marcus followed.
Gabriel started after them.
Damon caught his arm.
“You stay with me.”
Gabriel looked at the weapon against his ribs.
“Fair.”
They entered.
Damon pulled the shelving unit back into place.
Darkness swallowed them before emergency lamps blinked on.
The old service tunnel had been built decades before the Reyes family purchased the property. It ran beneath the estate and emerged near an abandoned pump house almost half a mile east.
Only Damon, Marcus, and three members of the old household staff knew it existed.
Apparently Gabriel had been the fourth.
Ruby whispered from ahead.
“It's scary.”
Damon heard Selena answer.
“I know, baby.”
“I want my bed.”
Damon looked at Gabriel.
His anger sharpened.
“This is what you gave them.”
Gabriel did not defend himself.
“I know.”
“You knew children lived here.”
“Yes.”
“And you still opened the gate.”
“Yes.”
Damon shoved him against the stone wall.
Marcus turned.
“Damon.”
Gabriel did not resist.
Damon pressed the barrel beneath his jaw.
“You know the law in my world.”
Gabriel's eyes were exhausted.
“Yes.”
“Betrayal is death.”
“Yes.”
“Then explain why you're still breathing.”
Gabriel's answer was almost a whisper.
“Because Ruby is.”
Damon stared at him.
“I couldn't undo what I'd already done. But when Mateo said they were going to kill everyone in the west wing to make the message memorable, I couldn't keep pretending this was about my son anymore.”
“So you warned Selena.”
“Yes.”
“You planted the transmitter.”
“Yes.”
“To find the drive.”
“Yes.”
“Did you enter her room?”
Gabriel shook his head.
“No.”
Ruby's strange statement came back.
The lady who comes when you sleep.
Damon looked at Selena.
“Who watches Ruby?”
“Usually me. Sometimes staff if I'm working late.”
“Names.”
Selena listed three women.
Mrs. Alvarez.
Dana Holt.
And Theresa Quinn.
Damon knew all three.
Theresa had joined six months ago.
Too recently.
Marcus was already thinking the same thing.
“Theresa.”
Gabriel's face changed.
“No.”
Damon looked at him.
“You know her.”
Gabriel breathed out.
“Her real name isn't Theresa Quinn.”
Selena stopped walking.
“Who is she?”
Gabriel looked at Damon.
“Lucia Delgato.”
Damon's stomach hardened.
“Relationship?”
“Rafael's younger sister.”
Selena pressed a hand over her mouth.
Ruby clutched the rabbit.
For months, a Delgato had been inside his house.
Near the child.
Sleeping down the hallway.
Damon's rage became almost impossibly quiet.
“Where is she now?”
Gabriel's eyes darkened.
“Probably looking for us.”
A muffled explosion rolled through the tunnel.
Dust dropped from the ceiling.
Ruby screamed.
Damon moved to her immediately.
“Keep walking.”
The group hurried.
After several minutes, they reached the final bend.
Marcus stopped.
The iron door leading to the pump house stood twenty yards ahead.
Damon frowned.
Something was wrong.
The door was open.
Only slightly.
A thin line of daylight cut across the tunnel floor.
Marcus whispered, “Nobody should know this exit.”
Gabriel went still.
“I didn't tell them.”
Damon looked at him.
“I swear.”
A voice came from the other side.
Female.
Soft.
Familiar.
“Ruby?”
The little girl lifted her head.
Selena's face drained of color.
Ruby smiled instinctively.
“Miss Theresa.”
Damon grabbed the child before she could move.
The iron door opened wider.
Theresa Quinn stepped into the tunnel.
Except she was not Theresa Quinn anymore.
There was no gentle housekeeper in her expression.
No soft-spoken woman who had read Ruby bedtime stories.
Lucia Delgato held a pistol in one hand.
In the other was a phone.
On the screen, a teenage boy sat tied to a chair.
Gabriel made a broken sound.
“Noah.”
Lucia smiled.
“Hello, Gabriel.”
Damon raised his gun.
Lucia pressed her thumb against the phone.
“You can shoot me.”
Her smile widened.
“But somewhere in Phoenix, my brother will shoot Gabriel's son before my body hits the floor.”
May you like
Then she looked directly at Ruby's stuffed rabbit.
“Now give me what my family came for.”
