Chapter 5 - THE TRAITOR AT MY TABLE
The steel door sealed with a sound I felt in my bones.
Harper grabbed Maisie.
I stared at Thomas Reed.
The ledger lay open between us.
His name.
His account number.
A payment made that morning.
Two hundred thousand dollars.
Reed drew his gun.
Harper gasped.
I raised mine at the same time.
Neither of us fired.
“Put it down,” I said.
Reed's expression remained steady.
“You first.”
That hurt more than I expected.
Thomas Reed had worked for me eleven years.
He had stood outside Isabella's funeral in the rain.
He had taught Luca how to throw a baseball.
After the bombing, I trusted him enough to put my life in his hands.
Now Victor's ledger said he was bought.
“Were the cameras yours?” I asked.
“No.”
“The intruder?”
“No.”
“The payment?”
“Yes.”
Harper whispered, “Oh my God.”
Reed didn't look at her.
I tightened my grip.
“Explain.”
“Not until Maisie moves behind the deposit cabinets.”
“Why?”
“Because that door didn't close by accident.”
A faint metallic click came from the hallway beyond the vault.
Reed looked toward it.
“Down!”
Gunfire tore through the narrow glass panel beside the vault entrance.
I shoved Harper and Maisie behind a concrete divider.
Reed fired through the opening.
A man screamed.
So Reed could have killed me.
Instead, he protected us.
We exchanged a look.
“Temporary truce?” he asked.
“Very temporary.”
He almost smiled.
Three armed men entered the outer corridor.
Reed and I had survived worse.
Within seconds, one attacker was down, one fled, and the third found himself staring into my gun from the floor.
I grabbed his jacket.
“Who sent you?”
Nothing.
Reed kicked his weapon away.
“Victor?”
The man's eyes flicked.
Enough.
Security alarms finally activated.
The attacker bit something hidden inside his molar.
Reed grabbed his jaw.
Too late.
His body convulsed.
Harper turned Maisie's face away.
“Poison,” Reed said.
“Old-fashioned.”
“Effective.”
The bank's emergency team opened the vault minutes later.
I did not lower my gun.
“Now explain the payment.”
Reed rubbed his jaw.
“Three months ago, I learned someone inside our organization was accessing archived security maps. I traced one transfer to a company controlled by Victor.”
“You didn't tell me.”
“You would have confronted him.”
“Yes.”
“Exactly.”
I hated that answer because it was true.
“So you let him recruit you?”
“I made him think he had.”
“You took his money.”
“I took every dollar.”
Reed pulled out a second phone.
On it were recordings.
Messages from Victor's people.
Instructions.
Payments.
“And documented all of it.”
Harper stared.
“You knew my mother was in danger?”
Reed's face changed.
“No. If I had known—”
“But you knew Victor was doing something.”
“I suspected financial corruption. Nothing about Rebecca. Nothing about Isabella.”
I believed him.
Not because I wanted to.
Because Victor had been careful.
He had used everyone's assumptions against us.
I lowered my weapon.
Reed did the same.
“Next time you infiltrate my uncle's conspiracy, tell me.”
“You'd ruin it.”
“Probably.”
We left through the bank's underground exit.
The false convoy had worked.
Most of Victor's men had followed it.
But not all.
Someone had anticipated our backup plan.
Someone knew the tunnel.
That left very few possibilities.
Back at the estate, Mrs. Doyle was awake.
She slapped my hand away when I tried to examine her bandage.
“I've survived three Marchetti generations. Stop hovering.”
Maisie climbed carefully onto the bed beside her.
Mrs. Doyle immediately softened.
“Except you. You may hover.”
Harper stood near the window.
I joined her.
“What happens now?”
“We expose Victor.”
“To police?”
“Eventually.”
She looked at me.
“That sounds like a mafia answer.”
“It probably is.”
“I don't want Maisie growing up in this.”
“Neither do I.”
She studied me.
“You really mean that.”
I thought about Isabella's recording.
Please don't let revenge be the only thing Luca remembers about his father.
“Yes.”
For the first time, I realized killing Victor would be easy.
Living differently afterward would be harder.
Gabriel called at dawn.
“Victor knows the box is empty.”
“How?”
“Because I just watched him put the bank manager into a car.”
My stomach tightened.
“Where are you?”
“Closer than you want.”
“You're coming in.”
“No.”
“You want to protect your daughter?”
Silence.
“Then stop hiding in trees like a ghost and come tell her the truth.”
Gabriel exhaled.
“You're asking me into Marchetti territory?”
“Don't make me repeat myself.”
Thirty minutes later, a guard announced a man at the west entrance.
Gabriel Rourke walked through my door.
He was forty-three now.
Gray at his temples.
A scar crossed his jaw.
He looked thinner than the man in my old photographs but carried himself exactly the same way.
My hands curled.
Nine years of rage stood ten feet away.
Gabriel looked at me.
Then at Maisie.
Everything changed.
He stopped.
She stopped.
Harper moved in front of her.
“Don't.”
Gabriel's face broke.
“I wasn't going to touch her.”
“Good.”
Maisie peeked around Harper.
“You're my dad?”
He crouched slowly.
“Yes.”
“You look old.”
I heard Reed choke back a laugh.
Gabriel almost smiled.
“I am old.”
“Mr. Elias is older.”
“Thank you, Maisie,” I said.
Gabriel laughed once.
It was the first familiar sound he had made.
Then Maisie asked, “Why didn't you save Mom?”
The smile vanished.
Gabriel looked at the floor.
“I tried.”
“No, you didn't. You weren't there.”
Harper put a hand on her shoulder.
Gabriel's eyes filled.
“You're right.”
Maisie waited.
He continued.
“I thought staying away would keep dangerous people from finding you. I made a choice. I believed it was the safest one.”
“It wasn't.”
“No.”
He nodded.
“It wasn't.”
Maisie hugged Blue November tighter.
“Mom cried when she thought we were sleeping.”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
“I know.”
“You hurt her.”
“Yes.”
The honesty surprised everyone.
Maisie considered him.
Then she said, “I don't forgive you yet.”
Gabriel nodded.
“You shouldn't.”
He stood.
“That may be the bravest thing I've ever seen,” Reed murmured.
Gabriel looked at me.
“Victor is preparing to move.”
“Against me?”
“Against everyone.”
He placed a folded document on the table.
“Your companies have emergency succession provisions.”
“I know.”
“If you're declared mentally incompetent or compromised by criminal investigation, Victor becomes temporary chairman.”
My jaw tightened.
“He's going to trigger the clause.”
“Today.”
“How?”
Gabriel hesitated.
Then turned on the television.
Breaking news filled the screen.
Federal vehicles were surrounding three Marchetti properties.
Reporters shouted outside my downtown headquarters.
The headline read:
MARCHETTI CEO LINKED TO INTERNATIONAL SMUGGLING NETWORK.
Harper stared.
Reed swore.
Gabriel looked at me.
“Victor moved all of his transactions into your name.”
My phone began ringing.
Board members.
Attorneys.
Banks.
Then Reed's phone buzzed.
He read the message and went pale.
“What?”
He looked at me.
“The board called an emergency meeting.”
“When?”
“Thirty minutes.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“You can't go.”
I put on my coat.
“That's why I have to.”
Harper stepped forward.
“Elias, it's a trap.”
I looked at the evidence bag containing Isabella's recording.
“Yes.”
I buttoned my coat.
“And for the first time, Victor thinks I'm walking into it blind.”
Then Maisie screamed from behind us.
We turned.
The kitchen window was open.
Harper rushed across the room.
Maisie stood frozen.
Blue November was gone.
In its place sat a single photograph.
It showed Harper and Maisie sleeping in my guest room the night before.
May you like
On the back, four words had been written in black ink.
YOU CANNOT PROTECT THEM.
