Chapter 8 - What Isabella Hid
Every instinct I had told me to go to the cemetery.
Agent Hayes told me that was exactly why I shouldn't.
“We control the grounds,” she said. “Victor wants you emotional.”
“My wife's grave is open.”
“And he knows you'll react.”
“He has Caleb's children.”
“We're locating them.”
“You have minutes.”
“You don't know that.”
“That is the problem.”
Gabriel came downstairs with his arm in a sling.
Maisie followed him.
Harper immediately frowned.
“You were shot four hours ago.”
“I noticed.”
“You belong in bed.”
“I spent nine years hiding. I'm done.”
Maisie pointed at him.
“Harper said bed.”
Gabriel looked at me.
“Your house is terrifying.”
Despite everything, I almost laughed.
Then Hayes received a call.
Her team had traced Victor's message.
Warehouse district.
Three possible buildings.
We divided resources.
Hayes went after Caleb's family.
I went to the cemetery.
Not alone.
Gabriel insisted.
So did Reed.
Snow fell harder as we crossed the cemetery gates.
Isabella and Luca were buried beneath an old oak on the eastern hill.
I hadn't visited in months.
For years, I went every Sunday.
Then I realized I was spending more time talking to the dead than the living.
Tonight, floodlights illuminated an open grave.
Isabella's casket had been lifted onto the grass.
My vision narrowed.
Victor stood beside it.
Two men behind him.
No army.
No trap I could see.
“You sick bastard.”
Victor looked almost sad.
“I knew that would get you here.”
“Why?”
“Because your wife was smarter than all of us.”
He gestured toward the casket.
“She hid something before she died.”
“How would you know?”
“Rebecca told Gabriel there was a second copy of her evidence.”
Gabriel stiffened.
“She never told me where.”
“No.”
Victor smiled.
“But Isabella did.”
He held up a letter.
My handwriting recognition was instant.
Isabella.
“She wrote this the morning she died.”
I stepped forward.
Victor raised a gun.
“Stay.”
“What does it say?”
“That if anything happened to her, Luca's guardian should inspect the silver angel.”
My eyes moved toward the headstone.
A small silver angel had been mounted beneath Luca's name.
I had touched it hundreds of times.
Never knew it opened.
Victor had discovered the letter only recently while searching Rebecca's possessions.
He couldn't remove the angel without damaging it.
So he wanted me.
“Open it.”
I stared at him.
“No.”
Victor smiled.
“Then Caleb's children die.”
Gabriel's jaw tightened.
Victor showed his phone.
Live feed.
Two children crying.
Their mother beside them.
A timer displayed twelve minutes.
I walked to Luca's stone.
My hands shook as I touched the angel.
There was a tiny groove beneath one wing.
I pressed.
A compartment opened.
Inside was a small metal cylinder.
Victor exhaled.
“Nine years.”
I stared.
Isabella had left something inches from my son's name.
For nine years.
I opened the cylinder.
A folded strip of paper.
A password.
And another memory card.
Victor raised his gun.
“Give it to me.”
Gabriel shifted.
One of Victor's men aimed at him.
I held the card.
“What is on it?”
“Insurance.”
“Against you?”
“Against everyone.”
I looked at the password.
LUCA5.
My son's name and age.
Of course.
I suddenly understood Isabella.
She hadn't hidden it for revenge.
She had hidden it where only someone who loved Luca would think to look.
I tossed Victor the card.
Gabriel turned sharply.
Victor smiled.
“Thank you.”
“You're welcome.”
His smile faded.
“You think I'm stupid?”
“No.”
I held up my phone.
“I think Isabella was smarter.”
Before leaving the house, Reed had cloned the card reader from box 417.
The instant Victor inserted Isabella's card into his tablet, the device connected to the mobile hotspot hidden in my coat.
Upload began automatically.
Victor saw the progress bar.
His face changed.
“You—”
Gabriel hit the nearest gunman.
I tackled Victor.
The second man fired.
Reed shot him.
Victor and I crashed against Luca's headstone.
He punched me.
I hit him harder.
Nine years of grief burned through my arms.
He fell.
I climbed over him.
My fist rose.
Isabella's voice returned.
Don't let revenge be the only thing Luca remembers.
Victor laughed blood through his teeth.
“Do it.”
I stopped.
That angered him more than any punch.
“Do it!”
I stood.
“No.”
His expression changed.
“You killed my wife.”
“Yes.”
“My son.”
“He wasn't supposed to be in the car.”
The world disappeared.
Gabriel froze.
Reed whispered, “Elias.”
Victor smiled.
“There. That's the face I've been waiting nine years to see.”
I wanted to kill him.
More than I had ever wanted anything.
Instead, I stepped back.
“You don't get to make me into you.”
Victor's smile vanished.
Sirens approached.
He looked genuinely frightened.
Then his phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
And smiled again.
“Too late.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
“Caleb's family was never the real leverage.”
Gabriel's face changed.
“Harper.”
Victor smiled.
I called the estate.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Reed called his team.
Static.
Victor laughed.
“The cemetery, the warehouse, the explosives—every move made you pull security away from home.”
I hit him hard enough to break his nose.
Then I ran.
The drive back felt endless.
The gates were open again.
A security vehicle burned near the entrance.
I entered the house shouting Harper's name.
Mrs. Doyle appeared.
Blood on her sleeve.
“Maisie?”
I demanded.
Her face collapsed.
“They took them.”
Both.
Harper and Maisie.
Gabriel stumbled behind me.
“No.”
Mrs. Doyle handed me a phone left on the floor.
A video was already playing.
Harper sat tied to a chair.
Maisie beside her.
Victor's remaining men surrounded them.
Behind them was an industrial furnace.
A digital clock on the wall read 11:42 p.m.
Then a masked man leaned toward the camera.
“Midnight, Mr. Marchetti.”
He held Blue November in one hand.
“Bring Victor and the original evidence.”
The video cut.
Gabriel looked at me.
“Where?”
I stared at the furnace.
I recognized it.
One of my father's oldest steel properties.
Closed twenty years ago.
And beneath the building ran abandoned rail tunnels nobody outside the Marchetti family knew existed.
I grabbed my coat.
Gabriel loaded his gun with one hand.
May you like
This time, neither of us argued.
Because we had eighteen minutes to save our daughters.
