Chapter 4 - The Brother Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Nicholas Falcone had imagined seeing his brother alive thousands of times.
Never like this.
Gabriel stood in the smoke with gray beginning at his temples and a scar cutting from the corner of his left eye toward his cheek.
Older.
Harder.
Alive.
Nicholas forgot the gunshots.
Forgot the storage room.
Forgot Sophie crouched behind him.
“You died.”
Gabriel's smile vanished.
“I was supposed to.”
Nicholas crossed the room.
Then punched him.
Sophie gasped.
Gabriel staggered backward into the metal wall.
Nicholas grabbed his coat.
“Fifteen years.”
Another punch.
“You let us bury an empty coffin?”
Gabriel wiped blood from his mouth.
“I didn't have a choice.”
“You had fifteen years of choices.”
“Nicholas.”
Sophie touched his arm.
He looked at her.
That tiny interruption was enough.
Gabriel straightened.
“Your security team is alive. The shots were mine. I needed them distracted.”
Nicholas turned toward him.
“You attacked my men?”
“If I wanted them dead, they'd be dead.”
“That is not reassuring,” Sophie said.
Gabriel looked at her for the first time.
His expression softened.
“You look like Evelyn.”
Sophie stiffened.
“You knew my mother?”
“She saved my life more than once.”
“Apparently that was her hobby.”
Gabriel almost laughed.
Nicholas did not.
“Why are you alive?”
Gabriel looked toward the corridor.
“We shouldn't talk here.”
“You'll talk wherever I tell you.”
“Still stubborn.”
“Still angry.”
“You should be.”
Nicholas stepped closer.
“I am.”
Gabriel's eyes moved toward the letter in Sophie's hand.
“You found Evelyn's message.”
“Yes.”
“Then we're already late.”
“Late for what?”
Gabriel looked at Sophie.
“Someone else knows about the ledger.”
Nicholas's expression hardened.
“What ledger?”
“The evidence Evelyn and I collected against Father.”
“Where is it?”
Gabriel nodded toward Sophie.
“She knows.”
“I know a library number.”
“Exactly.”
Sophie stared.
“You've known where it was this whole time?”
“No. Evelyn changed the hiding place after I disappeared.”
“Why?”
“Because someone betrayed us.”
Nicholas's jaw tightened.
“Who?”
Gabriel hesitated.
That hesitation was enough.
Nicholas understood.
“Someone in the family.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
Nicholas laughed without humor.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I expect you to survive long enough to find out.”
Sirens sounded outside.
Gabriel glanced toward the door.
“We have minutes.”
Nicholas blocked his path.
“You're coming with us.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Nicholas, if the people looking for me discover I'm alive, Sophie becomes more valuable.”
“She already has a target on her back.”
“Then get her to the library.”
Gabriel turned toward Sophie.
“Find 823.7. Evelyn always hid truth inside fiction.”
Sophie frowned.
“823.7 is English fiction from a particular period.”
“Then start there.”
He moved toward the door.
Nicholas grabbed him.
“Don't disappear again.”
Something changed in Gabriel's face.
For the first time, he looked less like a mysterious survivor and more like an older brother.
“I didn't leave because I wanted to.”
“Then why?”
Gabriel looked at him.
“Because Father told me if I ever contacted you, he'd kill you.”
Nicholas went still.
Gabriel pulled away.
“And because someone you still trust helped him.”
Then he vanished into the smoke.
By the time Nicholas's men reached the storage unit, Gabriel was gone.
Nicholas said almost nothing during the drive to Sophie's library.
That worried her more than anger would have.
She sat beside him in the SUV.
His knuckles were bruised.
“You hit him hard.”
“He deserved harder.”
“Probably.”
Nicholas looked at her.
“You're agreeing with me?”
“Don't get used to it.”
He looked out the window again.
Sophie studied him.
“You're happy he's alive.”
His jaw tightened.
“I don't know what I am.”
“You don't have to.”
“I buried him.”
His voice was quieter now.
“I stood beside my mother while she cried over a coffin we weren't allowed to open because Father said the accident had destroyed his body.”
Sophie said nothing.
“I spent fifteen years believing I should have seen what was coming.”
“You were nineteen.”
“So was he.”
“That doesn't make either of you responsible.”
Nicholas turned toward her.
“You always do that.”
“Do what?”
“Say the thing nobody else will.”
“Occupational hazard of being underpaid.”
He almost smiled.
Then his hand moved across the seat.
Not quite touching hers.
Sophie noticed.
She turned her palm upward.
Their fingers met.
Nicholas looked down.
For a man who could order rooms silent, he seemed almost uncertain about holding her hand.
Sophie squeezed once.
He didn't let go.
The library was closed when they arrived.
Nicholas's security team entered first.
Nothing unusual.
No broken locks.
No strangers.
Sophie led Nicholas upstairs to the adult fiction section.
“823.7.”
Rows of books waited.
Nicholas stared.
“There are hundreds.”
“Yes.”
“You enjoy this.”
“A little.”
They searched for forty minutes.
Nothing.
Nicholas pulled out another book.
“Who decided this system?”
“Melvil Dewey.”
“I dislike him.”
“He's dead.”
“Convenient.”
Sophie laughed.
Then she saw something.
A book shelved backward.
Old.
Red leather.
No title on the spine.
She pulled it out.
The cover read The Mysteries of Udolpho.
Inside was a hollow compartment.
Empty.
Nicholas immediately looked around.
“We're too late.”
Sophie ran her fingers inside the compartment.
“Wait.”
There was writing on the bottom.
Not handwriting.
Numbers.
4-12-9-26.
Nicholas stared.
“A code?”
“Maybe.”
Sophie repeated the numbers.
Four.
Twelve.
Nine.
Twenty-six.
She looked toward the children's floor below.
“What?”
“My mother used to make puzzles for me.”
She grabbed a scrap of paper.
“Numbers became letters.”
D.
L.
I.
Z.
“That means nothing,” Nicholas said.
“Unless they're positions.”
She looked at the book title.
Fourth letter.
Twelfth.
Ninth.
Twenty-sixth.
No.
She tried the author's name.
Ann Radcliffe.
Nothing.
Then she noticed the publication information.
London.
She froze.
“Nicholas.”
“What?”
“This copy doesn't belong here.”
“Why?”
“It's too valuable.”
She turned the book over.
A library stamp was inside.
Not Sophie's library.
Falcone Memorial Library.
Nicholas stared.
“My grandfather built that.”
“Does it still exist?”
“No. Father closed it twenty years ago.”
“What's there now?”
“A private archive on our estate.”
Sophie slowly looked at him.
“Your house?”
“Yes.”
They returned immediately.
Nicholas called ahead.
His security chief, Marco Bellini, answered.
Nicholas explained they needed the old archive secured.
Marco said nobody had entered it in years.
When they arrived, Isabella was waiting.
“You found something?”
Nicholas held up the book.
His mother's expression changed.
“Where did you get that?”
“Sophie's library.”
“That belonged to Gabriel.”
Nicholas looked sharply at her.
“You're sure?”
“He collected Radcliffe.”
Sophie showed her the numbers.
Isabella stared.
“Those aren't coordinates.”
“What are they?”
“A date.”
Nicholas frowned.
“April twelfth, nineteen twenty-six?”
“No.”
She rearranged them.
“December fourth, nineteen twenty-six.”
Nicholas looked confused.
Isabella walked toward the old archive.
“The day your grandfather was born.”
They descended into the mansion's lower level.
The archive smelled of dust and cedar.
Shelves held ledgers, family documents, old photographs, and boxes.
At the rear stood a portrait of Nicholas's grandfather.
Sophie studied it.
“Birthday.”
Nicholas removed the portrait.
Behind it was a safe.
He looked at Sophie.
“Of course.”
She smiled.
“Families love symbolism.”
Nicholas entered 12041926.
The safe opened.
Inside was a black ledger.
Sophie exhaled.
Nicholas reached for it.
“Wait.”
She pointed.
A wire.
Thin.
Almost invisible.
Connected beneath the ledger.
Nicholas froze.
He immediately pulled Sophie backward.
“Bomb?”
“I don't know.”
His security team entered.
Marco Bellini moved forward.
Nicholas raised a hand.
“Don't touch it.”
Marco stopped.
Sophie watched him.
Something about his expression bothered her.
Recognition.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
Marco quickly concealed it.
But Sophie had spent years dealing with children who lied about broken crayons and missing books.
She knew the difference.
Nicholas ordered everyone upstairs while specialists examined the safe.
In the hallway, Sophie pulled him aside.
“Marco knew.”
“What?”
“The wire.”
Nicholas frowned.
“He's trained.”
“No.”
She lowered her voice.
“He knew before he saw it.”
Nicholas looked through the doorway.
Marco was speaking into a radio.
“He's been with my family twenty-three years.”
“Gabriel said someone you still trust betrayed him.”
Nicholas's face went still.
Sophie recognized the expression.
“You're thinking it too.”
Before he could answer, every light in the mansion went out.
Darkness swallowed the corridor.
A gunshot cracked downstairs.
Then another.
Nicholas grabbed Sophie and pulled her against the wall.
Emergency lights flickered red.
Someone shouted.
Nicholas drew his weapon.
“Sophie, stay behind me.”
Footsteps approached.
Marco emerged from the darkness.
Blood covered his shirt.
Nicholas raised his gun.
Marco lifted both hands.
“Boss.”
“Where's the ledger?”
Marco looked toward the open safe.
Empty.
His face tightened.
“Someone took it.”
Nicholas stared at him.
Then a voice came from behind Sophie.
“Actually,” Isabella Falcone said quietly, “I did.”
Sophie turned.
Nicholas's mother stood at the end of the corridor.
May you like
The black ledger was in her hands.
And she was pointing a gun directly at her son.
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