Chapter 5 - THE MAN WHO STOOD OUTSIDE THE HOSPICE
I had seen Gabriel Vale dozens of times.
He was sixty-two.
Tall.
Quiet.
Always perfectly dressed.
His dark hair had turned almost entirely silver.
He spoke to employees by name.
He tipped drivers.
He held doors open for kitchen staff.
Unlike Vivian, he never acted as though wealth made him a separate species.
Now I stared at the photograph of him outside my mother’s hospice.
He had been there.
I had been inside.
We might have passed each other in the parking lot.
The possibility made me furious.
“Find him.”
My voice sounded strange in the enormous foyer.
Vincent looked toward Luca.
“Do it.”
Luca began issuing orders.
Vivian remained near the staircase.
Her father had left.
Her confidence seemed to have left with him.
I turned toward her.
“Did you know Gabriel was Daniel?”
“No.”
“Did your father?”
“I don’t know.”
I laughed.
“Again.”
She glared.
“What do you want from me?”
“The truth.”
“I have given you more truth tonight than anyone else.”
“You tried to frame me for stealing a multimillion-dollar necklace.”
Her face tightened.
“Yes.”
The admission shocked me.
Maybe it shocked her too.
She sank onto a bench.
“Yes, I did.”
I waited.
She looked down at her hands.
“My father said you were dangerous.”
“So you decided to destroy my life?”
“He said if you remained in Belladonna House, Vincent would lose everything.”
I looked at Vincent.
His expression was unreadable.
Vivian continued.
“I believed him.”
“Why?”
“Because he showed me documents.”
“What documents?”
“Letters from Teresa.”
My heart accelerated.
“What letters?”
“Threats.”
“My mother threatened him?”
“That’s what he said.”
“Did you read them?”
“Yes.”
“What did they say?”
Vivian hesitated.
“She said if he ever went near you, she would expose what happened in 1998.”
“What happened in 1998?”
“I don’t know.”
“That sounds more like a warning than a threat.”
Vivian looked at me.
“I know that now.”
I wanted to hate her.
Part of me still did.
But for the first time I saw what manipulation looked like from the inside.
It did not excuse her cruelty.
It only explained where someone had planted the seed.
Vincent turned to Luca.
“Pull Gabriel’s personnel file.”
Luca nodded.
“And every financial transaction he has authorized for the last twenty-seven years.”
Another nod.
“Find out who contacted Salvatore from the house.”
“Yes.”
“And locate the red ledger.”
Vivian raised her head.
“You won’t.”
Vincent turned.
“Why?”
“Because if my father doesn’t have it, Gabriel probably does.”
I stared.
“Why would my father have my mother’s ledger?”
Vivian looked at me.
“Because I don’t think Daniel disappeared to protect Teresa.”
Vincent’s face hardened.
“You are guessing.”
“No.”
She stood.
“I remember something.”
“What?”
“When I was seventeen, I heard my father arguing with a man in his study.”
“Who?”
“I didn’t see him.”
“What did they say?”
Vivian closed her eyes, trying to remember.
“My father said, ‘You were paid to disappear.’”
My pulse jumped.
“And the man said, ‘I disappeared from her, not from the truth.’”
Silence.
Vincent’s expression darkened.
Vivian continued.
“My father said if Teresa ever found out he was alive, everything would collapse.”
I felt my stomach twist.
“My mother thought Daniel was dead?”
“I think so.”
The betrayal hit me even though I had never known the man.
If Gabriel was Daniel, he had stood outside my mother’s hospice without entering.
He had allowed her to die believing whatever lie she had been told.
I looked at the photograph.
“Why would he do that?”
Vincent answered quietly.
“Fear.”
I looked at him.
“Or guilt.”
He didn’t argue.
Three hours later we were still awake.
The house remained locked down.
Employees were questioned individually.
Nothing.
Nobody admitted contacting Salvatore.
No one had found Gabriel.
At four eighteen in the morning, I finally went to the staff kitchen.
I needed water.
I needed silence.
I needed one room that didn’t contain twenty-eight-year-old secrets.
The kitchen lights were dim.
Most of the countertops had been cleaned after the party.
Only one lamp remained on near the sink.
I filled a glass.
“You shouldn’t drink that.”
The voice came from behind me.
I spun.
Gabriel Vale stood in the doorway.
I dropped the glass.
It shattered.
He immediately raised both hands.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
I backed away.
“Security is looking for you.”
“I know.”
“Vincent thinks you’re my father.”
His face changed.
Not surprise.
Pain.
I knew.
My chest tightened.
“Are you Daniel Caruso?”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
For several seconds he said nothing.
Then he removed his glasses.
“Yes.”
The room became unbearably quiet.
I stared at the stranger who had apparently given me half my DNA.
“You were outside the hospice.”
He nodded.
“You watched my mother die.”
His jaw trembled.
“Yes.”
“You didn’t come inside.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“She didn’t want me there.”
I stepped toward him.
“You spoke to her?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Three weeks before she died.”
My hand curled into a fist.
“She knew you were alive?”
“Yes.”
Everything I had believed shattered again.
“What did she say?”
Gabriel looked at me.
“She told me never to come near you.”
I swallowed.
“Why?”
“Because she believed I betrayed her.”
“Did you?”
His silence lasted too long.
I laughed bitterly.
“That’s an answer.”
“It isn’t that simple.”
“It seems incredibly simple.”
“I was twenty-nine.”
“So?”
“My father owed Salvatore DeMarco money.”
“So you sold my mother?”
“No.”
His voice cracked sharply.
“I never sold Alessandra.”
I stared.
“Then what did you do?”
He lowered his head.
“I gave Salvatore the address of the lake house.”
My stomach dropped.
The letter had warned her not to go there.
“You told him where she was going.”
“I didn’t know what he intended.”
“You were working for him.”
“I was trying to pay my father’s debt.”
“That makes it better?”
“No.”
His answer stopped me.
He looked older suddenly.
“I have spent twenty-eight years knowing exactly what I did.”
“Why did you change your name?”
“Because Daniel Caruso was supposed to die.”
“Supposed to?”
“Salvatore ordered it.”
My breath caught.
“Why?”
“Because after Alessandra escaped, he needed someone to blame.”
Gabriel moved slowly toward a chair.
He sat.
“I survived because Luca found me first.”
I stared.
“Luca knows you’re Daniel?”
“He confirmed it years ago.”
Anger surged.
“He just told us he suspected.”
“He was protecting me.”
“Everyone keeps using protection as an excuse for lying.”
Gabriel flinched.
“You’re right.”
I didn’t expect that.
He reached inside his jacket.
I immediately backed away.
He stopped.
“It’s only an envelope.”
“Put it on the table.”
He did.
I didn’t touch it.
“What is it?”
“Something your mother gave me.”
“When?”
“Three weeks before she died.”
“What?”
He looked at me.
“A key.”
I opened the envelope.
Inside was an old brass key.
A small paper tag was tied to it.
B-17.
“What does it open?”
“A safe-deposit box.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
I stared.
“Then why give it to me?”
“Because Alessandra said Isabella would know.”
I almost laughed.
“I don’t.”
Gabriel leaned forward.
“She said one sentence.”
“What?”
“Tell Bella to remember where we counted stars.”
I froze.
A memory surfaced.
My mother and I used to spend summer evenings on the roof of our apartment building.
We would count airplanes and pretend they were stars.
But she used to say something else.
Real stars are safest underground.
I had never understood.
Until now.
I looked at Gabriel.
“There was a subway station.”
His expression sharpened.
“What?”
“When I was little, my mother used to take me to Grand Central.”
“We would sit near the old brass astronomical ceiling.”
“She called it counting stars.”
Gabriel stood.
“Grand Central.”
“B-17 could be a locker.”
“Or a bank nearby.”
The kitchen door suddenly opened.
Vincent entered with Luca and two guards.
Every weapon came up.
Gabriel did not move.
Vincent stared at him.
“Daniel.”
Gabriel looked at Vincent.
“Hello, little brother.”
Vincent’s face became stone.
“You don’t get to call me that.”
“I know.”
Luca looked between them.
“Boss, let him explain.”
Vincent ignored him.
“You watched my sister disappear.”
“Yes.”
“You lived inside my house for twenty-seven years.”
“Yes.”
“You sat beside my father.”
“Yes.”
“You let my mother die thinking Alessandra was dead.”
Gabriel looked devastated.
“Yes.”
Vincent stepped closer.
“Why?”
“Because I was looking for the red ledger.”
The room became silent.
I held up the key.
“My mother knew where it was?”
Gabriel shook his head.
“She knew where the next clue was.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
“Why didn’t she simply give you the ledger?”
“Because she didn’t trust me.”
“Smart woman.”
Gabriel accepted the insult.
“She trusted Isabella.”
I stared.
“She barely told me anything.”
“That was deliberate.”
“Why?”
“Because the less you knew, the safer you were.”
I gripped the key.
“And now?”
Gabriel looked toward the dark windows.
“Now Salvatore knows the locket has surfaced.”
“What does that change?”
His answer came immediately.
“Everything.”
Vincent frowned.
“Explain.”
Gabriel stared at the small brass key in my palm.
“The locket proves Alessandra survived long enough to have a daughter.”
“The trust proves Isabella is that daughter.”
“But the red ledger proves why Antonio Moretti and Salvatore DeMarco needed both of them erased.”
My throat tightened.
“What is in the ledger?”
Gabriel looked at Vincent.
“Names.”
“What names?”
“Judges.”
“Politicians.”
“Businessmen.”
“Police commanders.”
“People who spent twenty-eight years pretending the Moretti-DeMarco alliance was legitimate.”
Vincent went still.
Gabriel continued.
“But one name matters more than the others.”
“Whose?”
Gabriel looked directly at me.
“The person who ordered the car to intercept your mother.”
I barely breathed.
“Salvatore?”
“No.”
“Antonio?”
“No.”
Vincent’s face darkened.
“Then who?”
Gabriel looked toward the ceiling.
“Someone who was inside Belladonna House tonight.”
Before anyone could speak, every light in the mansion went out.
Darkness swallowed the kitchen.
A second later, an alarm began screaming.
Luca shouted.
“Security breach!”
Then a gunshot cracked somewhere upstairs.
May you like
And from the darkness beside me, someone grabbed the brass key out of my hand.
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