Chapter 3 - DECLAN'S CONFESSION
Gabriel crossed the room so quickly that Norah barely saw him move.
He grabbed Declan by the collar and slammed him against the wall.
“Where is Elena?”
Declan did not fight back.
“I don’t know.”
Wrong answer.
Gabriel hit him once.
“Gabriel.”
Norah’s voice cut through the room.
He turned.
“Let him talk.”
“My sister is missing.”
“And he knows something.”
Gabriel released Declan.
Barely.
Declan wiped blood from the corner of his mouth.
“Three months ago, I noticed small discrepancies in the waste-management contracts.”
Norah folded her arms.
“Why didn’t you report them?”
“Because the discrepancies were being authorized with Gabriel’s credentials.”
Gabriel went still.
Declan continued.
“I assumed someone had duplicated the access codes.”
“So you created the Delaware company.”
“Yes.”
“To reroute the stolen money somewhere you could watch it.”
“Yes.”
Norah studied him.
“That’s why every markup was exactly fourteen percent.”
Declan nodded.
“I needed a pattern noticeable enough for someone competent to find.”
Gabriel’s expression turned darker.
“You used my father’s death date.”
“I needed you to understand this was bigger than theft.”
“Why?”
Declan looked directly at him.
“Because I found the same fourteen-percent structure in ledgers from seventeen years ago.”
The room became silent.
Norah felt every piece shift.
The missing money was not the crime.
It was a recreation.
A signature.
“Who had access to those old ledgers?” she asked.
Declan hesitated.
“Marcus.”
Gabriel immediately shook his head.
“Marcus was my father’s attorney.”
“I know.”
“He practically raised Elena and me after my father died.”
“I know.”
“Choose your next words carefully.”
Declan did.
“I think Marcus has been stealing from your family for seventeen years.”
Gabriel stared at him.
Declan placed a flash drive on the table.
Norah picked it up.
“What’s on this?”
“Copies of historical vendor payments, real-estate transfers, offshore trusts, and one encrypted file I couldn’t open.”
“Why attack us?”
“I didn’t.”
“You said those were your men.”
“Three were.”
Gabriel’s face hardened.
Declan explained.
“They disappeared two weeks ago.”
“Defected?”
“I thought so.”
“Why didn’t you report that?”
“Because every time I started investigating, someone close to me disappeared.”
He looked toward Norah.
“My cousin first.”
Then Mateo.
“One of my captains.”
Then Gabriel.
“And last night, my wife.”
That changed the room.
Norah understood.
Declan had not surrendered.
He had run out of people he could trust.
“What does Elena have to do with this?”
Declan took a phone from beneath the conference table.
Gabriel’s guards had supposedly searched him.
Yet the phone had been hidden there before he entered.
That alone proved someone inside headquarters was helping him.
He opened a message.
A photograph appeared.
Elena Moretti was sitting inside a vehicle.
Her hands were bound.
Beside her was Declan’s wife, Claire.
Both were alive.
The message underneath contained no demand.
Only coordinates.
And a deadline.
8:00 a.m.
Norah checked the clock.
6:31.
Gabriel reached for the phone.
Declan stopped him.
“There’s more.”
He opened another image.
It showed a page from an old handwritten ledger.
Antonio Moretti’s name appeared beside a transfer.
Below it was another name.
Marcus Bell.
And beneath Marcus Bell was a third.
Samuel Kessler.
Norah stared at the accountant’s name.
Declan looked at her.
“You understand now?”
“No.”
“Samuel Kessler wasn’t just Gabriel’s father’s accountant.”
He paused.
“He was the whistleblower who was supposed to testify the morning after Antonio Moretti was murdered.”
Norah felt her throat tighten.
“And the encrypted file?”
Declan’s voice dropped.
“It’s named KESSLER-DAUGHTER.”
Norah’s fingers stopped over the keyboard.
Because Samuel Kessler had only one daughter.
And Norah knew her very well.
May you like
Her name was Margaret.
Norah’s mother.
