Chapter 9 - THE WRONG TRAITOR
For seventeen years, Gabriel had blamed the wrong man.
Maybe.
Norah refused to accept Marcus’s confession as truth without proof.
That was the difference between Gabriel and her.
Gabriel understood betrayal emotionally.
Norah understood it through patterns.
“Where are you?”
she asked Marcus.
“Saint Catherine’s Church.”
Gabriel frowned.
“That church was demolished.”
“The sanctuary was.”
Marcus replied.
“The crypt wasn’t.”
Thirty-five minutes later, they entered through a service tunnel beneath the abandoned church.
Marcus Bell was waiting alone.
Seventy-one years old.
Perfect gray suit.
No weapon.
A folder rested on the stone table before him.
Gabriel stopped ten feet away.
“You killed my father.”
“Yes.”
Elena flinched.
Marcus closed his eyes.
“He made me promise I would never tell you unless Thomas returned.”
“You watched me spend seventeen years hunting for the person who pulled the trigger.”
“I watched you become strong enough to survive the answer.”
Gabriel grabbed him.
Norah did not interfere this time.
“You don’t get to call that protection.”
“No.”
Marcus looked directly into Gabriel’s eyes.
“I call it cowardice.”
That stopped him.
Marcus opened the folder.
Medical records.
Antonio Moretti.
Stage-four cancer.
Dates.
Specialists.
Private clinics.
Then a handwritten letter.
Gabriel recognized his father’s writing immediately.
His hands shook.
Norah looked away.
Some moments belonged to families, even dangerous ones.
Gabriel read silently.
Then passed the letter to Elena.
She began crying.
Antonio had known.
He had arranged the meeting.
He had instructed Marcus to shoot him after Thomas’s men attacked.
The public murder created exactly the chaos Thomas expected.
But Samuel had discovered something Antonio had not.
Thomas had survived.
He was not simply stealing.
He was building a parallel organization through legitimate businesses.
Construction.
Waste management.
Trucking.
Private security.
Everything Norah had traced.
“The fourteen percent?”
she asked.
Marcus answered.
“Antonio and Thomas each owned forty-three percent of the old holding company.”
“That leaves fourteen.”
“Samuel controlled the remaining fourteen.”
Norah understood.
The markup was not random.
It represented Samuel’s share.
A fingerprint.
“Who started the transfers?”
“Thomas.”
Marcus replied.
“Then Declan intercepted them and began redirecting the money.”
Declan’s jaw tightened.
“You knew?”
“I discovered you two weeks ago.”
“Why didn’t you contact me?”
“Because Victor was watching you.”
Gabriel placed the letter down.
“So where is Thomas?”
Marcus looked toward Norah.
“That depends on whether she decoded the final puzzle.”
Norah thought about the books.
“There was no location.”
“Not in the words.”
She froze.
In the margins.
Samuel always drew tiny geometric shapes around puzzle pages.
Norah had assumed they were decoration.
They were coordinates.
She pulled out the photographed pages.
Entered the sequences.
A location appeared.
Not Montreal.
Not Italy.
Not Delaware.
Downtown.
Three blocks from Gabriel’s headquarters.
The old Vale Tower.
A building abandoned after Thomas’s supposed death.
Gabriel stared at the map.
“He’s been here the entire time.”
Marcus nodded.
“Under it.”
Norah zoomed in.
An underground utility structure connected Vale Tower directly to Gabriel’s building.
Her stomach turned.
The security breach had not come from outside.
Thomas had been physically beneath Gabriel’s headquarters.
Watching.
Listening.
Waiting.
Then every phone in the crypt buzzed simultaneously.
One message.
A live image appeared.
Gabriel’s headquarters.
Smoke poured from several upper floors.
May you like
Thomas had made his next move.
And hundreds of Gabriel’s people were still inside.
