Chapter 10 - The Man in the Black Sedan
Gabriel went downstairs first.
Emma followed.
The knocking came from a storage room.
Luca opened it.
A wounded man collapsed forward.
Emma recognized him.
Noah Pierce.
"Adrian..." he gasped.
"Alive?" Emma asked.
Noah nodded.
"The explosion was staged."
Gabriel crouched.
"Who put you here?"
"Carlo."
Noah struggled to breathe.
"They're not partners anymore."
"Where is Adrian?"
Noah looked at Emma.
"The black sedan."
Emma froze.
"What?"
"The night of the crash. Adrian was inside."
She remembered the rain.
The overturned SUV.
Smoke.
Sophie bleeding.
Someone had watched.
"Why didn't he help her?"
Noah laughed bitterly.
"Because he caused it."
Emma's face hardened.
Adrian had ordered the collision to recover evidence Marco carried.
Sophie was acceptable collateral.
His own relative.
His daughter's blood.
Something inside Emma finally severed.
Adrian Vale might have created her.
Thomas Brooks had been her father.
No blood test could change that.
Noah revealed Adrian's location: an abandoned river warehouse.
Gabriel organized a team.
Emma insisted on going.
This time Gabriel didn't waste time arguing.
"You stay in the car."
"I'll consider it."
"That's Emma for no."
"You're learning."
At the warehouse, they found Adrian.
Alive.
Carlo was there too.
But they weren't allies.
Carlo had the evidence.
Adrian had the ledger.
Each wanted what the other possessed.
Emma stepped into the room before Gabriel could stop her.
Adrian stared.
"My daughter."
"Don't call me that."
"I gave you life."
"Thomas gave me a life."
Adrian's expression tightened.
"He stole you from me."
"No. He protected me from you."
Adrian raised his gun.
Gabriel appeared.
"Lower it."
Carlo laughed from across the room.
"The great Gabriel Moretti risking everything for a bakery girl."
Gabriel's eyes remained on Adrian.
"She's worth more than everything you understand."
Emma heard it.
So did Adrian.
His anger sharpened.
Then police sirens sounded.
Victor had contacted federal investigators.
Carlo panicked.
He fired.
Chaos erupted.
Gabriel pushed Emma behind a steel column.
Adrian fled with the ledger.
Carlo was wounded and captured.
Gabriel could again have pursued Adrian.
Again he chose Emma.
"Are you hurt?"
"No."
He touched her face.
His hands were shaking.
Emma realized something.
Gabriel Moretti was afraid.
Not of police.
Not of rivals.
Of losing her.
She covered his hand.
"I'm okay."
For one second the warehouse disappeared.
Then Luca shouted.
Adrian had escaped through the river exit.
But he had dropped something.
A photograph.
Emma picked it up.
Thomas, Margaret, and five-year-old Emma.
On the back was an address.
Margaret recognized it later.
"Your father's old workshop."
They went there.
Dust covered everything.
Emma found a locked cabinet.
Inside were letters Thomas had written but never sent.
One addressed to Gabriel.
Gabriel opened it.
Salvatore's son,
If you're reading this, decide whether you're going to become your father or end him.
Gabriel read silently.
Thomas described the organization.
The murders.
The corruption.
Then one final secret.
Salvatore had not died naturally.
Adrian had poisoned him.
Gabriel stared at the page.
For years he had believed his father's death had been illness.
Adrian had murdered him.
Emma watched rage rise.
Then Gabriel folded the letter.
He did not reach for a gun.
"What are you going to do?"
"Something my father never would."
"What?"
"Let the truth bury him."
Emma touched his hand.
Before they could leave, Margaret called.
Her voice shook.
"Emma, I remembered something."
"What?"
"Your father hid another recording."
"Where?"
"In the place you always looked but never saw."
Emma frowned.
Then she understood.
Morning Grace.
Again.
She and Gabriel returned.
Behind the old menu board was a tiny compartment.
Inside sat a recorder.
Emma pressed play.
Thomas's voice emerged.
But another voice spoke first.
Gabriel recognized it.
His father.
Salvatore Moretti.
And the first sentence changed everything.
"If anything happens to Sophie Moretti someday, Adrian Vale will be responsible."
May you like
Gabriel stared at Emma.
Sophie hadn't even been born when the recording was made...
