Chapter 3 - A Target Inside the Fortress
Penelope’s second day began with a kidnapping.
At least, that was what she called it.
At precisely eight thirty the following morning, a black SUV appeared outside her apartment building.
Vincent sat in the passenger seat.
Two enormous men occupied the front and rear.
Penelope opened the door wearing navy scrubs and carrying her canvas bag.
She stared.
“This is excessive.”
Vincent lowered the window.
“It’s transportation.”
“This is how people disappear in documentaries.”
“Get in.”
“See? Kidnapping language.”
Vincent rubbed his forehead.
“Gabriel said nine.”
“My watch says eight thirty-one.”
“The estate is twenty-seven minutes away.”
“You timed it?”
“Get in, Penelope.”
She climbed inside.
Twenty-nine minutes later, she walked into Gabriel’s breakfast room carrying a paper cup.
Gabriel immediately looked at it.
“No.”
“It’s tea.”
“No.”
“You banned coffee.”
“I am expanding the prohibition.”
Penelope placed the cup on a side table.
“You’re very controlling.”
“I have been told.”
“Probably thirteen times.”
His eyes narrowed.
She smiled brightly.
“Good morning.”
The second day became the third.
Then the fourth.
Against every expectation inside the Moretti organization, Penelope remained employed.
She brought structure into Gabriel’s rehabilitation without making it feel like surrender.
She insisted he transfer out of his wheelchair several times each day.
She changed his pressure cushion.
She persuaded his physician to revise his medication.
When Gabriel refused stretching exercises because he had meetings, she conducted them during meetings.
The first time it happened, six men sat around the conference table discussing a waterfront construction contract while Penelope knelt beside Gabriel and moved his leg through a slow assisted range of motion.
One captain stared.
Gabriel noticed.
“Is there a problem?”
“No, boss.”
“Then continue.”
Penelope whispered, “He’s scared of me.”
“He is scared of me.”
“Whatever helps you sleep.”
Gabriel glared down at her.
She grinned.
His men began noticing something else.
Their boss was sleeping.
Not well.
But more.
The dark circles beneath his eyes faded.
His headaches decreased.
He stopped skipping lunch because Penelope would simply appear in meetings holding food.
“You cannot run a criminal empire on espresso,” she told him.
Gabriel looked up sharply.
Penelope froze.
“Hypothetically.”
Vincent laughed.
Slowly, the fortress began changing.
Penelope learned the names of the kitchen staff.
She convinced Rosa, Gabriel’s housekeeper, to hide vegetables inside sauces because Gabriel disliked them.
She reorganized his medication cabinet and labeled everything in enormous block letters after discovering that one of his guards had accidentally stored ammunition beside anti-spasm medication.
She found Gabriel’s old record collection.
Jazz.
Sinatra.
Springsteen.
One afternoon she put on music during therapy.
Gabriel entered the rehabilitation room and stopped.
“No.”
“You haven’t even heard the song.”
“I heard enough.”
“You own the record.”
“That does not mean I want to exercise to it.”
“It’s not aerobics. Relax.”
“I am relaxed.”
“You look like you’re planning three murders.”
“Only two.”
She looked at him.
Gabriel looked back.
Neither smiled.
Then Penelope burst out laughing.
Eventually he did too.
It was quiet.
Brief.
Almost rusty.
But real.
The sound stopped Vincent outside the doorway.
He stood perfectly still.
Gabriel had laughed.
Not the cold, humorless sound he sometimes made during negotiations.
A genuine laugh.
Vincent walked away before either of them noticed him.
That evening, Penelope stayed late because Gabriel’s nerve pain flared badly.
He hated anyone witnessing it.
Pain stripped away control, and control was the foundation upon which he had built his entire life.
He sat in his bedroom near midnight, fists clenched against the armrests.
Penelope crouched beside him.
“Gabriel.”
“I’m fine.”
“Your pulse is one-ten.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“And your left hand is shaking.”
His gaze snapped toward her.
“Leave.”
“No.”
“Penelope.”
“Take the medication.”
“It makes my head foggy.”
“Then tonight your head can be foggy.”
“I have work.”
“It’s midnight.”
“I have work.”
She stared at him.
Something in her face changed.
The humor disappeared.
“You think if you stop moving for one second, everything will collapse.”
Gabriel looked away.
Penelope lowered her voice.
“You’re allowed to be tired.”
“Do not.”
“Do not what?”
“Talk to me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you understand.”
“I don’t.”
That made him look at her.
Penelope sat down on the edge of the bed.
“I don’t understand what it’s like to lose your brother. I don’t understand what it’s like to wake up and realize you’ll never walk the way you did yesterday. And I’m not going to pretend I do.”
Gabriel’s breathing slowed.
“But I understand pain,” she continued. “And I understand what happens when people decide being strong means refusing help.”
He studied her.
“You speak from experience.”
Penelope smiled faintly.
“My mother raised three kids alone. She got cancer when I was twenty.”
Gabriel remained silent.
“She refused help until she physically couldn’t anymore. By then, all of us were exhausted, angry, scared, and pretending we weren’t.”
“Did she survive?”
“No.”
The answer landed gently.
Gabriel looked toward the dark window.
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
Penelope reached for the medication.
This time, he took it.
Twenty minutes later, the tension left his shoulders.
She helped him transfer into bed.
Gabriel hated transfers in front of anyone, but Penelope treated the process like what it was: practical.
No sadness.
No encouraging speeches.
Just technique, patience, and an occasional complaint about his weight.
“You’re ninety percent muscle and ten percent attitude.”
“That calculation is mathematically impossible.”
“Not with your attitude.”
When he was settled, Penelope pulled the blanket over his legs.
“I don’t feel that,” he said suddenly.
Her hands stopped.
“The blanket?”
“Yes.”
She looked at him.
“Do you want me to move it?”
“No.”
Silence stretched between them.
Gabriel stared at the ceiling.
“There are moments I forget.”
Penelope waited.
“I wake up and for half a second I think I can stand.”
His voice remained controlled, but she heard what was underneath.
“Then I remember.”
Penelope did not tell him everything happened for a reason.
She did not promise a miracle.
She simply said, “That half second must hurt.”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
She turned off the lamp.
At the door, his voice stopped her.
“Penelope.”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
It was the first time he had said it.
She smiled in the darkness.
“You’re welcome.”
The next morning, things became dangerous.
Penelope arrived at the estate and found Gabriel’s security team in chaos.
Vincent met her at the front entrance.
“You need to leave.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re bleeding.”
Vincent touched the cut above his eyebrow.
“Occupational hazard.”
“Where’s Gabriel?”
“Penelope.”
She pushed past him.
“Where is he?”
Vincent grabbed her arm.
She looked down at his hand.
Then at him.
He released her.
“Study.”
Penelope entered without knocking.
Gabriel sat behind his desk.
A bullet had shattered one of the windows.
Glass covered the floor.
Gabriel held a pistol.
Penelope stopped.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“Someone fired from the woods.”
“At you?”
“That is generally why people fire bullets through my windows.”
“Cute. Are you hurt?”
“I said no.”
She approached.
Gabriel’s face hardened.
“Stop.”
Penelope did.
For the first time, she saw the line separating his world from hers.
The gun.
The guards.
The shattered glass.
The fact that someone had attempted to kill him while she had been complaining about traffic.
“You should go home,” Gabriel said.
“Because someone shot at you?”
“Because they may shoot again.”
“And you?”
“This is my home.”
Penelope stared at him.
“You think whoever did this is connected to the shooting six months ago.”
Gabriel’s expression revealed nothing.
But silence answered.
Vincent entered.
“We found the position.”
“Anything?”
“Shell casing. No shooter.”
Gabriel looked toward the broken window.
“Professional?”
“Yes.”
Vincent glanced at Penelope.
“And there’s something else.”
He placed a photograph on Gabriel’s desk.
Penelope saw herself entering the estate.
Taken from outside the gates.
Her stomach dropped.
Gabriel’s face changed instantly.
“Where did you find this?”
“Pinned to the tree line.”
Penelope approached.
Someone had drawn a red circle around her head.
On the back were four words.
SEND HER AWAY, GABRIEL.
The room seemed to shrink.
Penelope stopped breathing for a second.
Gabriel picked up the photograph.
His voice became terrifyingly calm.
“Vincent.”
“Yes.”
“Lock the estate.”
Penelope looked at him.
“Gabriel—”
“No one enters. No one leaves.”
“You cannot lock me in your house.”
“I can if someone outside intends to kill you.”
“You don’t know that.”
The bullet embedded in the wall behind Gabriel suggested otherwise.
He rolled closer.
His expression was colder than she had ever seen it.
“This stopped being a job.”
Penelope’s heart beat harder.
Gabriel lowered his voice.
“Someone knows you matter to me.”
Neither of them moved.
Neither acknowledged what he had just admitted.
Vincent quietly turned away.
Penelope finally whispered, “Do I?”
Gabriel looked at her.
For one unguarded second, she saw the answer.
May you like
Then his walls returned.
“That is precisely the problem.”
