Chapter 4 - The Betrayal No One Saw Coming
By noon, Penelope understood why people called the Moretti estate a fortress.
Metal gates locked automatically.
Security shutters covered several lower windows.
Armed men appeared in hallways she had previously assumed led to linen closets.
Gabriel’s staff moved with a precision suggesting this had happened before.
Penelope stood in the kitchen with her arms folded.
“This is insane.”
Rosa continued making pasta.
“You get used to it.”
“That sentence concerns me.”
Rosa smiled.
She had worked for the Moretti family for thirty-one years and treated men carrying assault rifles with the same casual irritation she reserved for people who left wet towels on furniture.
“Eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You’ll be hungry when you’re dead.”
Penelope stared at her.
“Do all of you communicate through threats?”
“It saves time.”
Gabriel spent the afternoon with Vincent reviewing surveillance footage.
Penelope tried to stay out of the way.
She failed.
At three, she rolled into the study pushing a portable blood-pressure monitor.
Gabriel looked up.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I am busy.”
“Your blood pressure has been high since this morning.”
“Someone shot through my window.”
“Exactly.”
Vincent stepped aside.
“I’m staying out of this.”
“Coward,” Gabriel muttered.
Penelope wrapped the cuff around his arm.
“Did you know the person who shot you six months ago?”
Gabriel’s expression hardened.
“This is not relevant to my blood pressure.”
“Talking lowers stress.”
“Not when you do it.”
Vincent coughed.
Penelope ignored him.
“Your brother died three weeks before your shooting.”
Gabriel became very still.
“Who told you?”
“Vincent.”
Vincent looked horrified.
“I did not tell her details.”
“You told me enough.”
Gabriel removed the cuff.
“We are finished.”
“No.”
“Penelope.”
“You’re not angry because I asked. You’re angry because you don’t know the answer.”
His eyes met hers.
Vincent quietly left.
Coward indeed.
Gabriel rolled toward the window.
The broken pane had been boarded temporarily.
“My brother was not supposed to be at that restaurant.”
Penelope remained silent.
“He changed plans two hours before dinner. Only four people knew.”
“Who?”
“Me. Vincent. My uncle Carlo. And Dominic Raines.”
“Who’s Dominic?”
Gabriel looked toward her.
“My attorney.”
Penelope’s stomach tightened.
“And your shooting?”
“Private gala. Guest list changed that morning.”
“Same four people?”
“Almost.”
“What does almost mean?”
“Luca was dead.”
“So three.”
Gabriel said nothing.
Penelope understood.
“You suspect your uncle or your lawyer.”
“I suspect everyone.”
“Including Vincent?”
Gabriel’s gaze sharpened.
“I said everyone.”
She looked toward the doorway.
Vincent had spent nearly two decades beside Gabriel.
That kind of suspicion seemed impossible to survive.
“How do you live like that?”
Gabriel’s laugh held no humor.
“Longer than people who don’t.”
That evening the storm returned.
Heavy rain hammered the estate.
Penelope had been given a guest room because Gabriel refused to allow her home until the threat was identified.
She protested for thirty minutes.
Gabriel won by simply ordering the gates kept closed.
“This is kidnapping,” she told him.
“This is security.”
“There’s a legal distinction.”
“My lawyers are excellent.”
“You’re impossible.”
“So I’ve heard.”
At eleven, Penelope could not sleep.
She wandered downstairs and found Gabriel alone in the library.
A fire burned.
He sat near it with a glass of whiskey untouched beside him.
“You’re supposed to be resting,” she said.
“So are you.”
“I’m being held hostage.”
“You have Egyptian cotton sheets.”
“Luxury kidnapping is still kidnapping.”
Gabriel looked back toward the fire.
Penelope sat on the sofa.
For several minutes neither spoke.
Without bodyguards, staff, or medical routines, Gabriel seemed different.
Still dangerous.
But lonely.
“You loved your brother,” Penelope said.
His jaw tightened.
“He was irritating.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“He talked constantly.”
“So do I.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe you have a type.”
Gabriel looked at her.
She smiled.
To her surprise, he smiled back.
Small.
Then gone.
“Luca was younger,” he said. “He wanted out.”
“Out of the family business?”
“Yes.”
“You wouldn’t let him?”
“I did.”
Penelope waited.
“He was opening a restaurant in Boston.”
“What kind?”
“Italian.”
She laughed softly.
“Very rebellious.”
“He wanted to cook. Our father hated it.”
“Your father?”
“Dead.”
“Natural causes?”
Gabriel looked at her.
Penelope raised her hands.
“Sorry. Occupational curiosity.”
“He had a heart attack.”
“So Luca was leaving.”
“He was.”
“And someone killed him.”
“Yes.”
The fire cracked between them.
Gabriel looked down at his hands.
“I told him I would protect him.”
Penelope’s chest tightened.
“You couldn’t know.”
“I should have.”
“That’s grief talking.”
“That is responsibility.”
“No. Responsibility is what you can control. Grief likes to rewrite the rules afterward.”
Gabriel looked at her for a long time.
“You say things nobody else says to me.”
“Everyone else is afraid you’ll bury them in landscaping.”
The corner of his mouth moved.
Then the mansion lights went out.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Penelope froze.
Gabriel moved immediately.
“Down.”
“What?”
“Penelope, get down.”
She dropped from the sofa.
A second later, glass shattered somewhere downstairs.
Gunfire erupted.
Not one shot.
Several.
Gabriel pulled a pistol from beneath the side of his wheelchair.
Penelope stared.
“You keep that there?”
“Not now.”
Footsteps thundered in the hall.
Gabriel rolled toward Penelope.
“Behind me.”
“You’re in a wheelchair.”
“And armed.”
“That is not reassuring.”
“Move.”
She crouched behind a heavy desk.
Voices shouted.
Another shot.
Then silence.
A door opened.
Gabriel raised the gun.
“Boss!”
Vincent.
Gabriel lowered the weapon.
Emergency lights flickered on.
Vincent entered with blood on his sleeve.
“They breached the east service entrance.”
“How many?”
“Two inside. Maybe more outside.”
“Casualties?”
“Marco’s hit. Arm. Nothing vital.”
“Penelope?”
Vincent looked toward the desk.
She emerged.
“I’m fine.”
Gabriel exhaled.
Only then did Penelope realize his hand was trembling.
Not with fear.
Adrenaline.
“Take her upstairs,” he ordered.
“No.”
Both men looked at her.
“I’m not going upstairs by myself while people are shooting.”
“You will do what I say.”
“That strategy hasn’t worked since Tuesday.”
Gabriel glared.
Penelope looked at Vincent.
“Where is Marco?”
“Kitchen corridor.”
“Then I’m going there.”
“You are not.”
“I’m a nurse.”
“You are a target.”
“He’s bleeding.”
Vincent looked between them.
“I vote nurse.”
Gabriel’s expression promised future consequences.
Penelope rushed out.
Marco had a through-and-through gunshot wound in his upper arm.
She applied pressure, assessed circulation, and helped stabilize him until the private physician arrived.
Gabriel watched from the doorway.
This was not the chaotic woman who spilled coffee.
Her hands were steady.
Her voice calm.
She took control without hesitation.
When Marco panicked, she made him focus on breathing.
When he apologized for bleeding on her blouse, she told him the blouse was ugly anyway.
By the time the doctor arrived, Marco was stable.
Gabriel remained silent.
Later, near two in the morning, Penelope found him in the hall.
“You’re shaking,” she said.
“I am not.”
“Your right hand.”
He looked down.
It was.
Penelope crouched in front of him.
“Adrenaline crash.”
“I know.”
“Breathe.”
“Do not tell me to breathe.”
“Fine. Stop breathing. That’ll show me.”
His eyes closed.
Penelope put one hand over his.
This time he did not threaten the rose garden.
His fingers turned beneath hers.
Held.
For several seconds, the entire violent world outside disappeared.
Then Vincent arrived.
“We found one of them.”
Gabriel released Penelope’s hand.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
Gabriel’s expression turned cold.
“Good.”
Penelope stood.
“What are you going to do?”
Neither man answered.
Her stomach sank.
“Gabriel.”
“This does not concern you.”
“He attacked the house.”
“Yes.”
“He could tell you who hired him.”
“He will.”
Something in Gabriel’s voice frightened her.
“Without killing him?”
Gabriel looked at her.
She suddenly understood the truth she had been avoiding.
The gentle moments did not erase who he was.
He ran a criminal organization.
People feared him for reasons.
Penelope stepped back.
Gabriel saw it.
Something closed behind his eyes.
“Vincent. Take her upstairs.”
This time Penelope went.
She did not sleep.
At dawn, someone knocked.
Gabriel waited outside her room.
He looked exhausted.
Penelope opened the door wider.
“Did you kill him?”
“No.”
“Did you hurt him?”
Silence.
“That’s not the same answer.”
“No.”
She searched his face.
“Why?”
Gabriel looked away.
“Because you asked.”
Her anger faltered.
“What did he tell you?”
Gabriel’s gaze returned.
“He gave us a name.”
“Your uncle?”
“No.”
“Dominic?”
“No.”
Penelope waited.
Gabriel’s voice became quiet.
“He said the person who paid him was Vincent Romano.”
Penelope stared.
“That’s impossible.”
“I agree.”
“Then he’s lying.”
“Perhaps.”
“Vincent saved your life.”
“More than once.”
“He’s been with you since you were a teenager.”
“Yes.”
“Then you don’t believe it.”
Gabriel looked toward the hallway.
“I told you, Penelope.”
His face had become unreadable.
“I suspect everyone.”
Downstairs, Vincent stood alone in the security room watching footage from the attack.
On one monitor, Penelope crossed the upper hallway.
On another, Gabriel sat outside her bedroom.
Vincent reached into his pocket.
He removed a burner phone.
A new message waited.
WE KNOW SHE’S INSIDE.
Vincent stared at the screen.
May you like
Then deleted the message.
And behind him, unseen, someone quietly photographed him doing it.
