Chapter 10 - The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Locke raised the gun.
Vincent moved first.
A shot cracked.
The lamp shattered.
I dropped behind the sofa as Gabriel drove his wheelchair sideways into Locke’s knees.
Locke fell.
Vincent disarmed him.
Thirty seconds later, the surgeon was bleeding on my carpet with his wrists zip-tied behind him.
Gabriel leaned toward him.
“Tell me about my father.”
Locke smiled through blood.
“Ask your mother.”
“My mother is dead.”
“No.”
Silence swallowed the room.
Locke laughed.
“That’s Carmine’s greatest lie.”
Maria Moretti was alive.
She had been alive the entire time.
Locke claimed Carmine had tried to kill her after she discovered the theft.
Maria escaped.
But she could not safely return for Gabriel.
Carmine controlled too many people around the family.
She arranged Mia’s adoption.
Then disappeared.
“Where is she?” Gabriel demanded.
Locke refused.
Until Vincent placed Carmine’s video in front of him.
Locke watched himself discussing Gabriel’s shooting.
His face collapsed.
We had him.
Conspiracy.
Attempted murder.
Fraud.
Kidnapping.
He began talking.
Maria had returned to New York months earlier.
She was gathering evidence.
Locke believed she was the person who placed the microfilm in my family’s possession years ago.
My mother had unknowingly protected it.
“Where?” Gabriel repeated.
Locke gave us an address.
A small convent outside Saratoga.
We arrived near dawn.
An elderly woman answered.
When Gabriel gave his name, she began crying.
She led us to a garden.
A woman stood with her back to us.
Gray threaded through dark hair.
She turned.
Gabriel stopped.
I had seen his face in Mia.
Now I saw it in Maria.
“Gabriel.”
His mother crossed the garden.
She knelt before his wheelchair.
He did not embrace her.
Not immediately.
“Eight years,” he whispered.
“I know.”
“You let me bury an empty coffin.”
“I know.”
“You knew Carmine was near me.”
Tears ran down her face.
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
“You failed.”
The words hit hard.
Maria accepted them.
Then Gabriel’s face crumpled.
He reached for her.
She held him.
I looked away.
Some moments did not belong to witnesses.
Maria had the final evidence.
Carmine murdered Daniel Moretti slowly.
Poison administered over months.
Locke falsified the autopsy.
Daniel discovered Carmine’s theft and threatened to expose him.
Carmine killed his brother.
Then tried to steal everything.
Maria escaped with copies.
For years she built a case.
But fear kept her hidden.
Gabriel did not forgive her immediately.
That would have been too easy.
But he listened.
Before we left, Maria gave him a flash drive.
“The original accounts.”
Every stolen transfer.
Every bribe.
Every payment.
Enough to destroy Carmine.
We returned to the estate.
And found the gates open.
No guards.
No lights.
Vincent swore.
Gabriel called security.
Nothing.
Then my phone received a video.
Mia was tied to a chair.
Carmine stood behind her.
He held a gun.
“Bring Maria’s drive to the rose garden,” he said. “Come alone.”
The video ended.
Gabriel looked toward the dark estate.
Then another message arrived.
A photograph of my mother.
Bound beside Mia.
May you like
And beneath it:
BRING HANNAH TOO...
