Chapter 7 - Gabriel’s Missing Millions
We did not call the police.
Gabriel wanted to.
I stopped him.
The caller had warned us.
Police meant my mother died.
Vincent traced the phone while Gabriel assembled four men he trusted.
I sat in the back of an armored SUV with my hands shaking.
Gabriel was beside me.
“You stay in the car.”
“No.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion.”
“Neither is my answer.”
“Hannah.”
“My mother.”
His jaw tightened.
Then his hand covered mine.
“Then you stay behind me.”
The address led to an abandoned diner.
My mother was tied to a chair inside.
Carmine was not there.
Two hired men were.
Gabriel’s guards took one down before he fired.
The second ran.
Vincent caught him outside.
I reached Mom.
She was terrified but unharmed.
Then she saw Gabriel.
Her face changed.
“Oh, God.”
Gabriel noticed.
“You know me?”
Mom shook her head.
“No.”
“You know my family.”
Silence.
I knelt beside her.
“Mom.”
She began crying.
Twenty-nine years earlier, before she met my father, my mother worked as a housekeeper for Maria Moretti.
Gabriel’s mother.
Maria was planning to leave her husband.
Not because he abused her.
Because she had discovered Carmine stealing from the family.
She gathered evidence.
Then she disappeared.
Years later, the Morettis announced she had died overseas.
My mother never believed it.
Maria had given her one thing before disappearing.
A key.
Mom had kept it for nearly three decades.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because she made me promise.”
“Where is it?”
Mom looked at Gabriel.
“Safe-deposit box.”
The next morning we opened it.
Inside was a ledger.
A photograph.
And a letter.
The photograph showed Maria holding two babies.
Gabriel was one.
The second baby was a girl.
On the back:
Gabriel and Mia.
Gabriel sat utterly still.
“Mia.”
His sister.
The hidden beneficiary.
The ledger showed millions diverted by Carmine over decades.
Not twelve million.
Nearly ninety million.
Gabriel’s supposed missing inheritance had been laundered through shell companies.
The newest account belonged to “Maria Moretti.”
But the signature did not match Maria’s.
It matched another document.
The forged deed Carmine had tried to make Gabriel approve.
Carmine had created a fake Maria.
The identity allowed him to move money from the protected trust.
But Mia was still out there.
If she lived, Carmine could never fully control the trust.
We opened Maria’s letter.
Gabriel read it aloud.
“If anything happens to me, protect my children from Carmine.”
Children.
Plural.
Then came the sentence that changed everything.
“Mia was placed with someone Carmine would never suspect.”
My mother started crying.
I looked at her.
“Mom?”
She shook her head.
“Hannah, I wanted to tell you.”
My heart stopped.
“No.”
Gabriel stared at me.
My mother reached for my hand.
“You weren’t the baby.”
I exhaled.
Then she added:
“But I know who was.”
She gave us a name.
A woman living less than twenty miles from the estate.
We drove there before sunset.
Her house was empty.
The front door stood open.
Inside, a kettle was still warm.
On the table was a recent photograph.
Gabriel picked it up.
The woman standing in it had his eyes.
Then we heard a floorboard creak upstairs.
Someone was still in the house.
May you like
And a woman’s voice called down:
“Gabriel?”
