Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Chose Me
Sophie stared at the photograph until the room around her disappeared.
Her apartment.
Her lamp.
Her couch.
Her window.
Someone had photographed it from outside.
But that was not what frightened her.
A shadow stood inside.
“Marcus.”
Gabriel’s voice cut through the room.
Marcus returned immediately.
Gabriel took one look at Sophie’s face.
“What happened?”
She handed him the phone.
He read the messages.
His expression changed.
Not dramatically.
That was what Sophie was beginning to understand about him.
The angrier Gabriel became, the quieter he became.
“Is this your apartment?”
“Yes.”
“Who has a key?”
“Me.”
“Anyone else?”
“My landlord has an emergency key.”
“Family?”
“My mother had one, but she lives in Wisconsin.”
“Daniel?”
Sophie looked up.
“How do you know about Daniel?”
Gabriel frowned.
“I don’t.”
She gave him the paper she had found beneath Evelyn’s chair.
He read it.
For the first time that evening, Gabriel looked genuinely surprised.
“Who is he?”
“My ex-fiancé.”
“When did you last speak?”
“Eighteen months ago.”
“Why would Evelyn have his name?”
“I have no idea.”
Marcus took the paper.
“Sir, we should send someone to the apartment.”
Gabriel nodded.
“Police first. Our people stay outside unless requested.”
Sophie noticed the distinction.
He was powerful enough to send men wherever he wanted.
Instead, he called the police.
That mattered.
Twenty minutes later, officers entered Sophie's apartment.
Nobody was there.
But somebody had been.
A drawer in her bedroom had been opened.
Her closet had been searched.
A box of old documents had been emptied onto the floor.
Nothing valuable appeared missing.
Her television remained.
Her laptop remained.
An envelope containing emergency cash remained untouched.
Whoever had entered had wanted something specific.
“What was in the box?” Marcus asked.
Sophie sat at Gabriel’s kitchen island, still wearing the pink uniform.
“Old papers. Tax returns. My father’s things. Some documents from my grandmother.”
“Jewelry?”
“No.”
“Photographs?”
“Yes.”
Gabriel was standing across from her.
“What kind of documents?”
Sophie rubbed her forehead.
“My grandmother worked for a family in Chicago years ago. I inherited her papers when she died.”
Gabriel became still.
“What family?”
“I don’t know.”
“You never looked?”
“I did. Most were boring. Pay stubs. Letters. Recipes.”
She paused.
“One envelope was sealed.”
Marcus leaned forward.
“Was?”
“I opened it about two weeks ago.”
Gabriel exchanged a glance with Marcus.
“What was inside?”
“A photograph.”
“Of?”
Sophie tried to remember.
“Three men standing outside a warehouse. My grandmother was in the background.”
Gabriel’s voice lowered.
“What warehouse?”
“I couldn’t tell.”
“Anything written on it?”
Sophie thought.
Then remembered.
“Moretti Freight.”
The room changed.
Marcus looked at Gabriel.
Gabriel looked at Sophie.
She almost laughed from sheer disbelief.
“Of course.”
“Sophie—”
“My grandmother worked for your family?”
“I don’t know.”
“You own Moretti Logistics.”
“Now.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the company in that photograph may predate my ownership.”
Sophie stared.
“You inherited it?”
Gabriel did not answer immediately.
“My father controlled part of the original business.”
That answer contained more history than he wanted to discuss.
Sophie understood boundaries.
She had spent years having hers ignored.
She did not push.
“What else was in the envelope?” Gabriel asked.
“A handwritten note.”
“What did it say?”
“I don’t remember exactly.”
“Try.”
Sophie closed her eyes.
Her grandmother’s handwriting had been shaky.
Blue ink.
Two lines.
Then she remembered.
“She wrote, ‘If they ever come looking, the numbers belong to Eleanor.’”
Marcus straightened.
“Eleanor who?”
“I don’t know.”
“And the numbers?”
“There was a sequence on the back of the photograph.”
Gabriel asked, “Do you still have it?”
“At home.”
Marcus’s phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
His face changed.
“What?”
Gabriel asked.
Marcus ended the call.
“The photograph is gone.”
Sophie’s stomach tightened.
“Nothing else?”
“The intruder appears to have searched several boxes, but the only thing the responding officer can confirm missing is that photograph.”
Gabriel looked toward the dark window.
Someone had framed Sophie for theft.
Someone had documented her address.
Someone had contacted Daniel.
And someone had entered her home to steal a photograph connected to the Moretti family.
Those facts did not feel separate anymore.
Sophie hugged herself.
Gabriel noticed.
“You’re not going home tonight.”
Her head snapped up.
“That wasn’t a request you get to make.”
Gabriel paused.
Then nodded.
“You’re right.”
The simple admission surprised her.
He tried again.
“I would recommend you stay somewhere else until the police know who entered your apartment. You can choose where.”
“I can get a hotel.”
“I’ll pay.”
“No.”
“Sophie.”
“No.”
He stopped.
She was exhausted, embarrassed, frightened, and still angry.
“I don’t want to owe you.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“That’s easy for rich people to say.”
Marcus looked intensely interested in the floor.
Gabriel almost smiled.
Almost.
“Fair enough.”
Sophie looked away.
Gabriel continued.
“There is a guest suite here with its own lock. You can stay without charge because the security incident began on my property. Or Marcus can arrange a hotel under the same reasoning. Your choice.”
That felt different.
Not charity.
Responsibility.
“The guest suite.”
Gabriel nodded.
“Marcus.”
“I’ll arrange it.”
Sophie spent that night in a room larger than her apartment.
She did not sleep.
At 2:14 a.m., she searched her grandmother’s name online.
Margaret Bell.
Nothing useful.
At 2:37, she searched old corporate records.
At 3:06, she found a newspaper clipping from 1998.
MORETTI FREIGHT ACCOUNTANT QUESTIONED IN EMBEZZLEMENT INVESTIGATION.
The accountant’s name was Eleanor Vance.
Sophie sat upright.
Eleanor.
She read the article.
Millions of dollars had vanished.
No charges were ultimately filed.
The investigation collapsed after key records disappeared.
One warehouse burned six months later.
Margaret Bell had worked there.
Sophie took a screenshot.
Then another.
At 3:19, someone knocked on her guest-room door.
She froze.
“Sophie?”
Gabriel.
She opened the door three inches.
He stood in the hallway holding a mug.
“You’re awake.”
“So are you.”
“I live here.”
“That doesn’t explain being awake.”
Again, that almost-smile.
He held up the mug.
“Tea.”
She opened the door farther.
“I found something.”
Ten minutes later, they were sitting at a small table.
Gabriel read the clipping.
He recognized Eleanor Vance.
“She worked for my father.”
“You knew her?”
“I was ten.”
“What happened to her?”
“She disappeared.”
Sophie stared.
“Disappeared?”
“Left Chicago. According to my father.”
“Do you believe that?”
Gabriel looked at the article.
“No.”
“Why?”
“My father lied professionally.”
That was the closest Gabriel had come to describing his family.
Sophie waited.
He continued.
“My father died seven years ago. I spent the next three years separating legitimate companies from the chaos he left behind.”
“Was he a criminal?”
Gabriel looked at her.
“I’m not going to romanticize him. He did things I wanted no part of.”
That answer was enough.
Sophie nodded.
“Why would Evelyn care about something from 1998?”
“I don’t know.”
“And Daniel?”
“I don’t know that either.”
Sophie leaned back.
For years she had believed Daniel was simply cruel in ordinary ways.
He had criticized her clothes.
Her eating.
Her laugh.
Her body.
Her ambition.
He had made her believe every room contained a better woman he might choose instead.
When Sophie finally returned his ring, Daniel had acted offended that she had discovered she was allowed to leave.
Now his name was in Evelyn Cross’s handwriting.
“Tell me about him,” Gabriel said.
Sophie looked up.
“Why?”
“Because somebody connected him to you.”
She told him.
Not everything.
Enough.
Daniel had worked in corporate compliance.
He had been ambitious.
He had hated Sophie's grandmother’s boxes.
That memory suddenly returned.
“He asked me to throw them away.”
Gabriel leaned forward.
“When?”
“Two years ago.”
“Why?”
“He said they were junk.”
“Did he ever look through them?”
Sophie’s pulse quickened.
“Yes.”
She remembered coming home one afternoon.
Daniel had been sitting on the bedroom floor.
Margaret’s papers surrounded him.
He said he had knocked the box over.
Sophie had believed him.
Until now.
Her phone buzzed.
She flinched.
Another unknown number.
This time there was no photograph.
Only six words.
ASK GABRIEL ABOUT OCTOBER 14, 1998.
Sophie showed him.
The blood drained from Gabriel’s face.
“What happened that day?”
He stood.
“Stay here.”
“Gabriel.”
He was already walking toward the door.
“What happened?”
He stopped.
For several seconds, his back remained toward her.
Then he said:
“My mother died.”
Sophie went cold.
Gabriel left.
At breakfast, he was gone.
Marcus would only say he had gone downtown.
Sophie changed into clothes borrowed from another employee and called the police for an update.
No fingerprints.
No suspect.
No useful camera footage from her apartment building.
At eleven, Marcus found her in the kitchen.
“Gabriel asked me to give you this.”
An envelope.
Inside was a photocopy of an old personnel record.
MARGARET BELL.
Employer: Moretti Freight.
Position: Executive Office Assistant.
Sophie stared.
Her grandmother had not been a warehouse worker.
She had worked directly for management.
At the bottom of the page was a handwritten note.
TRANSFER AUTHORIZED BY: ELENA MORETTI.
Gabriel’s mother.
Sophie looked at Marcus.
“Did Gabriel know?”
“No.”
“Where is he?”
“Trying to find out.”
The kitchen telephone rang.
One of the housekeepers answered.
Her face immediately changed.
“Sophie?”
Sophie crossed the room.
“It’s for you.”
“Who is it?”
The housekeeper swallowed.
“She says her name is Eleanor Vance.”
Sophie slowly lifted the receiver.
“Hello?”
An elderly woman breathed on the other end.
Then whispered:
“Your grandmother saved Gabriel Moretti’s life.”
Sophie gripped the phone.
“How?”
A pause.
Then Eleanor said:
“Because the person who killed his mother was supposed to kill him too.”
A door opened behind Sophie.
May you like
Gabriel stood there.
And he had heard everything.
