Chapter 4 - Blood at the Table
Dante stared at his aunt Sofia.
She had helped raise him after his mother died.
She had attended every birthday.
Every funeral.
Every Christmas.
Now she stood in his father's mausoleum with two armed men behind her.
Mabel understood Lorenzo's phrase.
The heir who was never mine.
Sofia was Lorenzo's half sister.
Family.
But not his father's biological child.
Sofia ordered Dante to hand over the drive.
He refused.
She confessed enough without intending to.
Victor had worked for her.
Samuel Vale had built the financial network.
Thomas Quinn discovered it.
Lorenzo spent decades hunting proof.
When he finally found enough, Sofia poisoned him.
But she still didn't know where all his evidence was hidden.
That was why she needed the letter.
That was why she corrupted the translation.
And that was why Mabel had become dangerous the moment she said six simple words.
That translation is wrong.
Dante kept Sofia talking while one of his security teams approached through a rear passage.
Mabel noticed Sofia's attention shifting.
She understood what was coming seconds before it happened.
Sofia ordered her men to take the drive.
The mausoleum erupted into movement.
Dante pulled Mabel behind a stone column.
His security team entered.
Nobody fired.
Dante had given strict instructions.
No unnecessary blood.
Sofia's men surrendered when surrounded.
Sofia did not.
She laughed.
“You think this ends with me?”
Dante stepped toward her.
“No.”
His voice was calm.
“It begins.”
Police arrived—but not local police.
Dante had contacted a federal investigator his father secretly trusted.
Agent Marcus Bell.
The evidence on the drive included financial records, recordings, names, dates, and payments.
Enough to reopen Thomas Quinn's case.
Enough to investigate Lorenzo's death.
Enough to expose an organization hidden inside legitimate corporations for decades.
But Rose was still missing.
Sofia refused to reveal where she was.
Mabel confronted her.
“My grandmother is eighty-two.”
Sofia smiled.
“Your grandmother should have learned when to stay quiet.”
Mabel stepped closer.
“No. You should have learned that quiet people are still listening.”
Sofia's smile faded.
Dante looked at Mabel differently after that.
Not as a waitress.
Not as someone he needed to protect.
As someone standing beside him.
The flash drive contained a recording of Victor speaking to Sofia three weeks before Lorenzo died.
Victor begged her not to kill him.
Sofia threatened Victor's daughter.
That complicated everything.
Victor was a betrayer.
But also a man trapped by decades of fear.
Dante confronted him.
Victor finally broke.
He admitted altering the translation.
He admitted arranging the false experts.
Pierce had been paid.
Two others were unknowingly working from Pierce's corrupted transcription.
Elena Voss had been planted by Lorenzo months earlier.
She knew the truth.
And Victor knew where she and Rose had been taken.
An abandoned Moretti cannery.
The same property where Samuel Vale had hidden records decades before.
Dante wanted Mabel to stay behind.
She refused.
“Rose is there because of me.”
“She is there because of them.”
“She's still my grandmother.”
Dante studied her.
Then handed her a bulletproof vest.
They reached the cannery after midnight.
Federal agents surrounded the property.
Dante's security team remained outside the perimeter.
Agent Bell insisted on handling the rescue legally.
For once, Dante agreed.
Mabel waited inside the command vehicle.
Minutes felt like hours.
Then gunfire cracked from inside.
Mabel jumped.
Dante grabbed her arm.
“Wait.”
A radio hissed.
One suspect down.
Two detained.
One hostage located.
Mabel held her breath.
Then another message came.
Female hostage recovered.
Age approximately forty.
Elena.
Not Rose.
Mabel's heart sank.
Agents searched the building.
No Rose.
But Elena had information.
Before being separated, she'd heard one captor say “the old woman goes to Pier Seven.”
Dante knew the location.
A marina twenty minutes away.
They raced there.
At Pier Seven, a small yacht was pulling away.
Mabel saw a figure through a cabin window.
Gray hair.
“Grandma!”
Rose turned.
Even across the dark water, Mabel saw her face.
Dante ordered the harbor patrol alerted.
The yacht accelerated.
Then another boat appeared.
Federal agents intercepted it before it reached open water.
Rose was recovered alive.
When Mabel finally reached her, she wrapped both arms around her grandmother.
Rose whispered against her hair.
“You always did talk too much.”
Mabel laughed through tears.
“You taught me.”
Rose looked over her shoulder at Dante.
Her expression hardened.
“You're Lorenzo's boy.”
Dante nodded.
“I am.”
“You have his eyes.”
“I'm sorry for what happened to Thomas.”
Rose studied him.
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
“Then don't apologize.”
She took his hand.
“Fix it.”
The next morning, Rose told them what happened in 1998.
Thomas Quinn discovered Samuel and Sofia laundering money through shipping companies.
Victor arranged a meeting with Lorenzo.
But Sofia learned about it.
She ordered the warehouse burned.
Samuel escaped.
Thomas did too.
Mabel stared.
“What?”
Rose nodded.
“Your grandfather survived the fire.”
Mabel couldn't speak.
Thomas had been badly injured but alive.
Lorenzo hid him.
They planned to testify.
Then Thomas disappeared again.
Rose believed he'd been murdered.
But Lorenzo never believed it.
That explained the strange wording.
Who died twice.
Samuel wasn't the only one.
Mabel asked the question she was suddenly afraid to ask.
“Did Grandpa die?”
Rose looked at her.
“I don't know.”
Dante's investigators searched the files.
A medical payment appeared every month for twenty-seven years.
Same amount.
Same date.
To a private facility under a false company name.
The payments stopped only three weeks earlier.
Dante traced the facility.
It was in northern California.
Mabel called.
The administrator refused to provide information.
Agent Bell obtained a warrant.
They searched the patient records.
One man had been admitted in 1999 under the name Patrick Thomas.
Severe burns.
Memory loss.
No family listed.
He had lived there for twenty-seven years.
Mabel gripped the edge of the table.
“Is he alive?”
Bell read the record.
Then looked at her.
“He left three weeks ago.”
“Where?”
“Nobody knows.”
Mabel felt hope and fear collide.
Then her phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered.
A man's weak voice spoke.
“Mabel?”
She couldn't breathe.
“Who is this?”
May you like
The man began crying.
And then he said, “Tell Rose I'm sorry I took so long to come home.”
