Chapter 10 - The Night Chalice Was Betrayed
Dr. Evelyn Shaw stepped into the light.
She was alive.
The bloody badge had been another trick.
Gabriel’s anger was immediate.
Shaw raised both hands.
“I needed Victor to believe I was dead.”
“You could have told us.”
“No. Your house was compromised.”
Gabriel glanced at Mercer and Luca.
Shaw shook her head.
“Not them.”
“Then who?”
“Your attorney.”
Gabriel froze.
Michael Dane had represented the Holmes family for twenty-three years.
He had drafted Antonio’s trust.
He knew every property.
Every account.
Every security protocol.
And Gabriel had just given him Antonio’s ledger.
Gabriel grabbed his phone.
No answer.
Shaw continued.
“Dane has worked for Victor since your father died.”
Gabriel’s face darkened.
“We handed him everything.”
“No,” Chalice said.
Everyone looked at her.
“I switched the drives.”
Gabriel stared.
“When?”
“Before you left.”
“You gave Dane a blank drive?”
“Family photographs.”
For the first time that night, Gabriel smiled.
“Remind me never to underestimate you.”
“I’ve been trying.”
Shaw explained Isabella’s final secret.
Isabella had suspected Dane.
On the night of the shooting, she had been going to meet federal investigators.
Dane gave Victor the route.
Antonio and Isabella were ambushed.
Victor had ordered Douglas taken afterward.
But Isabella survived long enough to change the plan.
She remembered Chalice’s mother.
She remembered Chalice worked at Mass General.
And when she saw Chalice’s badge in the trauma room, she knew exactly who had found her.
That was why she trusted a stranger.
Chalice had never been a stranger.
Their mothers had connected them years before.
The estate lights suddenly came on.
Victor stood at the top of the staircase.
Beside him was Michael Dane.
“Touching,” Victor said.
Gabriel stepped forward.
“It’s over.”
Victor smiled.
“You always say that before something begins.”
Dane held a phone.
Live video.
Douglas’s temporary safe house.
Gabriel went pale.
“How?”
Dane smiled.
“I chose it.”
Of course.
Every supposedly secure location had passed through the family attorney.
Chalice’s stomach dropped.
Victor extended his hand.
“The real ledger.”
“No,” Gabriel said.
Victor looked at Chalice.
“Then the child disappears.”
Chalice stepped forward.
“I’ll give it to you.”
Gabriel caught her arm.
She looked at him.
Trust me.
She did not say it.
She did not need to.
Chalice removed a flash drive from her pocket.
Victor descended.
Dane reached for it.
Chalice pulled back.
“Douglas first.”
Victor nodded to Dane.
Dane called the safe house.
Nobody answered.
His expression changed.
He called again.
Nothing.
Gabriel smiled.
“What did you do?” Victor demanded.
Gabriel looked at Chalice.
“Something Antonio taught me.”
Never keep what matters where your enemy expects.
Douglas was with Elena.
At a location not even Gabriel knew.
Only Chalice did.
Victor’s composure cracked.
Then police sirens sounded outside.
Not corrupt officers.
Federal agents.
Shaw had transmitted Victor’s warehouse confession.
Gabriel had thought there was no recording.
There was.
Chalice had recorded it on her nursing watch.
Victor looked toward the exits.
Agents surrounded the estate.
Dane panicked.
Victor did not.
He pulled a pistol.
Not at Gabriel.
At Chalice.
Gabriel moved.
The gun fired.
May you like
Chalice fell.
And Gabriel screamed her name.
