Chapter 3 - A Debt Gabriel Mercer Couldn’t Buy
Nobody moved.
Arthur recovered first.
“I mean she wasn’t supposed to find it.”
Freya watched Gabriel.
He did not look convinced.
Neither was she.
Gabriel closed the file.
“Leave us.”
Arthur hesitated.
“Gabriel—”
“Now.”
The door shut.
Freya pointed toward it.
“That man just threatened my job, followed me here, and apparently shares initials with a military intelligence code.”
“Arthur’s full name is Arthur Keane.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Gabriel poured himself water instead of bourbon.
Interesting, Freya thought.
He drank when he wanted people to see confidence.
He chose water when he needed to think.
“AK-1 appeared in Elias’s files three months before the bombing,” Gabriel said. “I asked Arthur about it then.”
“And?”
“He said it referred to a shipping terminal.”
“You believed him?”
“I had reasons.”
“Bad ones, apparently.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
Freya read further.
The compromised convoy routes corresponded with shipments moving through companies Gabriel secretly controlled.
Weapons.
Cash.
Medical supplies.
Information.
Someone had created a bridge between a criminal logistics network in Chicago and a private intelligence broker overseas.
Elias had discovered it.
Then Elias died.
Freya shut the folder.
“I’m leaving.”
“Someone shot at you.”
“Someone shot at us.”
“You have nowhere secure to go.”
“You don’t know what I have.”
Gabriel looked around.
“Your apartment lock costs twelve dollars.”
Freya stared at him.
“You went inside?”
“No. My security team photographed it.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“No.”
Gabriel took an envelope from his desk.
Inside was cash.
A lot.
“Take it.”
Freya laughed.
“You really do think money is a universal language.”
“Your employer fired you because of my organization.”
“My former employer.”
“Then call this compensation.”
She pushed the envelope back.
“I don’t want your money.”
“Your rent is overdue.”
Freya froze.
Gabriel immediately understood his mistake.
“You investigated me.”
“I needed to know who you were.”
“You checked my finances?”
“Yes.”
“My medical records?”
Silence.
Freya’s face changed.
Gabriel said, “Only enough to—”
She slapped him.
Arthur opened the door instantly.
Gabriel raised a hand.
Arthur stopped.
Freya’s breathing shook.
“You don’t get to do that.”
Gabriel touched his cheek.
“No.”
“You don’t get to take pieces of my life because you’re curious.”
“You’re right.”
That answer disarmed her more than an argument would have.
Gabriel turned toward Arthur.
“Arrange a room for Ms. Sullivan.”
“She’s staying?”
“For tonight.”
Arthur’s gaze moved to Freya.
“No.”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed.
Arthur corrected himself.
“I mean, there are safer locations.”
“I said here.”
Arthur left.
Freya watched him go.
“You trust him?”
“I did.”
“Past tense.”
Gabriel looked toward the closed door.
“For tonight.”
Freya was given a guest room.
She did not sleep.
At 3:08 a.m., she heard something beneath the floor.
A faint electronic chirp.
She knelt despite the pain in her knee.
Under the bed was a transmitter.
Not Gabriel’s modern security equipment.
Old military hardware.
Freya pulled it free.
A green light blinked.
Then the speaker crackled.
Static.
A voice emerged.
“Lark.”
Freya stopped breathing.
Nobody had called her that in six years.
“Lark, if you can hear this, do not trust Mercer.”
She recognized the voice.
Elias Ward.
The recording continued.
“And whatever you do, do not tell him what happened seventeen minutes before the explosion.”
Freya’s hand began shaking.
Because she remembered.
Seventeen minutes before the blast, Elias had handed her a memory card.
She had hidden it.
And she had never told anyone.
The speaker crackled again.
“This message will activate only if you enter Mercer’s residence.”
Freya stared toward the bedroom door.
Elias had prepared this years ago.
Which meant he had expected this night.
Then came his final sentence.
“Lark, the traitor is the man Gabriel calls his brother.”
Outside the room, a floorboard creaked.
May you like
Someone was standing behind her door.
The handle slowly began to turn.
