Chapter 3 - The Dead Woman on Camera
Sadi stared at the image until the numbers blurred.
“My mother died eleven years ago.”
Gabriel enlarged the photograph.
The woman wore hospital scrubs and a surgical mask beneath her chin.
But the eyes were Rosa’s.
So was the small scar beside her eyebrow.
Sadi knew that scar.
She had caused it accidentally when she was eight.
“No.”
Gabriel looked at Luca.
“Verify the footage.”
They did.
Timestamp authentic.
No obvious editing.
Sadi called the cemetery.
Then the funeral home.
Then her aunt.
Every answer confirmed the same history.
Rosa Moreno had died in an industrial fire.
The body had been badly burned.
Sadi had never seen it.
Identification had been made through personal belongings and dental records supplied by the company.
Gabriel asked quietly, “Who arranged the identification?”
Sadi already knew.
“Calder.”
They found Teresa before dawn.
Not because Gabriel’s men were brilliant.
Because Teresa called Sadi.
“Come alone.”
Gabriel heard the call.
“No.”
Teresa named an abandoned laundromat in Brooklyn.
Sadi looked at Gabriel.
“She won’t talk if your men walk in.”
“I’m not letting you enter alone.”
“You don’t control me.”
Gabriel almost argued.
Then stopped.
“No,” he said. “I don’t.”
They compromised.
Sadi entered.
Gabriel waited across the street.
Teresa stood behind the old counter.
She looked twenty years older than Sadi remembered.
“You look like Rosa.”
“Is my mother alive?”
Teresa closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
Sadi gripped the counter.
The world seemed to tilt.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did she leave me?”
“She didn’t.”
Teresa explained.
Rosa discovered that Calder’s supposedly canceled fiber project had continued secretly.
The material had originally been developed for targeted tissue destruction in laboratory research.
Someone realized it could become a weapon.
A nearly invisible one.
A wound could be made to look infected.
Doctors would remove dying tissue.
The victim would deteriorate.
And nobody would question the sutures.
Rosa tried to expose it.
Then the factory burned.
“Your mother survived,” Teresa said. “But people were looking for her.”
“Who?”
“I never knew all of them.”
“Did Gabriel’s father know?”
“Yes.”
Sadi’s heart sank.
Teresa shook her head.
“But Vittorio was trying to stop it.”
Outside, a car door slammed.
Teresa looked toward the window.
“They found me.”
Gunfire exploded.
Glass shattered.
Sadi dropped.
Gabriel’s men rushed in.
Teresa screamed.
A bullet struck the counter.
Gabriel entered behind Luca despite everyone shouting at him to stay back.
He pulled Sadi behind a concrete wall.
“You hurt?”
“No.”
Teresa crawled toward them.
Then she cried out.
Blood spread across her side.
Sadi grabbed her hand.
“Stay with me.”
Teresa shoved a key into Sadi’s palm.
“Locker 419.”
“Where?”
“Grand Central.”
“Teresa—”
“Your mother left something.”
More gunfire.
Then silence.
The attackers fled.
Teresa survived.
Barely.
At Grand Central, locker 419 contained a flash drive and a photograph.
The photograph showed Rosa.
Vittorio Falcone.
And a third man.
Marco Bellini’s father.
On the flash drive were invoices spanning twenty years.
Gabriel read them in silence.
Calder fiber.
Private medical suppliers.
Shell corporations.
Payments.
One company appeared repeatedly.
Bellini Holdings.
Marco’s family.
But another name appeared too.
Falcone Medical Charities.
Gabriel’s organization.
“That’s impossible,” Luca said.
Gabriel didn’t defend himself.
“Someone used my foundation.”
Sadi scrolled.
The most recent payment was three weeks old.
Two days before Gabriel was shot.
Gabriel leaned closer.
“Open it.”
The authorization signature appeared.
LUCA ROMANO.
Sadi slowly turned.
Luca stared at the screen.
“I didn’t sign that.”
Gabriel’s expression became unreadable.
Luca stepped backward.
“You know me.”
Gabriel said quietly, “I know what I’m looking at.”
“It’s forged.”
“Then we prove it.”
Luca looked wounded by the answer.
Sadi interrupted.
“There’s another file.”
A video.
Rosa appeared on-screen.
Older.
Alive.
Sadi covered her mouth.
Her mother looked directly into the camera.
“Sadi, if you’re seeing this, they’ve started using the thread again.”
Tears blurred Sadi’s vision.
Rosa continued.
“I stayed away because the people behind Calder threatened you. Vittorio helped me disappear. He promised they would never find my daughter.”
Gabriel lowered his head.
His father had lied.
But perhaps not for the reason Gabriel had believed.
Rosa looked frightened.
“There is one person inside Gabriel’s organization you must never trust.”
The video glitched.
Sadi leaned forward.
“Come on.”
Rosa spoke again.
“The person who reopened the project was—”
The screen went black.
A message replaced the video.
LIVE CONNECTION TERMINATED.
Gabriel stared.
“That wasn’t a recording.”
Sadi’s heart stopped.
A second message appeared.
LOCATION TRACE DETECTED.
Then her phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered.
“Mom?”
Breathing.
Then Rosa whispered:
“Sadi, run.”
The storage-room door behind them opened.
Someone stepped inside.
May you like
And Gabriel whispered the name first.
“Luca?”
