Chapter 4 - The Betrayal
Luca stood in the doorway with a gun.
Sadi’s heart sank.
Gabriel didn’t move.
“Put it down.”
Luca looked furious.
“You think it’s me?”
“You’re holding a gun.”
“I’m holding a gun because six armed men are coming up those stairs.”
Gunfire erupted below.
Gabriel immediately turned.
Luca slammed the door and locked it.
“Now do you believe me?”
The answer came through the wall.
Bullets.
They escaped through a maintenance corridor.
For the next twelve hours, Gabriel’s organization began tearing itself apart.
Accounts were frozen.
Phones confiscated.
Medical staff questioned.
Marco remained missing.
Mercer finally talked.
He admitted somebody had paid him to ignore the unusual sutures.
“Who?”
“I never met him.”
Gabriel leaned across the table.
“Wrong answer.”
Mercer trembled.
“I received instructions through an encrypted account.”
Sadi interrupted.
“What instructions?”
“To preserve the sutures during every debridement.”
Gabriel’s eyes hardened.
“So you knew.”
“I knew someone wanted them left in place. I didn’t know why.”
“You watched me dying.”
Mercer lowered his head.
“Yes.”
Gabriel stood.
Sadi touched his arm.
It was instinctive.
Everyone noticed.
Gabriel looked down at her hand.
Then at her.
She released him.
“Killing him won’t tell us who paid him.”
A long silence.
Gabriel sat again.
“Continue.”
Mercer revealed the payment account.
Luca traced it.
Bellini Holdings.
That afternoon, they discovered Marco’s father had been connected to Calder before the fire.
But Marco wasn’t the architect.
He was protecting someone.
The question was who.
Sadi returned home under guard.
She hated it.
Two men stood outside her apartment while she searched through her mother’s belongings.
At the bottom of an old sewing basket, she found a photograph she had never seen.
Rosa stood beside Vittorio Falcone.
Behind them was a teenage boy.
Gabriel.
Sadi stared.
Her mother had known Gabriel when he was young.
On the back:
HE DOESN’T KNOW.
Sadi immediately called Gabriel.
No answer.
She called Luca.
“Where is he?”
“Falcone house.”
“I found something.”
“I’ll send a car.”
The Falcone estate was quieter than she expected.
Gabriel was in his father’s old study.
Sadi handed him the photograph.
He stared at it.
“I remember this day.”
“You remember my mother?”
“No.”
He turned the photograph.
“But I remember what happened afterward.”
“What?”
“My father fired our family doctor.”
Sadi frowned.
“Why?”
“I never knew.”
They searched Vittorio’s files.
Behind a false panel in his desk, they found medical records.
Gabriel’s childhood records.
Blood tests.
Hospital admissions.
And one sealed envelope addressed to Gabriel.
He opened it.
Inside was a letter from Vittorio.
Son,
If Calder ever begins again, you need to know why I destroyed it.
The compound wasn’t created to kill strangers.
It was created for our family.
Gabriel stopped reading.
Sadi whispered, “What does that mean?”
He continued.
Vittorio described Gabriel’s grandfather, Salvatore Falcone.
A ruthless man obsessed with succession.
Salvatore had secretly funded Calder’s research.
The weapon was designed to eliminate rivals without obvious poisoning.
Vittorio discovered the project and tried to destroy it.
Rosa helped him.
But somebody saved the research.
Gabriel lowered the letter.
“My grandfather died twenty-two years ago.”
Sadi looked at the final paragraph.
There was another sentence.
Gabriel read it aloud.
“Never trust the official record of Salvatore’s death.”
Silence.
Luca entered.
“You need to see this.”
He placed a tablet on the desk.
Security footage.
A black sedan had stopped outside the estate.
An elderly man stepped out.
Silver hair.
Black cane.
Sadi watched Gabriel’s face.
All color disappeared.
“No.”
The old man looked directly at the security camera.
Then smiled.
Gabriel whispered, “Grandfather.”
A phone on Vittorio’s desk began ringing.
An old landline.
Nobody had used it in years.
Gabriel answered.
A voice said:
“You were always too much like your father.”
Gabriel gripped the receiver.
“Salvatore?”
The voice chuckled.
“Bring me Rosa Moreno’s daughter.”
Sadi stopped breathing.
“Why?”
“Because her mother stole something from me.”
“What?”
“The only formula that can save your arm.”
Gabriel’s expression hardened.
“You poisoned me.”
“No.”
A pause.
“I ordered you poisoned.”
Sadi moved closer.
Gabriel asked, “Why?”
“Because I needed to know whether Rosa would come out of hiding to save you.”
The line clicked.
Then the study doors slowly opened.
A woman stood outside.
Older.
Thin.
Tears running down her face.
Sadi dropped the photograph.
The woman whispered:
“Baby.”
May you like
Sadi couldn’t breathe.
Because her dead mother had finally come home.
