Chapter 5 - Rosa’s Secret
Sadi did not run into her mother’s arms.
She wanted to.
That was the cruelest part.
Eleven years of grief stood between them.
“You left me.”
Rosa cried silently.
“I protected you.”
“You let me bury you.”
“I know.”
“You let me think I had nobody.”
Rosa closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
Sadi slapped her.
The sound cracked through the study.
Nobody moved.
Rosa touched her cheek.
Then Sadi broke.
She wrapped both arms around her mother.
Rosa held her.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Gabriel quietly dismissed everyone except Luca.
When Sadi could finally speak, Rosa told them everything.
Salvatore Falcone had survived the supposed heart attack that killed him.
Vittorio discovered it years later.
Father and son had fought a hidden war.
Vittorio dismantled laboratories.
Salvatore rebuilt them.
Rosa stole the master formula.
Not the poison.
The neutralizing treatment.
The compound coating the fiber could be stopped if treated early enough.
Gabriel touched his shoulder.
“Do you have it?”
“No.”
His eyes sharpened.
Rosa continued.
“I hid the formula.”
“Where?”
“In something nobody connected to Calder.”
Sadi understood before Gabriel did.
“My sewing machine.”
Rosa nodded.
They returned to the storage facility.
The machine had been stolen.
Security footage showed Marco taking it less than an hour earlier.
Gabriel’s patience ended.
“Find him.”
This time Sadi stopped him.
“Marco wants us angry.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“You have another idea?”
“My mother taught me sewing machines.”
Rosa looked at her daughter.
Then smiled for the first time.
Sadi continued.
“That machine had a replacement base. You always complained about it.”
Rosa nodded slowly.
“Yes.”
“You hid the formula in the base?”
“Yes.”
“Then Marco doesn’t know how to open it.”
Gabriel understood.
“He’ll contact us.”
Marco called fourteen minutes later.
“Bring Rosa.”
Gabriel answered, “No.”
“Then you lose the formula.”
“You need Rosa to open the compartment.”
Silence.
Marco had revealed too much.
Gabriel smiled coldly.
“Thank you.”
They traced the call.
An abandoned Calder warehouse.
Gabriel wanted Sadi to stay behind.
She refused.
“This started with my mother.”
“It involves people who kill without hesitation.”
“So does working in your restaurant, apparently.”
Luca laughed.
Gabriel didn’t.
But his eyes softened.
At the warehouse, they found Marco beside the sewing machine.
He had three armed men.
Gabriel had twelve.
Nobody fired.
Marco looked desperate.
“This isn’t what you think.”
Sadi almost laughed.
“You helped poison him.”
“I was trying to keep my father alive.”
Rosa stepped forward.
“Your father is dead.”
Marco’s eyes filled with something close to grief.
“No.”
A wheelchair emerged from the darkness.
An old man sat in it.
Antonio Bellini.
Marco’s father.
His body was ravaged by disease.
Rosa gasped.
Antonio whispered, “Hello, Rosa.”
The truth was uglier than expected.
Antonio had helped Salvatore preserve the project.
Years later, exposure to the compound began destroying his nervous system.
Salvatore promised treatment if Marco obeyed.
Marco arranged Gabriel’s poisoned sutures.
“He said nobody would die,” Marco whispered. “He said Gabriel would get sick, Rosa would appear, and we’d get the antidote.”
Gabriel’s voice was ice.
“You gambled my life.”
“Yes.”
Marco lowered his head.
“I’m sorry.”
Gabriel looked ready to kill him.
Sadi stepped between them.
“Open the machine.”
Rosa removed a hidden screw beneath the base.
Inside was a waterproof capsule.
Gabriel stared at it.
Rosa opened it.
Empty.
Her face changed.
“No.”
Marco grabbed the machine.
“I didn’t take it.”
Rosa searched the compartment.
There was a note.
One sentence.
THANK YOU FOR BRINGING EVERYONE TOGETHER.
The warehouse doors slammed shut.
Gas began hissing from ceiling vents.
“Move!” Gabriel shouted.
Chaos erupted.
Luca shot the lock.
Marco lifted his father from the wheelchair.
Sadi helped Rosa.
Gabriel staggered.
His injured shoulder had begun bleeding again.
They reached the exit.
Locked.
The gas thickened.
Sadi noticed an old textile conveyor running toward a loading bay.
“There!”
They climbed onto it.
Luca smashed a control box.
The belt jerked forward.
They reached the loading bay seconds before the warehouse filled with gas.
Outside, Gabriel collapsed.
Sadi caught him.
“Gabriel!”
His eyes opened.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re terrible at lying.”
Rosa examined his shoulder.
“We’re running out of time.”
Then Antonio Bellini spoke.
“There’s another copy.”
Everyone turned.
“Where?” Rosa demanded.
Antonio coughed.
“Vittorio kept it.”
Gabriel stared.
“My father?”
“He never trusted you to survive Salvatore.”
“Where is it?”
Antonio looked toward the old Falcone estate in the distance.
“Under the chapel.”
Gabriel’s phone vibrated.
A live video appeared.
The Falcone chapel.
Someone was already inside.
A man stood over Vittorio’s hidden vault.
Then he turned toward the camera.
May you like
Dr. Mercer smiled.
And behind him, tied to a chair, was Luca’s twelve-year-old daughter.
