Chapter 3 - The Brother Who Smiled Too Easily
The emergency lights flickered on in red pulses.
Marcus moved to the door.
“Stay with Gabriel,” he said.
“No,” I replied. “If this is coordinated, he’s not safe here.”
He looked at the wheelchair, then at me.
“You can move him?”
“I already did.”
He gave one sharp nod.
“Take him to the panic room. Use the service elevator. Do not stop for anyone.”
The guards followed Marcus into the hallway.
I locked the bedroom door behind them.
Gabriel’s skin had turned gray beneath the firelight. His breathing was too shallow, his pupils sluggish from the sedatives.
“We need to get you moving,” I said.
“You should leave,” he whispered.
“Absolutely not.”
“You don’t know what Luca is capable of.”
“I know what Dr. Hale was capable of. And I know you will not survive another attack tonight.”
He tried to push himself up.
Pain crossed his face.
I tightened the transfer belt around his waist, positioned the pivot board, and moved him from the examination bed into the wheelchair.
He was heavy, but heavy was not the same as impossible.
I had learned that years ago.
The service elevator was at the end of a narrow corridor beyond the dressing room. I rolled him through the darkness, one hand on the chair, the other holding my phone flashlight.
The alarm continued.
Someone had triggered the estate’s false-death protocol.
That meant the staff would believe Gabriel was gone.
That meant anyone loyal to Luca would begin moving.
At the elevator, I heard footsteps.
Slow.
Unhurried.
A voice drifted from the hallway behind us.
“Gabriel?”
Luca Moretti stepped into the pale beam of my flashlight.
He wore a black wool coat over a white dress shirt, as though he had arrived for a funeral. Snow melted in his dark hair. His expression was devastated in a way that would have been convincing if I had not seen the mattress.
He looked at Gabriel in the wheelchair.
Then at me.
Then he smiled.
Very slightly.
“You’re awake,” Luca said.
Gabriel’s voice became ice.
“You came quickly.”
“I heard there was an emergency.”
“At two in the morning?”
Luca shrugged. “I worry about my brother.”
“Do you?”
For a moment, neither man spoke.
I kept one hand near the elevator control panel.
Luca noticed.
“You must be the nurse,” he said. “The one Hale complained about.”
“He complained?”
“All the time.” Luca’s smile thinned. “He said you were interfering with the treatment plan.”
“I was.”
Gabriel looked at him.
“Why?”
The question was quiet.
That made it worse.
Luca’s expression shifted. The polished concern fell away, revealing something old and bitter.
“Because you were never supposed to survive the accident,” he said.
Gabriel stared at him.
Luca took one slow step closer.
“The SUV rolled down an embankment. You were trapped beneath steel for seven hours. The doctors said you might not live through the first night. Then you did. You survived everything. Like you always do.”
“You caused the crash?”
“I changed the route information.”
Gabriel’s face emptied.
Marcus had warned us that enemies could be anywhere.
But no one prepares for betrayal from the person who shared your childhood bedroom.
“Father left everything to you,” Luca continued. “Every company. Every warehouse. Every man who ever called our family powerful. I spent twenty years being introduced as your younger brother.”
“You had half the business.”
“I had half the paperwork.”
Gabriel’s hands gripped the wheelchair arms.
“You could have asked for more.”
Luca laughed.
“Asked? You don’t ask men like you for power. You take it.”
The elevator doors opened.
Luca reached inside his coat.
I reacted before I saw the weapon.
I shoved Gabriel’s wheelchair backward and hit the emergency-close button.
The doors began to slide shut.
Luca fired.
The bullet struck the metal door inches from my shoulder.
I slammed the wheelchair into the elevator wall as the doors sealed.
The elevator dropped.
Gabriel grabbed my wrist.
“You’re bleeding.”
I looked down.
A shard from the door had sliced across my forearm.
“It’s nothing.”
“It is not nothing.”
“Right now, it is.”
The elevator descended to the hidden lower level.
Behind us, the sound of another gunshot echoed through the shaft.
Luca knew where we were going.
The panic room was not safe if he had access to estate blueprints.
When the elevator opened, I rolled Gabriel into the underground corridor.
The panic room door stood thirty yards away.
But just before we reached it, Gabriel said, “Stop.”
“What?”
“Not there.”
“Why?”
“Luca designed the security upgrades after the accident.”
My stomach dropped.
He looked toward a maintenance door at the far end of the corridor.
“There’s an old tunnel beneath the wine cellar. It leads outside the east wall.”
“You can travel through it?”
“No.”
His voice softened.
“But you can.”
I looked down at the wheelchair.
Then at the narrow tunnel entrance.
It would never fit.
I could not bring Gabriel through it safely.
Not in his condition.
Not while someone was hunting him.
Then he reached into the inside pocket of his robe and handed me a small silver key.
“What is this?”
“A safe-deposit box. First National. Box 817.”
“Why are you giving it to me?”
“Because if Luca finds me, he will need something.”
I understood.
“Evidence?”
“Something worse. The real succession documents.”
He looked at me with a seriousness that made my chest tighten.
“My father knew Luca resented me. He made arrangements. But I never opened them.”
Footsteps sounded at the end of the corridor.
We were out of time.
Gabriel reached for my hand.
“Get out.”
“No.”
“Listen to me. You have already done more for me than anyone else in this house.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
His voice broke—not loudly, but enough.
“My mother died in this house because people chose loyalty over truth,” he said. “Do not die here because you think saving me is your job.”
The footsteps came closer.
I looked at the service tunnel.
Then at Gabriel.
Then I did the only thing I could.
I opened the maintenance door, rolled him inside, and locked it behind us.
The tunnel was barely wide enough for the wheelchair.
Cold air rushed through it.
May you like
And somewhere above us, Luca Moretti began searching the house for his brother.
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