Chapter 5 - The Choice No One Expected
Bianca dropped behind the kitchen island.
I pushed Gabriel’s wheelchair toward the hallway as more shots hit the front of the house.
“There’s a back door!” Bianca shouted.
A black SUV rammed into the curb outside.
Men in dark coats moved across the yard.
They were not police.
They were not estate guards.
They were Luca’s men.
Gabriel tried to stand.
His legs failed immediately.
I caught him before he hit the floor.
“Stop trying to prove something,” I snapped.
He looked at me, stunned.
Then, unexpectedly, he nodded.
We moved through the back hall as Bianca grabbed the laptop and the evidence box.
The back door opened onto a narrow alley behind the house.
Marcus was waiting there.
I nearly cried from relief when I saw him.
He had blood on his cheek and a gun in one hand.
“Boss,” he said. “I thought you were dead.”
“Not yet,” Gabriel replied.
Marcus’s eyes moved to me.
“You got him out.”
“She got me out,” Gabriel said.
Marcus loaded us into an armored van.
As we drove away, Bianca’s house disappeared behind us in a storm of snow and flashing headlights.
“Luca has the estate,” Marcus said. “But not everyone is with him. Some guards stayed loyal. Hale is in custody. He gave investigators partial information.”
“Partial?” Gabriel asked.
“He says Luca is planning a formal succession meeting tonight. He wants to announce that you died from complications.”
Gabriel looked out the window.
“And if I appear?”
Marcus’s expression darkened.
“He will try to kill you publicly.”
Bianca leaned forward.
“Then we don’t let him control the room.”
The succession meeting was scheduled at the Moretti Foundation Hall—a public charity venue controlled by the family. Luca had invited lawyers, business executives, political allies, and the inner circle of the Moretti organization.
He wanted witnesses.
He wanted legitimacy.
He wanted Gabriel’s throne while Gabriel was still alive.
At first, Marcus proposed a direct extraction: surround the building, capture Luca, end it quietly.
Gabriel refused.
“No more quiet endings,” he said.
I watched him from the van’s rear seat.
His skin was still pale. The toxin had not vanished from his system just because we discovered it. Dr. Moretti, now working with an independent neurologist, had warned us that treatment would be difficult and recovery uncertain.
But Gabriel’s mind was clear.
And that clarity had changed him.
“For years,” he said, “I let fear be the only language this family spoke. Luca learned it from our father. I learned it from him. If I handle this in darkness, then nothing changes.”
Marcus frowned.
“You want to expose him?”
“I want everyone to see him.”
The meeting began at eight.
Luca stood at the front of the hall beneath a massive portrait of Gabriel and their father. He wore a black suit, a solemn expression, and the mask of a grieving brother.
“My brother suffered greatly,” Luca told the gathered crowd. “We should remember his strength, his loyalty, and the legacy he left behind.”
Then the double doors opened.
Every head turned.
Gabriel rolled into the hall in his wheelchair.
I walked beside him.
Marcus and Bianca followed.
The room went silent.
Luca’s face drained of color.
Gabriel stopped in the center aisle.
“You forgot one thing,” he said.
Luca stared at him.
“What?”
“My legacy is not yours.”
The projector screen behind the stage lit up.
The video of Luca and Hale in the warehouse played for everyone to see.
Then the financial documents appeared.
Then Hale’s recorded confession.
Then Luca’s voice saying the words no brother should ever say:
Make sure recovery is impossible.
People began backing away.
Lawyers whispered frantically.
Executives stared at Luca as if they had never known him.
Luca’s face twisted.
“This is manipulated.”
“No,” Gabriel said. “It is the truth.”
Luca reached inside his jacket.
Marcus moved.
But I was closer.
I grabbed the metal podium microphone stand and drove it into Luca’s wrist.
The pistol fired into the ceiling.
The hall erupted in screams.
Marcus disarmed Luca and forced him to the floor.
Gabriel watched his brother struggle.
Then Luca looked up.
“You need me,” he hissed. “Without me, you have nothing.”
Gabriel’s face remained calm.
“No,” he said. “Without you, I might finally have a chance to become something better.”
Police officers entered through the side doors.
Real police.
Not Moretti security.
Not men who owed Gabriel favors.
Luca was dragged away in handcuffs as every powerful person in that room watched.
May you like
And Gabriel did not stop them.
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