Chapter 2 - Her Ex Claimed the Mafia Boss Had Paid Him to Find Her—Then a Security Video Revealed Someone Inside Gabriel’s Empire Had Been Hunting Her for MonthsMarco arrived before Derek broke through the door.
By then Derek had disappeared.
The hallway camera showed him leaving through the rear stairwell thirty seconds before Marco's SUV arrived.
Gabriel came personally.
Norah opened the door and looked at him.
“Did you pay Derek?”
“No.”
“Did someone who works for you?”
“I don't know.”
“That's not good enough.”
“No.”
Gabriel looked at the photograph.
“It isn't.”
Norah expected him to dismiss her fear.
Instead:
“Pack a bag.”
“No.”
His eyes narrowed.
“No?”
“I spent three years letting one man tell me where I could go.”
Gabriel understood immediately.
“Fair.”
“I won't start doing it again because another dangerous man says it's for my protection.”
Marco glanced between them.
Gabriel nodded.
“Then choose.”
“What?”
“A hotel. Friend's house. Police protection. My guest property. Somewhere else. You choose.”
Norah looked at him.
“Your guest property?”
“Separate building. Separate entrance. Cameras outside only.”
“Why?”
“Because somebody used my organization to locate you.”
“And you want me closer?”
“I want you somewhere the person responsible cannot reach without revealing himself.”
Norah hated that it made sense.
She chose the guest property.
It stood behind Gabriel's main estate in Westchester, surrounded by trees and a stone wall.
It looked more expensive than every place Norah had ever lived combined.
Gabriel did not enter.
He handed her a key.
“No one enters without your permission.”
“Even you?”
“Especially me.”
That answer mattered.
The following morning Marco arrived with files.
Derek Cole was not merely an unemployed ex-boyfriend.
His real name was Derek Callahan.
He had worked intermittently for a private investigative company called Northstar Risk.
Northstar had contracts with Russo Logistics.
Norah stared.
“You hired his company.”
“Not Derek personally,” Marco said.
Gabriel stood near the window.
“Northstar handled employee background investigations.”
“Why would your background company investigate a waitress?”
Nobody answered.
Norah looked at Gabriel.
“What aren't you telling me?”
Gabriel turned.
“Your last name.”
“Ellis.”
“Before that.”
Norah froze.
“How do you know I changed it?”
“We found your sealed petition.”
Anger flared.
“You investigated me.”
“Yes.”
“You had no right.”
“No.”
The immediate agreement disarmed her.
Gabriel continued.
“But after last night, I needed to know why someone connected to my company was tracking you.”
Norah crossed her arms.
“My birth name was Norah Bell.”
Gabriel went completely still.
Marco looked at him.
“What?”
Norah noticed.
“You know that name.”
Gabriel walked toward the desk.
“Did your father have a brother named Samuel?”
“Yes.”
Gabriel closed his eyes briefly.
Norah's pulse accelerated.
“My uncle disappeared when I was twelve.”
“No.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“He was murdered.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“What?”
“Samuel Bell was an accountant.”
“I know.”
“He worked for my father.”
Norah stared.
“My uncle worked for an insurance company.”
“That was what your family was told.”
Gabriel opened a file.
“Samuel handled offshore accounts for Russo Shipping.”
Norah backed away.
“No.”
“He discovered money disappearing.”
“Stop.”
“Norah—”
“Stop.”
Gabriel did.
She turned toward the window.
Her uncle had vanished seventeen years earlier.
Her mother told her Samuel abandoned them.
Norah remembered the funeral they never had.
The questions nobody answered.
“What happened?”
Gabriel's voice was quiet.
“My father believed Samuel stole money.”
“Did he?”
“No.”
“Then who did?”
“We don't know.”
Norah turned.
“You're telling me your family killed my uncle for something he didn't do?”
Gabriel did not hide.
“Yes.”
She slapped him.
Marco stepped forward instinctively.
Gabriel raised one hand.
Marco stopped.
Norah stared at the red mark forming on Gabriel's cheek.
“I didn't order it,” he said.
“I don't care.”
“I was twenty-two.”
“I don't care.”
“My father—”
“Your father murdered my uncle.”
“Yes.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“And you knew?”
“I learned afterward.”
“You covered it up?”
Gabriel's silence answered.
Norah laughed bitterly.
“There it is.”
She grabbed her bag.
“Norah.”
“Don't.”
She headed for the door.
Gabriel did not block it.
That mattered, even while she hated him.
At the threshold, he said:
“Samuel left something.”
She stopped.
“What?”
“A ledger.”
Norah slowly turned.
“We never found it.”
“And?”
“Someone believes you have it.”
She shook her head.
“I was twelve.”
“Samuel visited your mother the night before he disappeared.”
“I don't remember.”
“Derek may have entered your life because of him.”
That hit harder.
“No.”
“Three years, Norah.”
“No.”
“Did Derek ever ask about your childhood?”
Her face changed.
Yes.
He had.
Where had she grown up?
What happened to Uncle Samuel?
Did her mother keep family documents?
What was inside the storage unit after her mother died?
Questions Norah had interpreted as interest.
Gabriel saw recognition.
“He didn't meet you accidentally.”
Norah sat down.
The room became silent.
Derek had not merely abused her.
He had selected her.
The realization made her physically sick.
Marco placed a trash bin beside her.
Norah pushed it away.
“What did Samuel know?”
Gabriel opened another folder.
“My father's organization moved money through legitimate companies. Samuel discovered someone inside the family was diverting millions into accounts connected to trafficking operations.”
Norah looked up.
“Trafficking?”
Gabriel's expression hardened.
“My father allowed many things.”
His voice became cold.
“Not that.”
“So Samuel found it.”
“Yes.”
“And your father killed the whistleblower instead of believing him.”
“Yes.”
“Then discovered he was right?”
“Too late.”
“Who was stealing?”
“We suspected my uncle Vincent.”
“Suspected?”
“He disappeared before we could prove it.”
Norah laughed without humor.
“Your family has a remarkable number of disappearing people.”
Gabriel accepted the insult.
Marco's phone rang.
He answered.
Then looked at Gabriel.
“We found the leak at Continental.”
Norah stood.
“Who?”
“Higgins.”
The manager.
Her boss.
The man who had hired her.
Marco continued.
“Northstar paid him eleven thousand dollars over six months for information about Norah's schedule.”
Norah felt betrayed all over again.
“Why?”
“We're asking him.”
Gabriel looked at Marco.
“Police?”
“Already there.”
Norah glanced at Gabriel.
“You called police?”
“Yes.”
“I thought men like you handled things differently.”
“Usually.”
“What changed?”
Gabriel looked directly at her.
“You.”
She did not know what to do with that.
“I don't want anyone killed because of me.”
“No one will be.”
“Promise?”
Gabriel hesitated.
Norah's expression hardened.
He corrected himself.
“I promise I will not order violence against anyone involved in this unless someone's life is in immediate danger.”
Specific.
Careful.
Real.
Norah nodded.
“Good.”
Higgins confessed.
Northstar told him Norah was suspected of employee theft.
He never questioned why they wanted schedules, addresses, or copies of identification.
Derek had received everything.
Then police searched Derek's apartment.
They found photographs.
Hundreds.
Norah entering work.
Norah buying groceries.
Norah at a laundromat.
Norah asleep beside an apartment window.
Three years of her life documented.
But there was something worse.
Photographs from before she met Derek.
He had been watching her for eleven months before their first date.
Norah vomited when she saw them.
Gabriel sat outside the bathroom door.
Not inside.
He waited.
When she emerged, he handed her water.
“I feel stupid.”
“No.”
“I loved him.”
“That doesn't make you stupid.”
“He was studying me.”
“Yes.”
“I thought he liked listening.”
Gabriel's jaw tightened.
“That was the part he stole from you.”
“What?”
“Your ability to trust your own memories.”
Norah looked at him.
Gabriel understood more than she expected.
“Don't let him rewrite all of them.”
She sat.
“Why are you being kind to me?”
Gabriel almost smiled.
“I'm occasionally capable of it.”
“No.”
Norah studied him.
“Why me?”
He became quiet.
Finally:
“Because Samuel Bell saved my life.”
Norah stared.
“What?”
“The night my father ordered him killed, Samuel called me.”
Gabriel sat opposite her.
“He told me there was a bomb beneath my car.”
Norah stopped breathing.
“I didn't believe him.”
“But?”
“He begged me to check.”
Gabriel's eyes darkened with memory.
“I did.”
The bomb was real.
Samuel had discovered Vincent's plan extended beyond theft.
Vincent intended to eliminate Gabriel and eventually seize control.
Samuel saved Gabriel.
Hours later, Samuel was dead.
“And you still covered up his murder?”
Gabriel looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I was afraid of my father.”
The admission surprised her.
Gabriel Russo.
Afraid.
“I told myself I was protecting my mother and sister.”
He looked away.
“The truth is simpler. I was a coward.”
Norah said nothing.
“I've spent seventeen years trying to find Samuel's ledger.”
“To avenge him?”
“At first.”
“And now?”
“To expose what happened.”
Norah studied him.
“Even if it exposes your family?”
“Yes.”
“Even you?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
That night Norah remembered something.
Her mother's storage unit.
After her mother died, Norah had found a wooden recipe box.
Inside were index cards written by Samuel.
She assumed he loved cooking.
But the recipes made no sense.
Quantities like 17.4 cups.
Temperatures of 611 degrees.
Impossible ingredients.
She had kept the box.
Derek once asked about it.
Repeatedly.
Norah stood abruptly.
“The recipes.”
Gabriel looked up.
“What?”
“I know where the ledger is.”
They drove to the storage facility with police and Marco.
Norah opened Unit 318.
Boxes.
Furniture.
Her mother's Christmas decorations.
The recipe box sat inside an old kitchen carton.
Norah opened it.
Gabriel examined one card.
Three cups flour. 611 degrees. Seventeen minutes. Bell Harbor.
Marco stared.
“Account numbers.”
Gabriel nodded.
“Codes.”
Under the cards was a brass key.
A number stamped into it.
Marco searched.
“Safe-deposit box.”
Norah's phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered.
Derek.
“Found the recipes?”
Norah's blood turned cold.
Gabriel gestured for her to keep him talking.
Derek laughed.
“You always were slow.”
“What do you want?”
“The key.”
“Why?”
“Because your uncle ruined everything.”
Norah's voice shook.
“You were never my boyfriend.”
Silence.
Then:
“Don't make it sentimental.”
Her eyes filled.
“You chose me.”
“I was supposed to find the ledger.”
“And when you didn't?”
“You became useful.”
Norah almost broke.
Gabriel saw it.
Derek continued.
“Bring the key tomorrow night.”
“Where?”
“Pier Seventeen.”
“No.”
Derek laughed.
Then Norah heard a woman crying.
Gabriel's face changed.
“Who is that?”
Derek answered.
“Someone Russo cares about.”
Gabriel took the phone.
“Derek.”
Silence.
Then Derek laughed.
“Hello, boss.”
Gabriel's voice became deadly quiet.
“Who do you have?”
A woman's scream.
Then:
“Your sister.”
Gabriel went white.
Norah realized something terrifying.
This was no longer about her past.
May you like
The war Samuel Bell had tried to stop seventeen years earlier had just returned.
And this time, it had taken someone Gabriel loved.
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