Chapter 7 - The Price on Harper Lane
Gabriel wanted Harper hidden.
Harper wanted answers.
For once, answers won.
The cassette contained Evelyn's voice.
She explained that Adrian had discovered Vittorio Vescari was laundering money through charities and ordering murders without the family's knowledge.
Adrian planned to expose him.
Evelyn was pregnant.
They intended to disappear.
Vittorio discovered the plan.
Adrian died.
Evelyn escaped.
For nineteen years she kept Harper hidden from the Vescari family.
Not because she feared Gabriel.
Because she feared what Gabriel had become under his father's influence.
On the recording, Evelyn said:
“If Gabriel ever becomes the man Adrian believed he could be, tell him the truth.”
Gabriel stopped the tape.
He couldn't continue.
Harper saw tears in his eyes.
He turned away.
“My brother believed in me.”
“Yes.”
“I called him a coward.”
“You were young.”
“I was twenty-four.”
“You were still wrong.”
Gabriel looked at her.
Harper didn't soften the truth.
“But being wrong then doesn't mean you have to stay wrong forever.”
That sentence changed him.
Outside the bank, Luca's organization announced a ten-million-dollar bounty.
Not on Gabriel.
On Harper.
May you like
Alive.
By nightfall, every criminal in Belladonna Harbor knew her name.
