Chapter 3 - The Man Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
My uncle Gabriel had never had a funeral.
That was the first thing I remembered.
There had been a memorial.
A small one.
Family only.
My father stood beside the fireplace and told everyone Gabriel was gone.
No body.
No grave.
No details.
I was twenty-one then, still finishing college and still naive enough to believe powerful men told their sons the truth when it mattered.
My father said Gabriel had died overseas.
An accident.
He refused to explain more.
My mother had already passed away by then, and the Moretti family had learned not to challenge my father when grief sharpened his temper.
So Gabriel disappeared from our lives.
His photographs came down.
His office was emptied.
His name stopped being spoken.
And eventually, everyone accepted the simplest explanation.
He was dead.
Now I was staring at his face in a highway photograph taken two nights ago.
Older.
Heavier.
Gray at the temples.
But unquestionably Gabriel.
“Run facial comparison,” I told Raymond.
“Already doing it.”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
“Douglas?”
“No.”
Raymond raised an eyebrow.
I trusted Douglas.
Or at least I thought I did.
But forty-eight hours earlier, I trusted my fiancée too.
Until I understood why Gabriel was alive, everyone became a question mark.
“Find that sedan.”
Raymond nodded.
“The registration is still under your family trust.”
“Then someone had access to the storage facility.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“We’re checking.”
I left the security room and went upstairs.
Vivienne was packing.
Not dramatically.
Not suitcases thrown across the bed.
She had one leather case open and was folding clothing carefully.
That calmness told me she had expected this moment.
“Going somewhere?”
She didn’t look at me.
“My sister’s.”
“Why?”
“Because you clearly don’t want me here.”
“I want Bruno here.”
Her hands stopped.
“Adrian—”
“Where did you take him?”
“I didn’t.”
“Your Range Rover was photographed thirty-five miles north.”
She turned.
“My Range Rover?”
“My vehicle.”
“You let me use it.”
“With Bruno inside.”
Her face lost color.
I walked closer.
“I have photos.”
She sat slowly on the edge of the bed.
“That doesn’t prove I was driving.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
Her eyes lifted.
Another mistake.
She was anticipating accusations I hadn’t made.
“Who was driving?”
She said nothing.
“Vivienne.”
“I can’t tell you.”
Not “I don’t know.”
Can’t.
My anger turned cold.
“Why?”
She covered her face briefly.
When she lowered her hands, her composure was gone.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
I almost laughed.
“You stole my dog to protect me?”
“I didn’t steal him.”
“You lied about where he was.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Tears filled her eyes.
Real ones this time.
“Because Gabriel told me if I didn’t cooperate, he would come after you.”
I stopped breathing for a second.
“You know Gabriel?”
She nodded.
“How?”
“He contacted me four months ago.”
Four months.
Before our engagement announcement.
Before I gave her expanded access to the estate systems.
“What did he want?”
“At first, information.”
“What information?”
“Your schedule. Which properties you visited. Who handled the family archives.”
My hands clenched.
“And you gave it to him?”
“No.”
She looked ashamed.
“Not initially.”
“Initially?”
“He knew things about me.”
“What things?”
She looked toward the window.
“Before I met you, my father’s company collapsed.”
“I know.”
“You know the public version.”
I waited.
“He borrowed money privately. A lot of it.”
“From Gabriel?”
“No. From men Gabriel knew.”
Vivienne swallowed.
“When my father died, they transferred the debt to me.”
“That isn’t how legitimate debt works.”
“It wasn’t legitimate.”
I understood.
“And Gabriel offered to make it disappear.”
“Yes.”
“In exchange for spying on me.”
Her eyes closed.
“I thought it would be harmless.”
“Harmless?”
“He asked when you traveled. Which gates were used. Whether your father kept documents here.”
“And eventually he asked you to take Bruno.”
Vivienne started crying.
“Yes.”
“Why Bruno?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer sounded genuine.
“He said Bruno was the key.”
“To what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“He told me Bruno had something that belonged to him.”
I thought about the collar.
The cut silver clasp.
“Something on him?”
Vivienne shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“Where did you take Bruno?”
“To an old veterinary clinic outside Millbrook.”
“Was he hurt?”
“No.”
“The blood?”
She looked confused.
“What blood?”
“There was blood in the car.”
Her face changed.
“Oh God.”
“What?”
“The sedative.”
My body tensed.
“You drugged him.”
“The veterinarian did. Gabriel said Bruno needed to stay calm.”
“You let someone inject my dog.”
“I thought they were going to examine him.”
“Vivienne.”
“I swear.”
Her voice cracked.
“I swear to you, Adrian, when I left that clinic, Bruno was alive and breathing normally.”
“When did you leave?”
“Eleven-forty.”
“With Gabriel?”
“No.”
“Who?”
“A man named Keller.”
“Full name.”
“I don’t know.”
“Description.”
She told me.
Forties.
Tall.
Brown hair.
Scar beside his right ear.
Raymond would find him.
“Where was Gabriel?”
“He arrived after us in your father’s sedan.”
The photo confirmed that.
“What happened inside the clinic?”
Vivienne hesitated.
“They scanned Bruno.”
“For his microchip?”
“I thought so.”
“But?”
“They were looking for something else.”
“What?”
“I heard Gabriel say, ‘It’s still there.’”
My skin tightened.
“What was still there?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Where is Bruno now?”
She looked terrified.
“I don’t know.”
“You left my dog with them?”
“I tried to take him back.”
“You tried?”
“Gabriel stopped me.”
“How?”
“He told me if I interfered, he would tell you everything.”
“About the debt?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
I waited.
Her silence suddenly became heavier than everything else.
“What else, Vivienne?”
She began trembling.
“Adrian…”
“What?”
“I didn’t meet you by accident.”
There it was.
A sentence capable of destroying eleven months in six words.
“What does that mean?”
She stood, but I stepped back.
She noticed.
Her face broke.
“Gabriel arranged for us to meet.”
The charity auction.
Boston.
Eleven months earlier.
Vivienne had bumped into me near a sculpture display.
Her champagne spilled on my jacket.
She apologized.
We laughed.
I invited her to dinner.
I had believed it was coincidence.
Apparently my relationship had begun as an assignment.
“He sent you to me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To get close.”
“How close?”
Her eyes dropped to the engagement ring.
That answered me.
I felt something inside me go quiet.
Love didn’t disappear instantly.
That would have been easier.
Instead, it remained while trust collapsed beneath it.
“Did you ever love me?”
“Yes.”
I didn’t answer.
“Adrian, please.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Before or after he told you to?”
Her mouth opened.
No words came.
I turned away.
That hurt more than I expected.
She came closer but didn’t touch me.
“I tried to stop.”
“When?”
“After Christmas.”
“Why?”
“Because it stopped being an assignment.”
Her voice softened.
“Because you became real.”
I looked at her.
“And Bruno?”
“He was never supposed to be harmed.”
“You keep saying supposed to.”
She wiped her face.
“Gabriel said he needed something Bruno carried.”
I thought about Bruno’s history.
I got him eight years earlier, shortly after my father’s second heart attack.
My father had given him to me.
Said I needed something loyal in a world that wasn’t.
Bruno was already six months old.
I had never asked where my father got him.
Suddenly that mattered.
“Did Gabriel say what Bruno carried?”
“No.”
Then Vivienne remembered something.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“At the clinic, Gabriel said something strange.”
“Tell me.”
“He looked at Bruno and said, ‘Richard always trusted animals more than people.’”
Richard.
My father.
I left Vivienne in the bedroom and went directly to my father’s study.
It had remained almost unchanged since his death five years earlier.
Dark shelves.
Leather chairs.
An enormous walnut desk.
I opened drawers I had opened a hundred times.
Nothing.
Then I looked at an old photograph on the wall.
My father standing beside Gabriel.
Between them was a dog.
Not Bruno.
A German shepherd.
My father’s first dog.
Caesar.
I remembered something from childhood.
My father used to hide emergency cash in Caesar’s collar when traveling.
Not because he distrusted banks.
Because he distrusted people.
Richard always trusted animals more than people.
I thought about Bruno’s collar again.
But Gabriel had cut it off.
If something had been hidden inside it, he would already have found it.
Unless the collar wasn’t the hiding place.
I called Bruno’s veterinarian.
Dr. Elaine Foster answered after three rings.
“Adrian?”
“I need Bruno’s original medical records.”
“Is something wrong?”
“He’s missing.”
“Oh my God.”
“When my father gave him to me, did you treat Bruno?”
“Yes.”
“Did he ever have surgery before that?”
There was a pause.
“Why are you asking?”
My pulse increased.
“Elaine.”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
“What surgery?”
“I wasn’t supposed to discuss it.”
“My father is dead.”
“I know.”
“What surgery?”
She exhaled slowly.
“When Bruno was six months old, your father brought him in with another veterinarian.”
“Why?”
“To implant something.”
My entire body went still.
“A microchip?”
“No.”
“What?”
“I don’t know exactly. It was a small titanium capsule.”
“Where?”
“Under the muscle near his left shoulder.”
“Why?”
“Your father said it contained information that could save your life someday.”
I gripped the phone.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“He made me promise.”
“Is it still there?”
“As far as I know.”
Gabriel’s words came back.
It’s still there.
Bruno wasn’t kidnapped because Gabriel hated me.
He wasn’t taken for revenge.
He was taken because my father had hidden something inside him.
Something valuable enough to keep secret for eight years.
Something Gabriel wanted badly enough to come back from the dead.
“Elaine, what was inside the capsule?”
“I never opened it.”
“But you saw it.”
“Yes.”
“Any markings?”
A long silence.
Then she said, “There were numbers engraved on it.”
“What numbers?”
“I only remember the first four.”
“Tell me.”
“1-9-8-7.”
1987.
The year my parents married.
The year Moretti Development was founded.
The year my father and Gabriel started their company together.
And when I searched my father’s locked archive for that number, I found a sealed envelope marked:
1987 — GABRIEL.
Inside was one sentence written in my father’s handwriting.
If Gabriel ever returns, do not trust the story about the money.
May you like
The real secret is why your mother died.
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