Chapter 6 - The Dead Man's Voice
Chloe grabbed the phone from Gabriel.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
“Thomas?”
Silence.
She pressed buttons uselessly.
“Thomas!”
The line remained dead.
Dean was already working on the trace.
Gabriel stood completely still.
“Was it him?” Chloe asked.
“Yes.”
“You remember his voice after twelve years?”
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
Dean looked up.
“Call was routed through six relays.”
“Can you find him?”
“Eventually.”
“Eventually isn't good enough.”
Chloe turned on Gabriel.
“You knew he was alive.”
“I knew ten seconds before you did.”
“Your father knew.”
“My father kept things from me.”
“That seems to run in your family.”
The words were cruel.
Gabriel accepted them without reacting.
Chloe immediately regretted saying it.
“Sorry.”
“You're not wrong.”
Evelyn appeared at the stairs.
“Tommy?”
Chloe rushed toward her.
“You heard?”
“He called.”
“How do you know?”
Evelyn touched her chest.
“He always comes back when it rains.”
The sentence made no sense.
Or perhaps it once had.
Gabriel approached.
“Evelyn, do you know where he might go?”
“Church.”
“St. Jude?”
She nodded.
“Under the angel.”
Dean looked at Gabriel.
“The code location.”
Gabriel glanced toward the windows.
“We go before dawn.”
Chloe shook her head.
“We?”
“You're staying.”
“No.”
“Chloe.”
“Thomas called and mentioned me. If he's at that church, I'm going.”
“This is not a family reunion.”
“You're right. It's my family nightmare. I'm still going.”
Dean sighed.
“I'd pay money to see someone talk to you like this every day.”
Gabriel ignored him.
“No.”
Chloe stepped closer.
“You cannot lock me in your house.”
“I can.”
“Try.”
For a second neither moved.
Then Mia's voice drifted from the staircase.
“Are you fighting?”
They turned.
Mia stood holding her stuffed rabbit.
“No,” Chloe said.
“Yes,” Gabriel said.
Chloe glared at him.
He shrugged.
Mia came downstairs.
“Grandma says families fight because they're tired.”
Gabriel looked at Chloe.
“She may be right.”
Mia climbed onto a chair.
“Are you family?”
Neither adult answered immediately.
Chloe finally said, “Apparently.”
Mia considered that.
“What kind?”
Gabriel said, “Complicated.”
“That's not a kind.”
“It is in Chicago.”
Mia looked satisfied.
The absurdity broke the tension.
Three hours later, Chloe was in the back seat of Gabriel's armored SUV.
She had won.
Gabriel claimed she had not.
Dean said the distinction was irrelevant.
St. Jude was an abandoned Catholic church on the edge of an industrial neighborhood.
Its stone facade was blackened by age.
The city had condemned it years earlier.
Inside, shattered stained glass scattered colored moonlight across dusty pews.
Gabriel carried a flashlight.
Chloe walked beside him.
Dean followed.
“Angel,” Chloe whispered.
They found a marble statue near the collapsed altar.
One wing was broken.
Beneath its base was a small brass plate.
7294.
The numbers Evelyn had remembered.
Dean entered them into a keypad hidden behind the statue.
A compartment opened.
Inside were three flash drives.
A key.
And a photograph.
Gabriel picked it up.
Leo stood beside Evelyn.
Evelyn was pregnant.
Thomas stood behind them.
All three were smiling.
Chloe stared.
“They were together.”
“Apparently,” Gabriel said.
On the back Thomas had written:
Whatever happens, the child is innocent.
Chloe's eyes filled.
Dean inserted one flash drive into an offline laptop.
Folders appeared.
Financial records.
Recorded conversations.
Security footage.
Gabriel opened an audio file.
Vincent Marchetti's voice filled the church.
“…Leo knows too much. Gabriel was supposed to be driving tonight.”
Another man answered.
Gabriel's father.
Antonio Costa.
“No blood.”
Vincent laughed.
“You built an empire and still think blood listens to rules.”
Antonio replied sharply.
“I said no.”
The recording ended.
Gabriel stared at the screen.
“My father knew Vincent was moving against us.”
Dean opened another file.
This one was dated two days after Leo's death.
Antonio's voice again.
“Thomas, if you can hear me, I was wrong.”
Static.
Then:
“Vincent turned Parker.”
Dean froze.
“My father.”
Antonio continued.
“He gave Vincent the car schedule. He didn't know Leo would take Gabriel's car.”
Dean sat down heavily.
Gabriel looked at him.
Dean's father had not placed the bomb.
But he had provided the information that allowed Vincent to do it.
“I spent my entire life trying not to become him,” Dean whispered.
Gabriel put a hand on his shoulder.
“You didn't.”
“You don't know that.”
“I do.”
Chloe watched them.
These men spoke little about loyalty because loyalty was apparently the only language they truly understood.
Then footsteps echoed from the church entrance.
Gabriel closed the laptop.
“Behind the altar.”
Dean drew his weapon.
Three figures entered.
One was an elderly priest.
The second was a middle-aged woman wearing a nurse's coat.
The third wore a hood.
Chloe's heart stopped.
The hooded man stepped into the moonlight.
One side of his face was scarred.
Older.
Thinner.
But unmistakable.
Thomas Vance.
Evelyn's husband.
The man Chloe had spent less than twenty-four hours believing was her father.
The man who had raised her for the first months of her life.
Thomas looked at Gabriel first.
Then Chloe.
His eyes filled immediately.
“You look like him.”
Chloe couldn't move.
“Leo?”
Thomas nodded.
She walked forward.
Stopped.
She had imagined confronting him.
Slapping him.
Demanding answers.
Instead, she whispered, “Why did you leave us?”
Thomas's face collapsed.
“I didn't.”
“Twenty-seven years.”
“I was there until you were three.”
“I don't remember you.”
“I know.”
“Then you disappeared.”
“I was taken.”
Gabriel stepped forward.
“By my father?”
Thomas looked at him.
“Saved by your father.”
Gabriel frowned.
Thomas continued.
“Vincent found me six days after the bombing. Left me in a warehouse fire.”
He touched the scars.
“Antonio's men found me. Your father knew Vincent would kill Evelyn and Chloe if anyone learned I survived.”
“So he hid you.”
“For twelve years.”
“Why didn't he tell me?”
“Because you hated me.”
Gabriel's jaw tightened.
“He let me.”
“He needed Vincent to believe the lie.”
“Leo was his son.”
“And you were his remaining son.”
Gabriel turned away.
Thomas looked at Chloe.
“I sent money.”
Chloe laughed bitterly.
“We were broke.”
His face changed.
“What?”
“My mother skipped prescriptions to pay rent.”
Thomas looked horrified.
“I sent money every month.”
“To who?”
“Through Costa accounts.”
Gabriel looked at Dean.
Dean began typing.
“Find it.”
Thomas stepped closer to Chloe.
“I wrote letters.”
“I never got them.”
His eyes filled.
“Then somebody intercepted everything.”
A cold silence passed through the ruined church.
Vincent.
Again.
Thomas reached into his coat.
Gabriel immediately moved.
Thomas stopped.
“Easy.”
He slowly removed a small envelope.
“My last letter to Leo.”
Chloe took it.
“He never read it?”
“No.”
“What does it say?”
“That I forgave him.”
Her throat tightened.
“For my mother?”
Thomas nodded.
“And that if anything happened to me, he needed to be your father.”
Chloe stared down at the envelope.
Thomas's voice cracked.
“He never got the chance.”
Before Chloe could answer, a red laser dot appeared on Thomas's chest.
Gabriel saw it first.
“DOWN!”
He slammed Chloe behind the altar.
Glass exploded.
A bullet tore through Thomas's shoulder.
Dean fired toward the broken window.
Thomas fell.
Chloe crawled toward him.
“Thomas!”
Blood spread across his coat.
He grabbed her hand.
“Listen.”
“No.”
“Listen to me.”
“You're not dying.”
“Vincent doesn't want the ledger.”
“What?”
Thomas coughed.
“He wants the third drive.”
Gabriel looked at the laptop case.
“What is on it?”
Thomas stared at him.
“The list of every legitimate company your organization owns.”
Gabriel frowned.
“So?”
Thomas's grip tightened around Chloe's hand.
“And the proof that Leo secretly transferred controlling ownership before he died.”
“To who?”
Thomas looked at Chloe.
“To his unborn daughter.”
Chloe stopped breathing.
Gabriel stared at her.
Thomas whispered:
May you like
“Chloe owns the Costa empire.”
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