Chapter 4 - The Confession Hidden for Eleven Years
Gabriel had no intention of allowing Norah anywhere near the address.
Norah had no intention of obeying him.
Their argument lasted the entire drive to St. Matthew’s.
“You are not going tonight.”
“You don’t decide that.”
“I absolutely do.”
“You are my employer.”
“You keep reminding me.”
“Because you keep forgetting.”
“I haven’t forgotten anything about you since four this morning.”
That silenced her.
Gabriel immediately regretted saying it.
Not because it was untrue.
Because it was too true.
Norah turned toward the rain-covered window.
St. Matthew’s stood between two newer buildings, its stone walls darkened by decades of weather.
The church was nearly empty.
Norah entered first.
Her footsteps echoed.
Eleven years disappeared.
She remembered sitting beside Daniel while their father whispered that a church was the one place where a person should never lie.
She walked toward the confessionals.
Gabriel followed.
“Which one?”
“The third.”
She knelt.
The brass key fit beneath the wooden bench.
A hidden compartment opened.
Inside sat a small metal box.
Norah stopped breathing.
Gabriel lifted it out.
They carried it into a private room behind the sanctuary.
The key opened that too.
Inside was no ledger.
Only a flash drive and a sealed envelope.
Norah recognized Daniel’s handwriting.
For Nora.
Her hands shook as she opened it.
She read silently.
Then again.
Gabriel watched her face collapse.
“What does it say?”
She handed him the letter.
Daniel had discovered Vittorio Rossi’s Lazarus archive.
But Vittorio had not ordered Daniel’s death.
Daniel believed Anthony Moretti had learned about the archive and intended to steal it.
Vittorio had actually tried to move Daniel into protective hiding.
Anthony intercepted him first.
At the bottom was one final warning.
If anything happens to me, Vittorio Rossi is not the man you should fear. Anthony is.
Norah covered her mouth.
Eleven years.
For eleven years she had believed the Rossi family might have murdered her brother.
Gabriel had spent three years unknowingly employing a woman who had entered his company searching for proof against his dead father.
And both had been wrong.
Gabriel inserted the flash drive into an offline laptop Frankie had brought.
A video appeared.
Daniel Bellini filled the screen.
Norah gasped.
He was young.
Alive.
Smiling nervously.
“If you’re watching this, Nora, then I failed to come home.”
Norah began crying.
Gabriel quietly moved beside her.
Daniel explained everything.
The Lazarus Ledger existed.
Vittorio had collected evidence of bribery, corruption, financial crimes and secret alliances across the city.
Anthony wanted it.
But Daniel had discovered something worse.
Anthony had been secretly building his own organization inside Vittorio’s network.
Daniel had copied enough evidence to expose him.
“The actual ledger isn’t here,” Daniel said on-screen. “I made sure nobody could reach it with one key.”
Gabriel leaned closer.
Daniel continued.
“There are two halves to the location. Nora has one without knowing it. The Rossi heir has the other.”
Gabriel stared.
Norah turned toward him.
“What?”
Daniel held up an old silver coin.
Gabriel instinctively reached inside his shirt.
Norah noticed.
He pulled out a chain.
Hanging from it was a silver medallion his father had given him shortly before dying.
Daniel held an identical one in the recording.
Gabriel removed his.
The back contained meaningless lines he had studied a hundred times.
Norah looked at her glasses case.
The false bottom contained similar lines.
They placed them together.
A map emerged.
Frankie leaned forward.
“That’s Rossi Tower.”
Gabriel studied it.
“No.”
He pointed at the older street grid.
“That’s what stood there before Rossi Tower.”
Norah recognized the building from company archives.
“The original Rossi textile warehouse.”
Gabriel nodded.
“It’s underneath the tower.”
Daniel’s final words played.
“If Anthony finds out, he will come for both families. Don’t let what happened between our fathers become what happens to you.”
The video ended.
Nobody spoke.
Then Norah whispered, “Daniel knew you.”
Gabriel frowned.
“He knew of me.”
“No.”
She replayed the final seconds.
Daniel had said something almost too quietly to hear.
Gabriel leaned closer.
“If Gabriel is anything like the boy I met, trust him.”
Gabriel stared at the frozen screen.
“I met your brother?”
“You don’t remember?”
Gabriel searched his memory.
Then something surfaced.
A summer evening.
His father’s warehouse.
A young accountant who had found Gabriel smoking on the roof after an argument with Vittorio.
Daniel.
Gabriel had been twenty-three.
Daniel had sat beside him.
They had spoken for perhaps twenty minutes.
About fathers.
Expectations.
Freedom.
Gabriel had forgotten.
Daniel had not.
Norah looked at him differently.
“My brother trusted you.”
Gabriel met her eyes.
“And you didn’t.”
“I didn’t know you.”
“You’ve known me three years.”
“That became the problem.”
Gabriel stepped closer.
“What does that mean?”
“You weren’t who I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“A monster.”
“And what did you find?”
Norah swallowed.
“A man I kept making excuses to stay near.”
The room became impossibly quiet.
Gabriel lifted his hand.
He hesitated before touching her cheek.
For a man accustomed to taking whatever he wanted, that hesitation meant more than any declaration.
Norah did not move away.
“Tell me to stop,” he whispered.
She didn’t.
Their foreheads nearly touched.
Then Frankie’s phone rang.
The moment shattered.
Frankie answered.
His expression changed immediately.
“Gabriel.”
“What?”
“We have a breach at Rossi Tower.”
Gabriel turned.
“How?”
“Someone used executive credentials.”
“Whose?”
Frankie looked toward Norah.
“Miss Hayes’s.”
Norah stared at him.
“My credentials were disabled this morning.”
“I know.”
Gabriel understood.
Someone inside the company had restored them.
“Where did they go?”
Frankie listened.
Then looked at Gabriel.
“Sublevel four.”
The exact level beneath Rossi Tower where the old warehouse foundation remained.
Gabriel grabbed the metal box.
“They know.”
Norah followed him.
“They know we found the map.”
“No,” Gabriel said.
His face hardened.
“They knew where the ledger was before we did.”
“Then why attack me?”
Gabriel looked back at the paused image of Daniel.
“Because they couldn’t open it.”
And as they hurried toward the church exit, Gabriel realized something far worse.
Only a handful of people knew they had gone to St. Matthew’s.
Which meant Anthony Moretti was not the only enemy hunting them.
May you like
Someone Gabriel trusted was feeding him information.
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