Chapter 5 - The Marriage Proposal
Elena never entered the mansion that night.
The blackout had been a demonstration.
A warning that the Rossi estate was not as secure as Gabriel believed.
By sunrise, power had returned.
Three members of the security staff were missing.
No bodies.
No explanation.
Only empty lockers.
Gabriel spent the next forty-eight hours dismantling his own security organization.
Sarah saw little of him.
When she finally found him, he was in the ruined sunroom.
Repairs had begun.
The shattered glass was gone.
Leo’s broken easel remained in the corner.
Gabriel stared at it.
“You should sleep,” Sarah said.
“So should you.”
“I did.”
“You lie badly.”
“So do you.”
He looked at her.
Sarah walked closer.
“What did Elena mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“That you weren’t supposed to inherit.”
“My father had another son.”
Sarah blinked.
“Older?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“He died as a child.”
“How?”
Gabriel looked toward the garden.
“Supposedly pneumonia.”
Sarah had learned to hate the word supposedly.
“And Leo?”
“My father’s estate passes through me to him.”
“So if your brother had survived…”
“He would have inherited everything.”
Sarah understood.
“You think Elena was saying he survived.”
“I think my mother enjoys making people doubt reality.”
Gabriel looked exhausted.
Sarah touched his arm.
“Come upstairs.”
“I have work.”
“That was not a request.”
One eyebrow rose.
“People don’t speak to me that way.”
“I took three bullets for your kid. I have privileges.”
That finally made him laugh.
Sarah smiled.
“There. Human.”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
“Your reputation would never recover.”
They walked upstairs.
At Sarah’s room, Gabriel stopped.
Neither spoke.
Their kiss from two nights earlier hung between them.
Sarah opened the door.
Gabriel remained outside.
“You can come in.”
His eyes searched hers.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He entered.
Nothing dramatic happened.
They sat beside each other on the sofa.
Sarah rested her head against his shoulder.
Gabriel eventually fell asleep sitting upright.
The feared head of the Rossi organization slept for nearly three hours while Sarah read beside him.
When he woke, Leo was sitting on the carpet staring at them.
Gabriel frowned.
“How long have you been there?”
Leo shrugged.
“Are you getting married?”
Sarah covered her face.
Gabriel sighed.
“Why is this your favorite question?”
“Because Sarah lives here.”
“Many people live here.”
“Marco lives here.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want you to marry Marco.”
Sarah burst out laughing.
Gabriel looked offended.
“Marco will be devastated.”
That evening, they received the first real breakthrough.
Isabella Rossi’s supposed dental identification had been falsified.
Someone had paid the medical examiner.
The body in the burned vehicle had not been Isabella.
Gabriel stared at the report.
Sarah sat opposite him.
“She’s alive.”
“Possibly.”
“You knew immediately.”
Gabriel nodded.
“What are you feeling?”
“I don’t know.”
Sarah reached across the desk.
Gabriel took her hand.
“I loved her once.”
“I know.”
“I need you to understand that.”
“I do.”
His thumb moved across Sarah’s knuckles.
“But whoever she became…”
He stopped.
Sarah squeezed his hand.
“You don’t owe me an explanation.”
“I think I do.”
“No. You owe me honesty.”
Gabriel looked at her for a long moment.
“That I can give you.”
Two days later Isabella contacted them.
She requested a meeting.
Public location.
No weapons.
Gabriel refused the second condition.
Sarah went with him.
Isabella was waiting inside a closed restaurant in Manhattan.
Beautiful.
Blonde.
Forty.
Alive.
Gabriel stopped when he saw her.
For perhaps ten seconds, he became someone else.
A widower seeing a ghost.
Isabella’s eyes filled.
“Gabriel.”
He did not move.
“You let our son believe you were dead.”
“I was protecting him.”
“By disappearing?”
“From Elena.”
Gabriel’s face hardened.
Isabella explained.
She had discovered Elena was alive.
Elena threatened Leo.
Isabella staged her death and disappeared, believing Gabriel would be safer if Elena thought she had taken evidence with her.
It had failed.
Elena eventually found her.
“And the attack?” Sarah asked.
Isabella looked at her.
“That was Elena.”
“Why Leo?”
“To force Gabriel into war with Victor.”
Gabriel leaned forward.
“And Sarah?”
Isabella’s expression changed.
“She needs Sarah.”
“For the trust?”
“More than that.”
Isabella placed documents on the table.
Daniel Moretti had not merely owned corporate shares.
He had possessed records capable of destroying Elena’s entire financial network.
Those records were stored in a private vault.
The access authorization transferred to Sarah on her twenty-fifth birthday.
Sarah stared at the paperwork.
“When?”
“Six weeks.”
Gabriel looked at Isabella.
“And you?”
“I want Elena stopped.”
“After three years?”
“I’ve been trying for three years.”
Gabriel stood.
“I’ll decide whether I believe you.”
He walked out.
Sarah followed.
Outside, Gabriel stopped beside the car.
His hands trembled.
Sarah had never seen that before.
She touched his arm.
He turned and pulled her against him.
No words.
Just grief.
Rage.
Relief.
Confusion.
Sarah held him.
“I buried her.”
“I know.”
“I told Leo his mother was dead.”
“You believed it.”
“I mourned someone who chose to disappear.”
Sarah did not defend Isabella.
She simply stayed.
That night Gabriel sat beside Sarah in the library.
Leo slept upstairs.
Rain tapped against the windows.
Gabriel said quietly, “I spent years thinking protecting someone meant controlling everything around them.”
Sarah looked at him.
“And now?”
“I watched you run toward Leo when every reasonable instinct should have told you to run away.”
He took her hand.
“You taught me something.”
“What?”
“That love isn’t control.”
Sarah’s throat tightened.
Gabriel continued.
“It’s choosing someone even when you can’t control what happens afterward.”
He reached inside his jacket.
Sarah stared.
“Gabriel.”
He placed a small velvet box on the table.
“You cannot be serious.”
“I’m very serious.”
“You’ve known I exist for approximately three weeks.”
“Two years and three weeks.”
“You ignored me for the first two years.”
“I was an idiot.”
“At least we agree.”
Gabriel smiled.
Then his expression softened.
“I’m not asking because you saved Leo.”
Sarah went still.
“I’m not asking because you’re connected to Moretti money. I’m not asking because marriage solves some strategic problem.”
He opened the box.
A simple diamond ring rested inside.
“I’m asking because when I imagine this house without you in it, it becomes the place it was before.”
Sarah whispered, “What place?”
“An expensive building where nobody was happy.”
Her eyes filled.
Gabriel lowered himself onto one knee.
Sarah stared at him.
The man everyone feared.
Kneeling before the woman who once scrubbed his floors.
“Sarah Bennett, I love you.”
Her breath caught.
“I don’t expect an answer tonight.”
“You’re proposing and telling me not to answer?”
“I’m improving.”
She laughed through tears.
“Slowly.”
“Painfully.”
Sarah touched his face.
Then kissed him.
Gabriel stood.
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“No.”
He looked almost offended.
Sarah smiled.
“But it wasn’t a no.”
Before Gabriel could respond, Marco entered.
His face was pale.
“Boss.”
Gabriel turned.
“What?”
“We found Elena.”
“Where?”
Marco looked at Sarah.
“Outside Sarah’s mother’s house.”
Sarah stood.
“Is Mom okay?”
“Yes.”
“Then what happened?”
Marco swallowed.
“Elena surrendered.”
Gabriel stared.
“Why?”
“She says she wants immunity.”
“From whom?”
Marco’s answer changed everything.
“Your brother.”
Gabriel went still.
“My brother died forty years ago.”
Marco shook his head.
“Elena says he didn’t.”
A photograph landed on the table.
A man in his mid-forties.
Dark hair.
Gray eyes.
Gabriel’s eyes.
On the back was a name.
ADRIAN ROSSI.
And beneath it:
May you like
HE ORDERED THE ATTACK ON LEO.
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