Chapter 5 - Six Months Earlier
The truth began on a rainy Thursday.
Six months earlier, Gabriel Bennett had believed his greatest problem was corporate theft.
He had been wrong.
At 10:42 that night, he entered the Harbor Crown carrying evidence that millions had disappeared from Harbor Point.
At 10:48, Adrian entered.
At 10:51, Vanessa arrived.
At 11:17, Richard Vale appeared.
Gabriel remembered him now.
Richard had not been visible on the surviving camera angle because he had sat outside the frame.
But Gabriel remembered his voice.
“Think about your father.”
Gabriel had turned toward him.
“Don’t use my father.”
Richard had remained calm.
“Your father built this company. Scandal will destroy what he created.”
“Fraud will destroy it.”
“Then contain the fraud.”
“You mean hide it.”
“I mean survive it.”
Gabriel had looked around the table.
Three people he trusted.
Three people asking him to become part of a crime.
He had refused.
What Gabriel had not known was that Maya was working in the hallway outside.
She had entered once to deliver coffee.
That was the first time Gabriel saw her.
He thanked her.
Richard barely noticed her.
Adrian did.
Maya remembered his stare.
Not attraction.
Suspicion.
She left.
Forty minutes later, Gabriel stormed from the room.
Maya was finishing her shift.
In the parking garage, she found him standing beside his car with blood running over his knuckles.
“Sir?”
He turned.
For a moment he did not recognize her.
Then he saw the uniform.
“The coffee.”
Maya smiled cautiously.
“Yes.”
He looked at her soaked jacket.
“Where are you going?”
“Bus stop.”
“In this weather?”
“I’ve survived rain before.”
“The buses stopped running twenty minutes ago.”
Maya checked her phone.
He was right.
Gabriel opened the passenger door.
“I’ll drive you.”
Maya hesitated.
“You don’t know me.”
“Then tonight I’ll learn your name.”
“Maya.”
“Gabriel.”
“I know.”
He smiled.
That was how she entered his car.
Not as a conspirator.
Not as a lover.
Not as someone important.
Simply as a stranger who needed a ride.
Fifteen minutes later, Gabriel noticed the black SUV.
Maya saw his expression change.
“Do you know them?”
“No.”
But he did.
Or at least he suspected.
The SUV hit them first near Mile 18.
Gabriel accelerated.
It followed.
Second impact.
Maya screamed.
“Call 911!”
She reached for her phone.
No service.
The storm had knocked out several towers.
Third impact.
The guardrail appeared.
Gabriel fought the wheel.
The car spun.
Before they went over, Gabriel shoved something into Maya’s hand.
The brass key.
“Keep this.”
“What?”
“Don’t let Adrian get it.”
Then the world turned upside down.
Maya remembered glass.
Metal.
Blood.
Then cold rain on her face.
She had been thrown partly through a broken side window.
Somehow, she crawled away.
The SUV stopped above them.
A man descended the slope.
Maya went still.
He checked Gabriel first.
Then Maya.
Lightning flashed.
Silver wolf.
The man returned to the road.
Another voice spoke from above.
Maya could not hear the words.
The man answered:
“Gabriel should have taken the deal.”
Then the SUV left.
Maya crawled back toward Gabriel.
He was unconscious.
Bleeding.
She pressed both hands against his wound and screamed for help until another driver finally stopped.
At the hospital, Eleanor arrived.
Maya gave her the key.
Then Gabriel nearly died during surgery.
Eleanor made a choice.
Hide Maya.
Hide the key.
Wait.
It had seemed sensible then.
Now Gabriel understood the cost.
Six months of lies.
Six months during which his enemies believed they had succeeded.
And six months during which Maya quietly entered his life.
Not because she wanted money.
Not because she wanted status.
Because every time she looked at him, she remembered pulling him from death.
Back in the present, Gabriel stood at the window of his mansion.
Maya approached.
“You remember everything?”
“Not everything.”
“Enough?”
He turned.
“Enough to know you saved my life.”
Maya looked down.
“You would have survived.”
“No.”
Gabriel moved closer.
“The paramedics said pressure on the wound kept me from bleeding out.”
She said nothing.
“That was you.”
Maya’s eyes filled.
“I couldn’t leave you.”
“Why?”
“You had just saved me too.”
“How?”
“You turned the car.”
Gabriel frowned.
“If you hadn’t turned the wheel at the last second, the passenger side would have hit the rocks first.”
They stood quietly.
Two strangers who had each saved the other without knowing what it would mean.
Gabriel gently touched her hand.
Then Eleanor entered.
“We have a problem.”
Gabriel turned.
“What?”
“Richard Vale knows we opened the vault.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
She handed him her phone.
A message.
COME TO THE BOARD MEETING TOMORROW.
ALONE.
Gabriel smiled coldly.
“He thinks I’m still the injured man he manipulated six months ago.”
Maya shook her head.
“Don’t underestimate him.”
“I won’t.”
Gabriel looked at the wheelchair near the wall.
Then an idea came to him.
“Actually…”
He sat down in it.
Maya stared.
“What are you doing?”
Gabriel pulled the plaid blanket across his legs.
“Giving Richard exactly what he expects to see.”
May you like
And the next morning, when Gabriel Bennett entered the boardroom looking helpless again, Richard Vale smiled.
He had no idea Gabriel had come to bury him.
