Chapter 15 - Victor Dayne Makes His Move
Victor escaped custody at 4:12 the next morning.
Gabriel received the call at 4:19.
He did not ask how.
He already knew.
Money.
Corruption.
Planning.
Victor had prepared exits long before anyone accused him.
A transport vehicle carrying Victor to a federal interview site suffered a staged collision.
Two fake emergency vehicles arrived.
By the time police realized what had happened, Victor was gone.
Evelyn entered Gabriel’s study while he listened to the briefing.
“Victor?”
He nodded.
Her face tightened.
“Where’s Leo?”
“With the security team downstairs.”
“Move him.”
“Already happening.”
Gabriel had learned.
A helicopter transported Leo and two trusted guardians to a location outside Illinois.
Evelyn wanted to go.
Leo refused.
Not with words at first.
He held her hand.
Then Gabriel’s.
“Both.”
One word.
Both.
Gabriel crouched.
“I have to fix something.”
Leo shook his head.
Gabriel tapped his hand.
Their rhythm.
Leo looked at him.
“I’m coming back.”
The promise frightened Gabriel.
He had stopped making promises after Sophia died.
But Leo needed one.
So Gabriel said it again.
“I’m coming back.”
Evelyn went with Leo.
Before boarding, she turned to Gabriel.
“No heroics.”
“What counts as heroics?”
“Anything you’re thinking.”
He almost smiled.
Then she hugged him.
Unexpected.
Brief.
Gabriel froze.
Evelyn stepped back.
“Come back.”
He watched the helicopter rise.
Then turned toward the car.
Lake Geneva.
The family property had been owned by Nicholas’s father.
Gabriel had spent childhood summers there.
Boats.
Barbecues.
Long evenings on the dock.
He remembered Nicholas teaching him to swim.
Memory made betrayal uglier.
The drive north took ninety minutes.
Authorities coordinated from a distance.
Gabriel did not approach immediately.
Surveillance showed two vehicles outside the house.
One registered to a Nicholas-owned company.
Another stolen.
Victor’s escape vehicle had been abandoned twenty miles away.
Gabriel suspected both men were inside.
He was right.
A drone camera caught Victor crossing an upstairs window.
Then Nicholas.
Together.
Their alliance had survived.
For now.
The question was why they came here.
Gabriel studied Daniel’s freight ledger.
N.M. — final contingency.
Perhaps Nicholas had hidden money.
Documents.
A departure plan.
Gabriel remembered the property’s basement.
As children, they had been forbidden from entering an old storage room beneath the boathouse.
Nicholas once told him it flooded.
Maybe it did.
Or maybe the room had always served another purpose.
Authorities prepared entry warrants.
Gabriel waited.
For once, he let professionals go first.
The house was empty by the time teams entered.
Victor and Nicholas had vanished.
A tunnel led from the basement to the boathouse.
There, one boat was missing.
Gabriel stared across Lake Geneva.
“He’s heading to the north shore,” an officer said.
Gabriel knew the lake.
“So am I.”
This time they did not stop him.
A patrol boat carried Gabriel and officers across the water.
Ten minutes later they spotted Nicholas’s vessel near an abandoned private dock.
The boat was empty.
Footprints led into trees.
Then toward an old cabin.
Gabriel recognized it.
His uncle once used it for storage.
The door stood open.
Inside they found boxes.
Hundreds of documents.
Old accounting books.
Hard drives.
Passports.
Cash.
Nicholas’s contingency archive.
And something else.
Sophia’s handbag.
Gabriel stopped breathing.
He had not seen it since the night she died.
Official reports said her handbag had never been recovered.
He picked it up.
Inside were old receipts.
Lipstick.
A photograph of Leo.
And Sophia’s phone.
Dead.
Preserved inside a plastic evidence sleeve.
Someone had kept it for fourteen months.
Gabriel connected it to a portable battery.
The screen activated.
Locked.
He knew Sophia’s code.
Leo’s birthday.
The phone opened.
Twenty-three unsent messages.
Most drafts.
One addressed to Gabriel.
Please come home. Something is wrong. Victor is here and Nicholas is outside. I don’t know who to trust.
Timestamp: 12:48 a.m.
Gabriel stared.
Where had he been?
New York.
At a meeting Victor had insisted he attend.
Of course.
Another message.
Daniel is coming. I put Leo upstairs.
Then:
If you receive this, believe Daniel.
None had sent.
Someone had jammed cellular service.
Daniel’s parallel-network warning.
The final draft was only three words.
He found me.
Timestamp: 1:14.
Gabriel closed his eyes.
An officer called from outside.
“Movement!”
Gabriel stepped onto the porch.
Two figures appeared among the trees.
Victor.
Nicholas.
They had doubled back.
Victor held a weapon pointed toward Gabriel.
Officers immediately took cover.
Nicholas shouted, “Put yours down!”
Gabriel had no weapon visible.
Victor laughed.
“Always protected by someone else now?”
Gabriel looked at him.
“No. I just stopped making stupid choices for your benefit.”
Victor’s expression twisted.
Nicholas looked older than Gabriel remembered.
Terrified.
Sweating.
“Give us Sophia’s phone.”
Gabriel held it.
“So that’s why you came back.”
Nicholas stared.
“You don’t understand what’s on it.”
“I understand enough.”
“Gabriel, this can still be contained.”
Gabriel almost laughed.
“My wife is dead.”
Nicholas flinched.
“Daniel is dead. Leo spent fourteen months unable to speak. And you’re talking about containment?”
Nicholas lowered his voice.
“It was never supposed to happen that way.”
Victor glanced sharply at him.
“Shut up.”
Gabriel heard it.
Guilt.
“What wasn’t supposed to happen?”
Nicholas said nothing.
Gabriel stepped closer despite officers warning him.
“Tell me.”
Nicholas’s face collapsed.
“I only wanted the documents.”
Victor shouted, “Enough!”
Nicholas continued, panic taking over.
“She ran!”
Gabriel stared.
“She ran toward the courtyard. I tried to stop her.”
Victor raised the weapon toward Nicholas.
An officer shouted.
Everything happened quickly.
Nicholas ducked.
Victor fired into the ground near him.
Officers responded, striking a tree beside Victor and forcing him behind cover.
No one was hit.
Gabriel pulled Nicholas behind a stone wall.
His cousin stared at him in disbelief.
“You saved me.”
“I saved the truth.”
Nicholas began shaking.
Victor fled toward the lake.
Officers pursued.
Nicholas sat against the wall.
Gabriel crouched.
“What happened to Sophia?”
Nicholas looked at him.
“I grabbed her.”
Gabriel’s jaw clenched.
“She fought me. Aaron came over. We were arguing.”
“And?”
Nicholas covered his face.
“She got away again.”
Gabriel waited.
“She ran toward the rear stairs.”
“Did you push her?”
Nicholas looked up.
“No.”
“Who did?”
Tears appeared in his eyes.
“Victor.”
Silence.
Gabriel closed his eyes.
Victor had lied even in the warehouse.
Nicholas whispered, “He caught her at the landing. She was screaming that Leo had seen us.”
Gabriel’s chest tightened.
“And Victor pushed her?”
Nicholas nodded.
“One shove.”
Gabriel felt the world become distant.
“One shove,” Nicholas repeated. “She fell.”
Sophia’s death had been described as an accident during a security breach.
It had never been an accident.
Gabriel stood.
Nicholas said, “I’m sorry.”
Gabriel looked down at him.
“No.”
He turned toward approaching officers.
“You’re going to tell them everything.”
Nicholas did.
Victor was captured thirty minutes later near the lakeshore.
Wet.
Exhausted.
Surrounded.
This time there would be no quiet transport.
No private route.
No hidden allies.
As officers led him past Gabriel, Victor smiled.
“You think this ends because Nicholas talked?”
Gabriel said nothing.
Victor stopped.
“You still haven’t asked why Sophia kept the biggest secret from you.”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed.
“What secret?”
Victor smiled wider.
Then officers pushed him forward.
Gabriel hated himself for caring.
But he did.
Because Victor’s final weapon was always the same.
A secret.
May you like
And even defeated, he had found one more reason to make Gabriel doubt the woman he loved.
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