Chapter 5 - The Brother Everyone Thought Was Dead
Dominic’s face changed when Isabella screamed the name.
Gabriel.
For half a second, the gunfire seemed to disappear.
Then another bullet struck the porch railing.
Dominic moved.
“Inside!”
Mateo dragged Marcus and me through the doorway.
Dominic grabbed Luca.
Isabella followed.
Security returned fire toward the trees.
Glass shattered.
The farmhouse became chaos.
Marcus cried.
Luca cried.
I crouched with both children behind a stone fireplace while Dominic’s men secured the house.
“Who is Gabriel?” I shouted.
Dominic didn’t answer.
He was staring at Isabella.
“My brother is dead.”
“No.”
“You saw the body?”
“No.”
“He died fifteen years ago.”
“That’s what Victor wanted you to believe.”
Dominic looked sick.
The pattern was obvious.
Dead brother.
Dead fiancée.
Permanent deafness.
A life built from manufactured losses.
Outside, gunfire continued for two minutes.
Then stopped.
Mateo checked his radio.
“Two attackers down. Others retreated.”
“Victor?”
“No confirmation.”
Dominic turned to Isabella.
“Talk.”
She looked at Luca.
Dominic softened slightly.
“Take the children upstairs.”
I hesitated.
“Go,” Isabella said. “Please.”
I led Marcus and Luca to a bedroom.
They barely knew each other.
But children form alliances quickly during frightening circumstances.
Marcus offered Luca his stuffed dog.
Luca accepted it.
“I’m Marcus.”
“I’m Luca.”
“My mommy says guns are bad.”
“My mommy says that too.”
I sat beside them.
Downstairs, voices rose.
I could hear fragments.
Gabriel.
Victor.
Adrian.
Hospital.
I hated being excluded from a conversation involving my own life.
So once both boys were distracted by toys, I left Mateo’s guard outside and returned to the staircase.
Dominic stood in the living room.
His expression was colder than anything I had seen.
Isabella spoke.
“Gabriel contacted me two weeks before your accident.”
“What did he want?”
“He said you had taken everything that belonged to him.”
Dominic laughed without humor.
“He tried to kill our father.”
“I know.”
“He disappeared after that.”
“He didn’t disappear. Victor helped him.”
Dominic looked toward Mateo.
Mateo shook his head.
“I didn’t know.”
Isabella continued.
“Gabriel spent years rebuilding overseas. Private contractors. Smuggling networks. Surveillance companies.”
“Unit Seventeen,” Dominic said.
“Yes.”
Dominic’s face hardened.
“And Victor?”
“Victor worked for Gabriel before he ever worked for you.”
The betrayal went deeper than any of us imagined.
Victor had entered Dominic’s life as an employee.
He had actually been planted there.
“Why wait?” I asked from the staircase.
Everyone turned.
Dominic frowned.
“Elena.”
“This concerns my son.”
Isabella nodded.
“She should hear it.”
I walked down.
“Why not kill Dominic?”
Isabella answered.
“Because Gabriel didn’t want him dead.”
Dominic looked at her.
“What did he want?”
“To destroy everything you loved while forcing you to stay alive.”
Silence.
Dominic’s eyes lowered.
“That sounds like him.”
Isabella continued.
“He believed death was mercy. He wanted you isolated. Suspicious. Dependent.”
“So he took my hearing.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Victor convinced him it would be more useful than killing you.”
Dominic looked disgusted.
“They could monitor conversations around me.”
“And control what you were told.”
I understood.
A deaf mafia boss was still powerful.
But a deaf mafia boss surrounded by traitors lived inside a reality those traitors could edit.
Dominic turned toward me.
“And Elena?”
Isabella looked uncomfortable.
“Adrian—Evan Cross—was ordered to get close to her.”
“Why?”
“Because Gabriel believed Elena had something.”
I stared.
“I had nothing.”
“Not knowingly.”
“What?”
Isabella took a breath.
“Your father.”
My stomach dropped.
“My father died when I was twelve.”
“What was his name?”
“Daniel Mercer.”
Isabella shook her head.
“That was the name he used publicly.”
I felt dizzy.
“He worked for Gabriel?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“He worked for Dominic’s father.”
Dominic stared at me.
“What?”
Isabella continued.
“Daniel was an accountant. Not a normal one. He kept records of the Cray organization’s legitimate and illegitimate finances.”
Dominic slowly understood.
“The ledger.”
Isabella nodded.
Dominic turned toward me.
“My father kept one master archive. Names, accounts, deals, payments. After his death, it disappeared.”
“I don’t have it.”
“You might.”
“I would know.”
“Would you?”
Isabella asked softly.
I remembered my father.
A quiet man who fixed broken radios at the kitchen table.
A man who died in a supposed car accident.
A man who left me one thing I had carried through every apartment since childhood.
A wooden music box.
My mouth went dry.
“No.”
Dominic noticed.
“What?”
“My father gave me something.”
“What?”
“A music box.”
“Where?”
“My apartment.”
Isabella closed her eyes.
“That’s why Adrian chose you.”
My chest tightened.
“He dated me for a year because of a music box?”
“He was searching for the archive.”
“And Marcus?”
Isabella shook her head.
“Marcus was never part of the assignment.”
That somehow hurt more.
Adrian may have used me.
But our child had been unplanned.
For one terrible moment, I wondered if he had ever loved either of us.
Dominic looked toward the ceiling where Marcus played.
“Where is Adrian now?”
Isabella’s face changed.
“Dead.”
I closed my eyes.
“How?”
“Gabriel killed him.”
“Why?”
“Because Adrian refused to continue.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“He found the archive?”
“No.”
“Then why refuse?”
Isabella stared directly at me.
“Because he fell in love with you.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“He told Gabriel he was done. He wanted to disappear with you and the baby.”
My eyes filled.
“But he left.”
“He didn’t.”
I stared.
“He was murdered the night he planned to come back.”
Everything I believed about Marcus’s father shattered.
Three years of anger.
Three years of thinking he abandoned us.
He had been trying to save us.
Isabella continued.
“Before Gabriel killed him, Adrian sent me a message. He said there was one person Gabriel could never be allowed to find.”
“Marcus.”
She nodded.
I sat down.
Dominic crouched in front of me.
“Elena.”
I looked at him.
“My son is alive because Adrian died?”
“Possibly.”
The room blurred.
For years, I had hated a dead man for leaving.
Now I mourned him for staying too long.
Mateo entered.
“We need to move.”
Dominic stood.
“Why?”
“The attackers transmitted our location before we stopped them.”
“How long?”
“Maybe twenty minutes before more arrive.”
Dominic looked at Isabella.
“Safe house?”
She shook her head.
“Gabriel knows most of them.”
Dominic considered.
Then looked at me.
“Your apartment.”
I laughed.
“You want to go toward the thing everyone is trying to find?”
“Yes.”
“That sounds insane.”
“It is.”
“Good.”
“But Gabriel expects us to protect the box.”
Dominic’s eyes hardened.
“So we’re going to take it first.”
Three hours later, we returned to the city using separate vehicles.
My apartment building looked exactly as I left it.
That frightened me.
No broken windows.
No forced door.
Dominic entered first.
Mateo followed.
I carried Marcus.
Luca stayed with Isabella in another vehicle.
My apartment felt painfully small with armed men inside.
I crossed to the bedroom closet.
The music box was at the back.
Wooden.
Scratched.
My father had carved my initials into the lid.
E.M.
I placed it on the table.
Dominic examined it.
“Open it.”
I did.
The melody had stopped working years ago.
Inside were old photographs.
A childhood bracelet.
My father’s watch.
Nothing else.
Mateo inspected the bottom.
“No compartment.”
My heart sank.
Then Marcus walked over.
“That’s Grandma’s song box.”
“Yes.”
He touched the little metal key on the back.
“It’s stuck.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“The key.”
Marcus twisted it.
Nothing.
Then he pulled instead.
The entire winding mechanism slid outward.
Something dropped onto the table.
A tiny brass key.
Dominic stared.
I laughed in disbelief.
“Again?”
Marcus looked proud.
“I find stuff.”
Dominic picked up the key.
Attached to it was a metal tag.
A number.
317.
Mateo immediately searched.
“Bank box.”
I looked at him.
“How do you know?”
“The numbering style.”
Dominic’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
Everyone froze.
He answered.
His restored hearing still made phone calls strange.
“Dominic.”
A familiar voice responded.
Victor.
“You found the key.”
Dominic’s face hardened.
“Where are you?”
“Always the wrong question.”
“What do you want?”
Victor laughed.
“What Gabriel has wanted for fifteen years.”
“The ledger.”
“Yes.”
Dominic looked at me.
“You’re not getting it.”
“Then Elena’s son dies.”
I went cold.
Dominic’s voice became lethal.
“You go near him—”
“Oh, I won’t.”
Victor paused.
“Gabriel will.”
Then he added something worse.
“He’s already inside the building.”
Every light in my apartment went out.
Marcus screamed.
Dominic grabbed me.
“Down!”
Gunfire exploded in the hallway.
And through the darkness, a man’s voice called from outside my door.
May you like
“Hello, little brother.”
Gabriel Cray had finally come home.
