Chapter 6
His voice carried something Nora had not heard before.
Not anger.
Grief.
That frightened her more.
Gabriel closed his eyes.
“My father died eighteen months ago.”
Nora continued preparing medication while he spoke.
“He built what we have. Restaurants. Freight companies. Nightclubs. Warehouses. Some legal. Some not.”
“At least you’re self-aware.”
“My father believed fear was more reliable than loyalty.”
“Was he right?”
“For a while.”
Gabriel opened his eyes.
“After he died, I started shutting things down.”
Luca looked toward him.
Gabriel continued.
“Anything involving people being hurt for profit. Extortion. Forced collections. Illegal shipments.”
Nora stopped moving.
“You’re telling me you suddenly developed morals?”
“No.”
His mouth twisted.
“I developed exhaustion.”
That answer sounded true.
Gabriel looked toward the ceiling.
“I was seventeen the first time my father told me to watch a man get beaten because someday I would have to order it myself. I was twenty-three the first time I did.”
Nora said nothing.
“I used to think guilt disappeared if you survived it long enough.”
“Does it?”
“No.”
His eyes returned to hers.
“It gets quieter. That’s worse.”
Luca looked away.
Gabriel continued.
“Vincent thinks I’m destroying the family. I think I’m trying to make sure another seventeen-year-old boy doesn’t inherit a chair soaked in somebody else’s blood.”
Nora folded her arms.
“And I’m supposed to find that noble?”
“No.”
He spoke without hesitation.
“You’re supposed to keep me alive long enough to finish it.”
That answer unsettled her.
Because again, it sounded true.
The door alarm flashed.
Someone had entered the secured floor.
Luca checked his weapon.
Nora’s chest tightened.
“I need to know something.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“If Vincent had wanted you dead, why not just kill you?”
“He would need control afterward.”
“Meaning?”
“A sudden murder divides people. A sick leader creates a transition.”
Nora looked back at the scan.
“A natural death.”
“Yes.”
She studied the object again.
Slow neurological deterioration.
Fever blamed on infection.
Paralysis blamed on trauma.
Eventually respiratory collapse.
It was frighteningly elegant.
“You were supposed to die slowly.”
Gabriel’s expression did not change.
“They’ve never accused Vincent of lacking patience.”
Luca walked toward the entrance.
“I can hold the hall.”
“No,” Nora said.
He looked back.
“You can’t operate.”
“I know.”
“Then what?”
Nora stared at the wound.
May you like
And finally said the thing she had spent three years refusing to say aloud.
“I used to run trauma surgery.”
