Chapter 6 - The Brother Who Left Her Behind
Nico Moretti arrived at Gabriel's office just after midnight.
He had been summoned without his security staff.
Without his driver.
Without anyone else.
Gabriel was standing at the window when he entered.
For a moment, neither brother spoke.
Then Gabriel said, “I spoke to Mother.”
Nico stopped.
“She tell you everything?”
“No.”
Nico gave a humorless laugh.
“Of course she didn't.”
Gabriel turned.
“Sit.”
Nico remained standing.
“I'm not a child.”
“No,” Gabriel said. “A child told me what you did.”
Nico flinched.
Gabriel placed a photograph on the desk.
The blue service door.
The chain.
The padlock.
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
Nico stared at it.
Then he sat.
For almost a minute, he said nothing.
Finally he began.
“Mother called me at eight thirty. Said someone was trying to remove foundation records from the shelter.”
“Isabel?”
“She didn't give me a name.”
“What did she order?”
“To secure the records room until a team arrived.”
“With a chain?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you call me?”
Nico rubbed his face.
“Because Mother said she'd already spoken to you.”
Gabriel went still.
“And you believed her.”
Nico looked up.
“We've both been believing her for years.”
Gabriel didn't answer.
Nico continued.
“When I got there, most of the residents were gone. Maintenance guys said the evacuation had been completed.”
“Was Isabel inside?”
“I thought the building was empty.”
Gabriel waited.
Nico looked down.
“I put the chain on the door. Then I heard somebody hit the glass.”
Gabriel's hands tightened.
“A woman?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see her?”
Nico swallowed.
“She came to the window. She was shouting something.”
“What?”
“I couldn't hear her properly.”
“You knew she was trapped.”
Nico closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
The silence between them felt enormous.
Gabriel's voice dropped.
“Why didn't you open it?”
“I tried.”
“Don't lie to me.”
“I did! I went back to the padlock, but the key they gave me wouldn't turn. One of the maintenance men said the room was being secured from the control station.”
“You had a weapon. You had men.”
“I know.”
“You could have broken the chain.”
Nico's voice broke.
“I know.”
Gabriel stared at him.
Nico pressed both palms against his eyes.
“I kept thinking there was time. I called the security supervisor. He told me someone was coming. Then the alarm didn't go off, and I smelled smoke.”
He lowered his hands.
“I ran around to the front entrance to find a way inside. By the time I got back, the fire trucks were arriving.”
Gabriel looked away.
He wanted to scream.
He wanted to hit something.
He wanted to demand that Nico explain why he had obeyed a stranger's procedure while a woman was begging for help.
But he knew the answer.
Because the family had taught them obedience.
Because they trusted people above them.
Because they had learned to confuse authority with judgment.
And because Nico had made a terrible choice.
“What happened afterward?”
Nico pulled out his phone.
“Mother called me.”
“When?”
“About eleven.”
“What did she say?”
“She said the fire was an accident. That the records were insured. That if I started telling people I'd locked the door, the investigators would accuse me of killing a woman.”
Gabriel stared.
“So you stayed quiet.”
“Yes.”
“For twenty-four days.”
Nico's eyes filled.
“Yes.”
Gabriel turned away.
He could barely stand to look at him.
Then Nico said, “There's something else.”
Gabriel stopped.
“I recorded the call.”
Gabriel turned back.
Nico placed his phone on the desk.
“I didn't do it to expose her. I did it because I was scared. She kept changing the story.”
He pressed play.
Vivian's voice filled the office.
Nico, I need you to understand something. Your brother cannot afford a scandal.
A pause.
The accounting records are sensitive. The room was supposed to be empty.
Nico's recorded voice answered.
It wasn't empty. I saw the woman.
Vivian responded sharply.
Then you should have made certain she was escorted out before the contractors arrived.
Mother, she was still inside.
Another pause.
Then Vivian's voice again.
If you tell the police you chained that door, they will ruin your life. Is that what you want?
The recording ended.
Gabriel stared at the phone.
It wasn't enough to prove who started the fire.
But it proved Vivian knew Nico had left a woman trapped behind the door.
And that she had pressured him to stay silent.
Gabriel looked at his brother.
“You're giving this to the investigators.”
Nico nodded.
“And you're telling them everything.”
Another nod.
“You understand they may charge you.”
Nico's face twisted.
“I know.”
Gabriel felt a strange ache in his chest.
For years, he had protected Nico from consequences.
A reckless fight.
A bad business decision.
A dangerous employee who needed to be removed.
Gabriel had always stepped in.
Fixed it.
Made the problem disappear.
Now there was a woman missing.
An eight-year-old girl who woke from nightmares calling for her mother.
And no amount of influence could change what Nico had done.
“I can't save you from this,” Gabriel said.
Nico lowered his head.
“I know.”
Gabriel reached for the phone.
“Then tell the truth.”
Nico stood.
At the door, he stopped.
“Gabe?”
Gabriel looked up.
“I keep hearing her banging on the glass.”
Gabriel didn't answer.
Nico's voice became barely audible.
“I should have opened the door.”
“Yes,” Gabriel said.
“You should have.”
After Nico left, Gabriel sat alone.
For the first time in twenty years, he didn't feel like a man who commanded an empire.
He felt like an older brother who had failed to teach his family the difference between loyalty and cowardice.
At 2:14 a.m., Mara entered the office.
She had been awake, looking through the fire department's dispatch records.
“Gabriel.”
He looked up.
Her face was pale.
“I think Isabel is alive.”
Gabriel stood so quickly his chair struck the wall.
“What?”
Mara turned her laptop toward him.
“There was a second ambulance dispatched near the harbor that night.”
He moved closer.
“At 11:06 p.m., a woman was found unconscious near the old pumping station. Severe smoke inhalation. No identification.”
Gabriel stared at the screen.
“Where did they take her?”
“She was transferred between hospitals.”
“Can you find her?”
Mara looked up.
Her eyes were shining.
“June is trying.”
Gabriel stepped around the desk.
“Mara—”
She held out one hand.
“Don't say anything yet.”
“Why?”
“Because if it's her, I need you to understand something.”
He waited.
Mara's voice shook.
“That little girl has spent twenty-four nights believing her mother died behind a locked door.”
Gabriel looked at the ambulance record.
May you like
Then back at his wife.
“And if Isabel is alive,” Mara whispered, “we have to make absolutely certain before we give Wren that hope.”
