Chapter 4 - THE TRAITOR ON THE FIFTH FLOOR
Gabriel covered Paige’s mouth before she could answer.
Sylvia called again.
“Paige?”
Nico moved through the darkness.
A crash sounded.
Then a grunt.
Thirty seconds later, emergency lights illuminated the hallway.
Nico returned with Sylvia.
Her hands were restrained behind her back.
Rosa was unharmed.
The gunshot had come from a security guard confronting an intruder downstairs.
Sylvia was not alone.
Two men had entered through a service corridor.
One escaped.
One did not.
Gabriel stood before Sylvia.
“How did you know Paige was here?”
Sylvia’s confidence disappeared.
“I followed the car.”
“Wrong answer.”
She looked at Paige.
“I was trying to help you.”
“You told them where my apartment was.”
“No.”
“You knew Kevin.”
Sylvia stopped breathing.
Paige felt something break inside her.
Eight months.
Lunch breaks.
Coffee.
Complaints about rent.
Sylvia had known everything.
“You were watching me.”
Sylvia’s eyes filled with tears.
“It wasn’t supposed to become this.”
“What was it supposed to become?”
Sylvia looked toward Gabriel.
Fear sealed her mouth.
Gabriel stepped closer.
“Who are you afraid of?”
Sylvia whispered one name.
“Matteo.”
Nico went completely still.
Paige noticed.
Gabriel did too.
“Matteo Moretti?” she asked.
Gabriel’s younger cousin.
Chief financial officer of Moretti Logistics.
The smiling executive Paige had seen occasionally downstairs.
Gabriel said nothing.
Sylvia began talking.
Matteo had been moving money through company routes for years.
Kevin discovered irregularities while doing freelance accounting work.
He had tried to blackmail Matteo.
Instead of paying him, Matteo recruited him.
Kevin helped create forged records designed to make it appear Gabriel was stealing from his own organization.
But Kevin became frightened when Matteo’s plan changed.
The fraud was no longer about money.
It was about removing Gabriel permanently.
“Kevin wanted out,” Sylvia said.
“Where is he?” Paige demanded.
“I don’t know.”
“Is he alive?”
“I think so.”
Paige’s knees nearly failed.
Gabriel caught her.
Again.
This time she did not pull away.
Sylvia looked at their joined hands.
Something almost like understanding appeared in her expression.
“Matteo will use her against you.”
Gabriel released Paige.
“He already tried.”
“No.” Sylvia shook her head. “You don’t understand. The debt collectors weren’t trying to collect money. They were measuring her.”
“For what?”
“To see whether Kevin would come back for her.”
Paige felt cold.
She had been bait.
For six months.
Gabriel ordered Nico to take Sylvia downstairs.
Before leaving, Sylvia looked at Paige.
“I’m sorry.”
Paige could not answer.
The penthouse became quiet again.
Gabriel poured two drinks.
He handed one to Paige.
“I don’t drink whiskey.”
“You do tonight.”
She drank.
It burned.
“Your family is complicated.”
“That is a polite word.”
“Why would Matteo want you dead?”
Gabriel stared through the window.
“My father intended him to inherit.”
Paige waited.
“Then my older brother was killed.”
Gabriel’s voice changed slightly.
“After that, my father changed his will.”
“You became heir.”
“Yes.”
“And Matteo never forgave you.”
“No.”
Paige remembered the photograph.
Gabriel covered in blood beside a body.
“Was that your brother?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Luca.”
He had found Luca dying inside a warehouse.
The gun in Gabriel’s hand belonged to the killer.
The photograph had been taken seconds afterward.
Someone had been there.
Watching.
“Matteo?”
“I never proved it.”
Paige looked toward the laptop.
“Maybe Kevin did.”
They worked until dawn.
Paige reconstructed deleted graphics.
Gabriel examined financial records.
For hours they forgot to be employer and employee.
At 4:30 a.m., Gabriel placed coffee beside her.
She tasted it.
“This is terrible.”
“It costs eighty dollars a pound.”
“Then somebody robbed you.”
A quiet laugh escaped him.
Paige looked up.
Gabriel seemed surprised by the sound himself.
Later, she fell asleep on the sofa.
When she woke, a blanket covered her.
Gabriel was still working.
Sunrise illuminated the scars across his hands.
For the first time, Paige wondered what those hands had survived instead of what they might have done.
Then the laptop chimed.
A hidden file finished decrypting.
Paige sat up.
It was a video.
Kevin appeared onscreen.
Thin.
Terrified.
Alive.
“Paige, if you’re watching this, I’m sorry.”
She stopped breathing.
Kevin explained everything.
Matteo had recruited him.
Kevin had agreed because he wanted money.
Then he discovered Matteo planned to kill Gabriel during the annual Moretti Foundation gala.
Kevin tried to steal evidence and escape.
He failed.
“If Gabriel has this,” Kevin said, “tell him the traitor isn’t just Matteo.”
Gabriel leaned closer.
Kevin looked directly into the camera.
“There’s someone beside him. Someone he trusts completely.”
The video glitched.
Then Kevin said a name.
But the audio vanished.
Paige stared at the silent movement of his mouth.
Gabriel replayed it.
Again.
Again.
Paige’s graphic-design training had included animation and facial reference.
She watched Kevin’s lips.
Two syllables.
The first looked like N.
The second ended with O.
Her eyes slowly moved toward the doorway.
May you like
Nico stood there.
And he was holding a gun.
