Chapter 6 - The Dead Woman
Margaret Gallagher had died fourteen years earlier.
At least, that was what Ruby had been told.
A boating accident near Nantucket.
No body recovered.
A memorial service attended by four hundred people.
Ruby had been twelve.
Margaret had been her grandfather’s eldest daughter and once expected to inherit Gallagher Freight.
Instead, Ruby’s grandfather transferred the terminals into a trust for Ruby shortly before his death.
No one ever explained why.
Now Margaret was standing alive in a photograph with Preston Vale.
Gideon watched Ruby process it from his hospital bed.
“You’re sure?”
Ruby laughed weakly.
“She taught me to play chess.”
Antonio remained near the window.
“Your aunt has been using the name Margaret Hale for more than a decade.”
Ruby turned on him.
“And you knew?”
“For three days.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
Antonio’s expression barely changed.
“I wanted to know what she wanted first.”
Gideon’s anger rose.
“You let her keep operating.”
“I monitored her.”
“You monitor people until someone gets shot.”
Antonio’s gaze flicked toward the bandage.
“You’re alive.”
“Leave.”
Antonio sighed.
“You have your mother’s temperament.”
The room went silent.
Gideon’s face changed instantly.
Ruby saw it.
“Don’t,” she warned Antonio.
The older man smiled faintly.
“Interesting.”
“What?”
“You protect him.”
Ruby stepped closer.
“I protect people when someone is deliberately hurting them.”
Antonio studied her.
“And yet you plan to leave him.”
“That is none of your business.”
“Everything involving my son is my business.”
Gideon’s voice turned lethal.
“No. That is exactly the problem.”
Antonio finally left.
For several minutes, neither Ruby nor Gideon spoke.
Then Gideon said, “You should go somewhere safe.”
Ruby almost smiled.
“You were shot twelve hours ago and you’re still giving orders.”
“It’s a personality flaw.”
“One of several.”
He looked at her carefully.
“Are you leaving?”
Ruby’s gaze fell to the blanket.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s fair.”
The lack of argument startled her.
Gideon continued.
“The contract is gone.”
“I know.”
“You owe me nothing.”
The words hurt in a completely different way.
Ruby sat beside the bed.
“Why did you follow me?”
He looked toward the ceiling.
“I told you.”
“No. You told me you wanted me alive.”
“Yes.”
“That’s not the whole answer.”
Gideon remained silent.
Ruby waited.
Finally, he said, “Because every instinct I had told me to lock the doors and make you stay.”
“That sounds more like you.”
“I realized if I did, you would never choose me.”
Her heart stumbled.
Gideon looked directly at her.
“And I wanted you to choose me.”
Ruby said nothing.
“I don’t know when that happened,” he continued. “Maybe when you humiliated Preston at the gala. Maybe when you started arguing about fuel contracts at breakfast. Maybe when you sat on the floor with me because you knew I couldn’t sleep.”
His voice became rough.
“Maybe much earlier.”
Ruby’s eyes filled.
Gideon looked away.
“I don’t expect that to matter.”
“It matters.”
He turned back.
“It just doesn’t fix everything.”
“I know.”
That was the beginning.
Not reconciliation.
Not forgiveness.
Just honesty.
Over the next week, Ruby and Gideon worked together from the penthouse while his shoulder healed.
Margaret became their focus.
Ruby searched old company archives.
Gideon used investigators.
What they discovered changed everything.
Before Margaret’s supposed death, she had served as chief operating officer of Gallagher Freight.
She had also been stealing from the company.
Millions disappeared through false invoices and shell corporations.
Ruby’s grandfather discovered it.
He removed Margaret from succession and transferred the terminals to Ruby’s trust.
Three months later, Margaret vanished.
Ruby stared at the accounting files.
“She wasn’t killed.”
“No,” Gideon said.
“She disappeared before Grandfather could expose her.”
“And now she wants the terminals.”
Ruby shook her head.
“Why wait fourteen years?”
“Because your father controlled the company until recently.”
“And now he’s sick.”
“And you’re married to me.”
Ruby understood.
Margaret could not simply challenge the trust.
But if she destroyed Gideon, destabilized Gallagher Freight, and proved Ruby financially compromised by the marriage contract, she might contest Ruby’s ownership as fraudulent influence.
Gideon pointed toward another document.
“There’s more.”
Ruby read it.
A trust amendment.
“If I die without children…”
“The terminals transfer to your father’s nearest surviving sibling.”
Ruby went cold.
“Margaret.”
Gideon’s jaw tightened.
“She doesn’t just need to ruin you.”
Ruby looked at him.
“She needs me dead.”
That night, Gideon moved into the room next to hers.
Not hers.
Next to hers.
He added security without arguing when Ruby insisted her employees not be subjected to invasive questioning.
Small changes.
But she noticed.
At 2:00 a.m., Ruby found him in the kitchen.
“You can’t sleep.”
“Neither can you.”
She made tea.
He watched.
“Ruby.”
“Yes?”
“I changed the terminal access documents.”
She paused.
“What?”
“You now control all authorization independently. Apex has no contractual power over either facility.”
She turned.
“You need those terminals.”
“Yes.”
“For the redevelopment bid.”
“Yes.”
“Then why?”
Gideon’s answer came quietly.
“Because they were always yours.”
Ruby looked at him for a long time.
Then she crossed the kitchen and kissed him.
Gideon froze.
She almost laughed against his mouth.
“Are you going to stand there?”
“I’m trying not to ruin this.”
“That may be the most romantic thing you’ve ever said.”
He touched her face.
“Are you sure?”
The question mattered.
Months earlier, he would have acted because he wanted something.
Now he asked.
Ruby nodded.
“Yes.”
Their second kiss was nothing like the first.
No panic.
No retreat.
No contract hanging between them.
Later, they sat together on the sofa while rain whispered against the windows.
Ruby rested against his chest.
For one hour, neither spoke about enemies.
Then Gideon’s phone vibrated.
A message.
He opened it.
A live video feed appeared.
Ruby’s father was sitting in a wheelchair inside a dark room.
A woman stepped into frame.
Silver hair.
Elegant posture.
Margaret Gallagher smiled directly into the camera.
“Hello, Ruby.”
Ruby stood so quickly the blanket fell.
Margaret placed one hand on her brother’s shoulder.
“I think it’s time our family had a conversation.”
The video ended.
Ruby called the hospital.
Her father was gone.
Kidnapped less than thirty minutes earlier.
Gideon was already on his feet.
Ruby grabbed his arm.
“You’re injured.”
“I’m functional.”
“No.”
He stared.
Ruby pointed toward his shoulder.
“We do this together.”
Something changed in Gideon’s eyes.
He nodded.
May you like
“Together.”
And for the first time in his life, Gideon Rossi entered a war without intending to control every move himself.
