Chapter 3 - The Blood DebtCole Bishop froze in the doorway, his broad frame framed against the dim corridor. His arrogant smirk slipped, replaced by a flicker of confusion as his gaze dropped to the shredded legal papers scattered across the master bedroom floor.
"Boss?" Cole took a tentative step inside, his hands resting naturally near his belt line. "What happened to the papers? The jet’s waiting. Paul’s calling every thirty seconds—"
"I asked you a question, Cole," Gabriel interrupted, his voice dropping into a register that made the hair on the back of Cole’s neck stand up. "Tell me about the Franklin Street fire."
"The fire?" Cole swallowed, his eyes darting toward Evelyn, who sat motionless in her chair, the clear plastic cannula resting against her pale cheeks. "You know what happened. The roof caved in. I kicked down the east security door, dragged you out to the alley, and called Paul’s private medical transport. You gave me fifty grand and the northern docks for it."
Gabriel took a slow, deliberate step forward. "You kicked down the east door."
"Yeah."
"With a three-hundred-pound timber beam pinned across my legs?"
Cole’s jaw tightened. "I had adrenaline pumping, Gabe. You were heavy, but I hauled you out."
Gabriel didn't blink. With blinding speed born of twenty years surviving street ambushes, his left hand shot out, seizing Cole by the throat and slamming him backward against the oak doorframe. The impact rattled the crown molding overhead. Before Cole could reach for his sidearm, Gabriel drew his Glock and pressed the cold muzzle directly beneath Cole's chin.
"You're lying," Gabriel whispered. "You stood by the loading dock. You watched the building burn. And when my wife drove up with my grandfather’s watch, you told her I was already dead."
Cole’s eyes bulged, blood rushing to his temples under the vice-like grip on his throat. He clawed at Gabriel’s wrist, but Gabriel was immovable.
"Gabriel, stop," Evelyn’s strained voice drifted from the chair, followed by a dry, breathless wheeze. "Don't do this here."
"Who gave you the order to leave me inside, Cole?" Gabriel cocked the hammer with an audible metallic click. "Was it Paul?"
"Gabe... listen to me..." Cole choked out, terror finally breaking through his composure. "Paul said... Paul said you were getting soft. He said you were letting a woman run your head, keeping you out of the Chicago expansion. The fire was an accident... but leaving you there wasn't."
"And when she pulled me out?"
"Paul told me to take the credit," Cole gasped, spit spraying on his lips. "He told me if she ever spoke up, he’d leak photos claiming she was sleeping with Vance... make you divorce her before she could tell you the truth."
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Gabriel’s phone buzzed again from the carpet where it had fallen. The screen lit up on speaker mode as an incoming call auto-connected through Cole’s synchronized smartwatch.
Paul Raines’s voice crackled through the small speaker, sharp and impatient: "Cole? Is it done? Did Mercer get on the highway, and did you turn off the oxygen valve in the guest wing like we planned?"
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