Chapter 8 - The Night Gabriel Lost Everything
The shipping terminal was a trap.
They knew that.
They simply misunderstood who had built it.
Marco arrived first carrying a duplicate hard drive.
Gabriel's men surrounded the perimeter.
Federal agents waited 3 blocks away, brought in through a retired investigator connected to Evelyn's files.
Nora remained inside Gabriel's armored SUV.
That had been the compromise.
Then her phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered.
Salvatore's voice came through.
“You have your mother's eyes.”
Nora froze.
“Where are you?”
“Closer than Gabriel thinks.”
The driver's door suddenly opened.
The man Gabriel had assigned to protect her collapsed outside.
Nora turned.
Commissioner Patrick Doyle climbed inside holding a gun.
“Phone down.”
Nora obeyed.
Doyle drove.
By the time Gabriel discovered she was gone, the operation disintegrated.
His control disappeared with her.
“Find her!”
Marco grabbed his shoulder.
“Gabriel!”
“He has Nora.”
“And if you run blind, he gets you too.”
Gabriel shoved him away.
Then Nora's phone location appeared.
Old Lakeside Hotel.
Abandoned for 9 years.
Gabriel knew it.
His father once owned it.
He drove there with Marco.
No army.
No convoy.
Salvatore wanted family.
Gabriel would give him family.
Inside the hotel ballroom, Nora sat tied to a chair.
Doyle stood behind her.
Salvatore waited near the old stage.
He smiled when Gabriel entered.
“My boy.”
Gabriel's eyes went immediately to Nora.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
Salvatore laughed.
“Still ignoring the room whenever she's in it. Your father did the same thing with Evelyn.”
Gabriel looked at him.
“You killed him.”
Salvatore sighed.
“Your father became weak.”
“He became decent.”
“He became suicidal.”
Salvatore stepped closer.
“He intended to hand everything to the government. Everything our family built.”
“So you murdered your brother.”
“I preserved our future.”
Gabriel's voice dropped.
“You spent 18 years telling me family came first.”
“It does.”
Salvatore smiled.
“As long as family understands obedience.”
Nora looked at Gabriel.
The irony was impossible to miss.
Gabriel once believed something dangerously similar.
Take it off.
Because I told you to.
His shame burned.
Salvatore continued.
“Give me the drive.”
Gabriel held it up.
“Release Nora.”
Doyle pressed the gun against her shoulder.
“Drive first.”
Gabriel tossed it across the floor.
Salvatore retrieved it.
“Good.”
Then he nodded to Doyle.
Gabriel saw the movement.
“NO!”
Gunshot.
Nora jerked.
Gabriel's world stopped.
But Nora wasn't bleeding.
Doyle was.
Marco stood in the doorway, weapon raised.
Chaos erupted.
Salvatore ran.
Gabriel went after him.
They crashed through the old kitchen and onto the rooftop.
Rain hammered the city.
Salvatore reached the edge.
Gabriel caught him.
For one violent moment, his uncle hung above the street with Gabriel gripping his coat.
Salvatore smiled.
“Do it.”
Gabriel could let go.
Eighteen years of grief could end with opening his hand.
“You're a Rossi,” Salvatore whispered.
“Show me.”
Gabriel stared down.
Then Nora's words returned.
He controls one more thing about the man you become.
Gabriel pulled Salvatore upward.
His uncle looked stunned.
Gabriel threw him onto the roof.
“No.”
Federal agents flooded the stairwell.
Gabriel stepped backward.
“You don't get to decide who I become anymore.”
Salvatore was arrested.
So was Doyle.
By sunrise, raids had begun across Chicago.
Politicians were taken from homes.
Accounts were frozen.
Records seized.
The Rossi organization Gabriel had inherited began collapsing.
He stood beside Nora outside the hotel.
Everything he had spent his adult life building was disappearing.
Nora slipped her hand into his.
“Are you afraid?”
“Yes.”
She looked surprised.
Gabriel Rossi admitting fear still felt unnatural.
“What happens now?”
He watched federal vehicles carry Salvatore away.
“I don't know.”
Nora squeezed his hand.
For the first time, uncertainty did not feel like weakness.
It felt like freedom.
Then an agent approached.
“Mr. Rossi?”
Gabriel turned.
“We need you to come with us.”
Nora stiffened.
Gabriel already understood.
Salvatore was not the only criminal whose name appeared in those files.
His own was there too.
He looked at Nora.
“Don't interfere.”
“Gabriel—”
“If this ends, it ends correctly.”
He kissed her forehead.
Then he offered his wrists to the agent.
Nora watched them place Gabriel Rossi in handcuffs.
May you like
And for the first time since she had known him, he did not look like a mafia boss.
He looked like a man choosing what came next.
