Chapter 5 - THE MAN WHO HAD LIED TO HER
Khloe didn't remember getting into the SUV.
She remembered Jenna's words.
She remembered Gabriel's face.
And she remembered the way he had looked at her when she first entered Trattoria Bellini.
Like a man who had already recognized something he had been searching for.
The SUV sped through the city.
Vincent drove.
Gabriel sat beside Khloe in the rear.
Neither spoke for several minutes.
Finally, she turned toward him.
“Did you kill Michael Caldwell?”
Gabriel looked out the window.
“Yes.”
The honesty was almost more devastating than a denial.
“Why?”
“Michael was working with your father. They were moving evidence out of Chicago. Caldwell ordered him to retrieve it. Michael refused.”
“And you killed him?”
“He pulled a gun on me.”
“Was he armed?”
“Yes.”
“Was he trying to kill you?”
Gabriel didn't answer immediately.
“That isn't what you asked.”
Khloe's eyes filled with tears.
“You knew Jenna was his sister.”
“Yes.”
“You knew who I was.”
“Yes.”
“You sat across from me and watched me pretend to be someone else while you knew everything.”
“I didn't know everything.”
“But you knew enough.”
Gabriel turned toward her.
“Your father saved my life once.”
Khloe stared.
“What?”
“Years ago. I was twenty-two. My organization was collapsing. Men I trusted were selling information to Caldwell. Your father found out and warned me before they could finish the job.”
“Why would he help you?”
“Because he believed I could become something different.”
Gabriel gave a humorless smile.
“He was wrong about that.”
Khloe looked down.
“Then why are you helping me?”
“Because your father asked me to.”
He removed a folded letter from his jacket.
The paper was worn at the edges.
Khloe recognized her father's handwriting immediately.
Gabriel,
If you're reading this, then I have failed to keep my daughter out of the war I've spent my life creating.
She believes she is hiding from men who want money. She is wrong. They want what I discovered, and they will destroy everything around her to obtain it.
There is a ledger. Not a book of accounts, but a record of every agreement, every payment, and every betrayal that built the empire we now inhabit.
I hid it where Evelyn believed nobody would look.
My daughter is the only person who can open it.
Do not trust the people who claim to love her.
And Gabriel, if you ever find yourself choosing between power and the girl, choose the girl.
Khloe read the final line twice.
Then she looked up.
“Why didn't you show me this before?”
“Because I needed to know whether you were carrying the key.”
“I don't have a key!”
Gabriel's gaze dropped toward her throat.
“Your mother gave you a locket.”
Khloe touched the empty chain beneath her sweater.
“I lost it.”
“Did you?”
She frowned.
Gabriel continued.
“Your father said the key was hidden where Evelyn believed nobody would look. The locket may have been more than a keepsake.”
Khloe remembered her escape from Chicago.
The night her father disappeared.
The burning study.
A man chasing her through the estate.
Her handbag had been torn open.
The locket had vanished.
“Jenna might know where it is,” she whispered.
Gabriel shook his head.
“Jenna is working for her father.”
“She came to warn me.”
“Or to lead us into a trap.”
Khloe turned toward the window.
She could no longer tell which people had been lying to her.
At the Queens storage facility, they found a narrow building surrounded by abandoned warehouses.
The property manager was an elderly man named Samuel Price.
He looked at Khloe for a long time.
Then he unlocked a small office and handed her a sealed envelope.
“Your mother told me you'd come.”
Inside was a photograph of Evelyn standing beside a young girl.
The girl was Khloe.
But the photograph had been taken when Khloe was only three years old.
On the back were the words:
Room 19. Listen before you open.
They entered the storage building.
Room 19 contained a piano.
An old upright piano covered in a white sheet.
Khloe pulled the fabric away.
She recognized it.
Her mother had owned the instrument when she was a child.
Beneath the keyboard, a small metal compartment was locked.
Gabriel searched the frame.
“There's a mechanism here.”
Khloe examined the keys.
One note was slightly lower than the others.
She pressed it.
A faint click sounded.
The compartment opened.
Inside lay a silver locket, a small flash drive, and a handwritten note.
Khloe picked up the note.
It contained only one sentence.
If Gabriel is with you, do not play the recording until you know which Rossi you're dealing with.
She slowly turned toward him.
“Which Rossi?”
Gabriel's face had gone pale.
Before he could answer, Vincent entered the room.
His pistol was raised.
“I'm sorry, boss.”
Gabriel turned.
Vincent's expression was cold.
“Caldwell made me an offer I couldn't refuse.”
May you like
Then he pointed his gun at Khloe.
“Give me the drive.”
