Chapter 9 - THE LAST BULLET
Khloe dropped beside Gabriel.
“Stay with me.”
He tried to speak.
Blood touched his lips.
“Not... a good night.”
“Don't you dare joke.”
She pressed both hands against his wound.
Daniel stood several feet away, his pistol lowered.
Khloe looked up.
“Why?”
Her father looked devastated.
“Caldwell was about to kill you.”
“So you shot Gabriel?”
“He was standing in the way.”
Jenna moved toward Daniel with her weapon raised.
“Drop it!”
Daniel turned.
“Jenna, you don't understand.”
“I understand enough.”
Caldwell was already moving toward the exit.
Vincent intercepted him.
The two men collided beside a steel support beam.
Their weapons fell.
Vincent struck Caldwell across the face, then drove him against the wall.
“Eleven years,” Vincent growled. “Eleven years I worked for a man who thought loyalty was something he could buy.”
He restrained Caldwell with his own handcuffs.
Outside, sirens began approaching.
The leaked files had triggered more than one response.
Federal agents were on their way.
Daniel looked toward the shattered loading doors.
“We have to leave.”
Khloe didn't move.
“I'm not leaving him.”
“He's a Rossi. He'll survive.”
“You shot him!”
Daniel's expression hardened.
“He has done terrible things.”
“So have you.”
For a moment, the warehouse fell silent.
Daniel looked at his daughter.
Then he placed his pistol on the ground.
“I know.”
Khloe turned back to Gabriel.
His eyes were half-open.
He caught her hand.
“Don't let him take you.”
“I won't.”
“Promise me.”
She squeezed his fingers.
“I promise.”
Vincent and Jenna helped lift Gabriel into a vehicle.
They drove to a private surgical center in Queens.
Khloe refused to leave the operating room.
She sat in the hallway, still wearing the bloodstained sweater.
Vincent sat beside her.
For the first time since she had met him, he looked uncertain.
“Why did you betray him?” she asked.
Vincent stared at his hands.
“Caldwell had my daughter.”
Khloe looked at him.
“He threatened her?”
“He sent me photographs of her school. Her apartment. Her bedroom.”
Vincent swallowed.
“I thought I could protect her by giving him what he wanted. Then I realized he'd never stop.”
“Did Gabriel know?”
“No.”
He looked toward the operating room.
“Gabriel always believed I was loyal because I respected him. The truth is, I respected him because he never asked me to sacrifice my family for his business.”
Khloe lowered her eyes.
“That's not the man I thought he was.”
“None of us are.”
A doctor finally emerged.
Gabriel had survived the surgery.
The bullet had missed his heart by less than an inch.
He would need weeks of recovery.
But he was alive.
Khloe entered his room.
He was pale beneath the hospital lights.
His eyes opened when she sat beside him.
“You stayed.”
“I told you I would.”
He gave a weak smile.
“Your father?”
“Gone.”
“Did he escape?”
“No. Federal agents arrested Caldwell. Daniel disappeared during the chaos.”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
Khloe placed the silver locket on the bedside table.
“The ledger uploaded successfully.”
“Good.”
“But there was something else in the files.”
Gabriel opened his eyes.
“What?”
“A list of people who were protected by my father's network. Judges. Politicians. Police officials.”
“And?”
She hesitated.
“Your name was there.”
He looked away.
Khloe continued.
“So was the name of someone who authorized the original bounty on me.”
“Who?”
She reached into her bag and produced a printed document.
The signature at the bottom belonged to Evelyn Harper.
Her mother.
The woman who had supposedly spent her life trying to destroy the criminal network.
The woman who had sent the warning through her father.
The woman who might still be alive.
Gabriel stared at the signature.
“That's impossible.”
Khloe's voice trembled.
“Maybe she wasn't trying to save me.”
She turned the document over.
On the back was a handwritten message.
If Khloe reaches the ledger, eliminate her before she remembers what happened in the summer of 2018.
Khloe's face drained of color.
She looked at Gabriel.
“What happened in the summer of 2018?”
Gabriel didn't answer.
Because he remembered.
He remembered the night Khloe's mother had brought her to Chicago.
He remembered the locked room.
And he remembered the little girl who had watched him shoot a man and then promised never to tell anyone.
Khloe had been seventeen.
May you like
She had forgotten.
But somebody had made certain that she would.
