Chapter 3 - The Woman Daniel Reed Tried to Protect
Ava woke to the unfamiliar sensation of silence.
Not apartment-building silence, where pipes knocked inside walls and neighbors argued through plaster.
Absolute silence.
She opened her eyes.
A vaulted ceiling rose above her.
For one confused second, she thought she was dead.
Then Gabriel Reed spoke from the darkness.
“You snore.”
Ava bolted upright.
Gabriel sat in an armchair beside the window.
“You watched me sleep?”
“I was making sure you stayed alive.”
“That’s somehow worse.”
“You were sedated.”
Her hand flew toward her side.
Memory returned.
The Gilded Rose.
Gunfire.
Gabriel shielding her as his men moved them through the kitchen.
A black SUV.
Blood.
Not hers.
Gabriel had been grazed across the shoulder.
She looked at him.
His jacket was gone. His black shirt was rolled to the elbows, and a white bandage showed beneath the fabric near his shoulder.
“You were shot.”
“Scratched.”
“You bled all over me.”
“You complained about the upholstery.”
“It looked expensive.”
“It was.”
Ava looked around.
“Where am I?”
“My house.”
“No.”
Gabriel frowned. “No?”
“I’m leaving.”
“Three armed men tried to kill you.”
“That sounds like an excellent reason not to stay in a mafia boss’s house.”
Gabriel leaned back.
“Who said I’m a mafia boss?”
“The internet.”
“The internet also says I had dinner with the Pope.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Then congratulations. Your reputation is only fifty percent ridiculous.”
He studied her for a moment.
“You’re remarkably irritating for someone whose life I just saved.”
“And you’re remarkably smug for a man who got shot protecting a waitress he met an hour ago.”
That silenced him.
Ava swung her feet onto the floor.
“My brother.”
“Safe.”
She froze.
“What did you do?”
“Dylan was removed from his dorm twenty minutes after the shooting.”
Ava stood.
“You kidnapped my brother?”
“I relocated him.”
“That is rich-person language for kidnapping.”
The bedroom door opened.
Dylan walked in carrying a plate stacked with pancakes.
“Ava?”
She crossed the room and wrapped both arms around him.
He nearly dropped breakfast.
“Whoa.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Why are there men with guns downstairs?”
She glared over his shoulder at Gabriel.
“Excellent question.”
Dylan looked at Gabriel.
“You’re Gabriel Reed.”
“Yes.”
“My roommate thinks you had a senator thrown off a yacht.”
“I didn’t.”
Ava pointed at Gabriel.
“See? Internet.”
Gabriel almost smiled.
Then Dylan became serious.
“They said someone attacked Ava.”
Gabriel nodded.
“I believe the attack is connected to your mother.”
Dylan’s face changed.
“Our mom?”
Gabriel placed a leather folder on the table.
Inside were bank records, photographs and photocopied documents.
Ava recognized her mother immediately.
Mei looked younger, healthier, standing beside a man outside a warehouse.
Daniel Reed.
Gabriel’s father.
Ava sat slowly.
“No.”
Gabriel slid another photograph toward her.
Mei stood beside Daniel again, this time holding a ledger.
“My father secretly met your mother at least nine times during the year before his death.”
“Why?”
“I believe she worked for him.”
“My mother was an accountant.”
“For Kelly Development.”
Ava looked up.
Judge Robert Kelly.
Jennifer’s father.
Gabriel continued.
“Twenty years ago, Robert Kelly was not a judge. He was an attorney handling property acquisitions for several companies connected to my father.”
Dylan sat beside Ava.
“What kind of property?”
“Mostly waterfront land.”
Gabriel opened another folder.
“Your mother discovered money moving through shell companies. Bribes. False valuations. Payments to inspectors. But that wasn’t what frightened her.”
“What did?”
“People were disappearing.”
Ava stared at him.
Gabriel’s voice lowered.
“My father wanted out. Kelly didn’t.”
The room seemed colder.
“My mother never told us.”
“She was protecting you.”
“From what?”
“From the man my father was trying to expose.”
Ava stood and walked toward the window.
Below stretched acres of dark lawn surrounded by stone walls.
“So your father gave Mom two million dollars?”
“He attempted to.”
“But she never got it.”
“No.”
“Who intercepted it?”
Gabriel was silent.
Ava turned.
“You know.”
“I have a theory.”
“Say it.”
“Robert Kelly.”
Dylan swore softly.
Ava remembered Jennifer’s face.
The contempt.
The deliberate cruelty.
Then something else occurred to her.
“Why would Jennifer suddenly provoke me?”
Gabriel nodded.
“That’s what I’ve been asking.”
“You think she knew who I was?”
“I think someone did.”
Gabriel handed Ava another photograph.
It was recent.
Taken outside the Gilded Rose.
Ava was visible leaving after work.
A date was printed at the bottom.
Three months earlier.
Another showed her buying groceries.
Another showed Dylan outside his university.
Ava’s hands began to shake.
“Where did you get these?”
“From one of the gunmen.”
Dylan went pale.
Gabriel continued.
“They had been watching you long before tonight.”
Ava put the photographs down.
“Why now?”
“Something changed.”
Her phone buzzed on the bedside table.
Gabriel reached for it.
“Don’t.”
Ava grabbed it first.
Unknown number.
One message.
YOUR MOTHER STOLE SOMETHING THAT BELONGED TO US. GIVE IT BACK OR DYLAN DIES FIRST.
Dylan read over her shoulder.
Neither sibling spoke.
Gabriel took the phone.
“What did your mother leave you?”
“Nothing valuable.”
“Think.”
“Our apartment. Clothes. Photographs.”
“Jewelry?”
Ava touched the broken necklace.
The locket.
She had forgotten it.
Her fingers found the oval pendant.
Gabriel’s gaze dropped to it.
“Open it.”
“It’s a photograph.”
“Open it.”
Ava pressed the tiny clasp.
Inside was the faded photograph she had seen a thousand times: Mei holding Ava as a baby.
Gabriel took the locket carefully.
His thumbnail pressed against the inner frame.
Something clicked.
A second compartment opened.
Ava stopped breathing.
Inside was a tiny brass key.
Dylan whispered, “What the hell?”
Gabriel removed it.
There was a number engraved into the metal.
Gabriel looked at Ava.
“That,” he said quietly, “is what they’ve been looking for.”
Then his phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
His face hardened.
“When?”
He ended the call.
“What?” Ava demanded.
May you like
Gabriel looked toward the door.
“Your apartment building is on fire.”
