Chapter 3 - The Man Gabriel Feared
Adrian Vale did not look like salvation.
He looked like another problem.
Beatatrice met him eleven hours later in a private hangar outside Milwaukee.
Tall. Dark-haired. Forty. Black overcoat. No visible weapon.
He looked at Daniel first.
Then Beatatrice.
Then her stomach.
“You brought Gabriel Rossy’s wife to me?”
Daniel closed the hangar door.
“I brought Thomas Bellini’s daughter.”
That changed everything.
Adrian stared at her.
Beatatrice noticed it immediately.
“You knew my father.”
“He saved my life.”
“When?”
“Before Gabriel ever met you.”
Beatatrice folded her arms.
“Everyone keeps knowing things about my father except me.”
Adrian nodded toward an office.
“Then perhaps you should finally hear them.”
Inside, Daniel spread documents across a table.
Beatatrice learned that her father had not merely been an architect and investor.
Thomas Bellini had secretly controlled several legitimate logistics companies used by the Rossy organization.
When he discovered Gabriel’s father laundering money through those companies, Thomas began separating his assets.
Then he died in a boating accident.
Beatatrice stared at Daniel.
“You told me his death was accidental.”
“That’s what I believed.”
“Believed?”
Daniel placed another document before her.
An investigative report.
The engine had been tampered with.
Beatatrice stopped breathing.
“Gabriel?”
“No evidence,” Adrian said.
She looked sharply at him.
“Then don’t imply it.”
“I’m not.”
Adrian's calmness irritated her.
He continued.
“Gabriel was twenty-seven when your father died. He had recently broken from his father. Thomas trusted him more than he trusted the older Rossy.”
Beatatrice remembered Gabriel at the funeral.
He had stood beside her through everything.
“Then why did my father leave instructions about escaping him?”
“Because your father trusted no man with unchecked power.”
That sounded like him.
Beatatrice lowered herself into a chair.
“What happens now?”
“You disappear.”
“I already did.”
Adrian almost smiled.
“No. You ran away from a mansion. Disappearing is different.”
He provided a new phone, identification, clothes, and a small house in northern Wisconsin registered through a trust.
Beatatrice refused the money.
“I have my own.”
“Gabriel can trace your own.”
“Not this.”
Adrian looked at Daniel.
Daniel smiled faintly.
“She prepared.”
For the first time, Adrian seemed impressed.
“Good.”
By evening, Beatatrice was in a lakeside cottage surrounded by snow-covered pines.
No guards inside.
No cameras in the bedrooms.
No locked doors.
She stood beneath a hot shower and finally allowed herself to cry.
Back in Chicago, Gabriel had stopped pretending to be calm.
A crystal decanter shattered against his office wall.
“Nothing?”
His security chief shook his head.
“No airport records. No credit cards. No hospital admissions.”
“She is seven months pregnant!”
Gabriel slammed both hands onto the desk.
Someone entered behind him.
Vanessa.
Beatatrice’s younger sister still wore the champagne-colored gown from the party.
Gabriel looked at her with pure disgust.
“Get out.”
“You kissed me.”
“And I regret it.”
Vanessa flinched.
“You didn't seem to regret it last night.”
Gabriel crossed the room.
“Last night I was drunk, angry, and stupid.”
Vanessa's eyes filled.
“Don’t make me the villain because your wife finally grew a spine.”
Gabriel stopped.
“What did you say?”
“You heard me.”
His gaze sharpened.
Vanessa had always been reckless.
But something about her expression was wrong.
Too controlled.
“Did you help her?”
“No.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“No.”
Gabriel studied her.
Then he noticed her hand.
A faint red mark crossed her wrist.
He caught it.
Vanessa pulled away.
“Who did that?”
“None of your business.”
Gabriel stared.
Vanessa's phone rang.
She silenced it too quickly.
Gabriel took it.
“Give that back.”
He looked at the screen.
UNKNOWN NUMBER.
A message appeared.
You did your part. Now find out where the wife went.
Gabriel slowly raised his eyes.
Vanessa turned pale.
“Gabriel—”
“Who sent this?”
She backed away.
“I can explain.”
“Who?”
Vanessa's composure shattered.
“They said they'd kill Mom.”
Gabriel froze.
“What?”
“They've had her for three days.”
The room became silent.
Vanessa began crying.
“They made me get close to you. They said Beatatrice had something they needed. I was supposed to create a fight between you.”
Gabriel's face changed.
“The kiss.”
Vanessa nodded.
“They wanted her to leave.”
Gabriel released her.
The terrible truth arrived piece by piece.
Someone had manipulated Vanessa.
Someone wanted Beatatrice outside his protection.
And Gabriel had done exactly what they needed.
He had frightened his own pregnant wife into running.
“Who are they?”
“I don't know.”
Gabriel grabbed his coat.
But Vanessa caught his sleeve.
“There’s something else.”
He looked down.
“They kept asking about a key.”
“What key?”
Vanessa swallowed.
“They said Thomas Bellini gave it to Beatatrice before he died.”
Two hundred miles away, Beatatrice woke from a nightmare.
Her hand instinctively touched the small gold pendant around her neck.
Her father had given it to her on her eighteenth birthday.
She had worn it for thirteen years.
She looked at it differently now.
Because it had never opened.
Beatatrice pressed her thumbnail into a nearly invisible seam.
The pendant separated.
May you like
Inside was not a photograph.
It was a key.
