Gabriel didn’t answer the voice immediately. He looked at Hannah, who stood frozen in the service-room doorway with his phone clutched in both hands.
“Who is Lily’s father?” he asked.
Hannah’s expression changed.
Not confusion.
Fear.
The caller gave a quiet laugh. “Now you understand why the child matters.”
The line disconnected.
Gabriel lowered the phone. “You told me your husband died eleven months ago.”
“He did.”
“What was his name?”
Hannah swallowed. “Daniel Price.”
Gabriel knew hundreds of names connected to New York’s criminal world. Daniel Price meant nothing to him.
But when he asked what Daniel had done for work, Hannah couldn’t meet his eyes.
“He told me he handled private accounting.”
“For whom?”
“I didn’t know at first.”
Gabriel stepped closer. Lily had awakened inside his jacket and was quietly playing with one of its buttons.
“Hannah.”
“The Bellandis.”
The name settled between them like a loaded weapon.
Hannah finally broke.
“Daniel discovered money disappearing from their legitimate businesses. Millions. He thought someone inside the organization was stealing from them, so he copied the records as protection. Then he realized the transfers weren’t theft.”
“What were they?”
“Payments.”
“To whom?”
“I don’t know. Daniel never told me. Three days later, his car went off a bridge.”
Gabriel’s face hardened.
“And you believe they killed him.”
“I know they did.”
Another knock sounded from the distant entrance.
This time louder.
Gabriel moved toward the security panel beside the service corridor and activated a camera.
A man in a dark coat stood outside.
Dominic Vale.
But Dominic wasn’t alone.
Beside him stood an older man Gabriel recognized immediately.
Judge Samuel Wexler.
Gabriel stared at the screen.
Wexler had spent twenty years publicly presenting himself as one of Manhattan’s fiercest opponents of organized crime.
“What the hell?”
Hannah approached slowly.
The moment she saw Wexler, she gasped.
“That’s him.”
Gabriel turned.
“Who?”
“The man Daniel met the night before he died.”
Now the pieces were beginning to form, and Gabriel disliked the picture.
“Where are Daniel’s copies?”
“I don’t have them.”
“Then why are they hunting Lily?”
Hannah hesitated.
Gabriel saw her hand move unconsciously toward the stuffed rabbit lying on the mattress.
He followed her gaze.
Hannah realized her mistake too late.
Gabriel picked up the rabbit.
One ear had been crudely stitched shut.
He felt something hard inside.
“Hannah.”
“Daniel gave it to Lily the morning he died. He made me promise never to open it unless someone came looking for us.”
Gabriel took a small knife from the utility shelf and carefully cut the stitches.
A tiny encrypted flash drive fell into his palm.
Hannah covered her mouth.
The private entrance suddenly unlocked.
Someone had overridden Gabriel’s security.
Footsteps entered the penthouse.
Gabriel handed Lily to Hannah and closed her fingers around the flash drive.
“Garage. Now.”
“But—”
“Go.”
Hannah disappeared into the service elevator just as voices approached.
Gabriel stepped into the hallway alone.
Dominic appeared first.
Judge Wexler followed.
But it was the third person who made Gabriel stop breathing.
A silver-haired woman walked between them.
Gabriel had buried her twenty-two years earlier.
His mother.
She looked directly at him and said quietly:
“You were never supposed to find Daniel Price’s files.”
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