Chapter 6 - The Night the Moretti House Turned Against Itself
I forgot every gun in the room.
Every armed man on the walkway.
Every warning Ward had given me.
I moved toward the steel door.
Adrien caught my arm.
“Mara.”
“That’s him.”
“I know.”
“That’s my brother.”
“I know.”
“I have to—”
“Not while twelve rifles are pointed at you.”
The words reached me eventually.
I stopped.
My entire body shook.
Behind the steel door came the pattern again.
Three knocks.
Pause.
Three.
Jacob.
Alive.
I had buried an empty idea of him for six years.
There had been a coffin.
Closed because the crash had supposedly left his body too badly damaged.
My mother had placed his college photograph beside it.
I had delivered the eulogy.
I had packed his apartment.
I had sold his car.
I had spent birthdays sending text messages to a phone number disconnected years ago because grief makes intelligent people do ridiculous things.
And he had been alive.
Gabriel watched me from above.
“You want him?”
I looked up.
“Yes.”
“Give me the drives.”
“No,” Adrien said.
I turned on him.
“Mara,” he said quietly, “if Gabriel kept Jacob alive for six years, he didn’t do it out of kindness.”
Gabriel applauded slowly.
“Very good.”
“What do you want from him?” I shouted.
“Passwords.”
“To what?”
“Accounts Jacob built before becoming inconvenient.”
Jacob had always been brilliant with numbers.
Computers too.
I remembered him building encrypted backups before I even knew what encryption meant.
“You tortured him.”
Gabriel shrugged.
“Not continuously.”
Adrien raised his weapon higher.
Gabriel’s guards immediately aimed.
“Everybody relax,” Gabriel said.
He looked at Adrien.
“You won’t fire.”
“Why?”
“Because if I fall, Luca has instructions to kill Jacob.”
Luca waved from the opposite walkway.
“Family reunions are complicated.”
Ward whispered into her radio.
No response.
Signal jammer.
Marco and Adrien’s men were positioned around us, but outnumbered.
Vale stood near Ward.
He looked sick.
Gabriel noticed him.
“Captain.”
Vale said nothing.
“You disappoint me.”
Vale lifted his gun.
“You murdered Jacob’s life.”
Gabriel smiled.
“And funded yours.”
Vale’s jaw clenched.
Gabriel looked back at me.
“The drives.”
I held up the evidence bag.
“Open the door first.”
“No.”
“Then you get nothing.”
“Mara,” Ward warned.
I ignored her.
Gabriel stared down.
“You think you’re negotiating?”
“Yes.”
“You’re standing inside my building.”
“With the only copy you don’t control.”
A lie.
Ward had duplicated the drives.
But Gabriel didn’t know that.
I continued.
“If I die, you don’t get the password.”
“You know it?”
“I opened them once.”
That part was true.
His eyes sharpened.
Good.
“Bring her upstairs.”
Two men descended.
Adrien stepped between us.
Gabriel sighed.
“Little brother.”
“No.”
“If you protect her, Jacob dies.”
“Then let Jacob walk out first.”
“No.”
Adrien looked toward me.
I saw calculation.
Then trust.
He moved aside.
I hated how much that frightened me.
The guards escorted me upstairs.
One took the evidence bag.
The other searched me.
He found the radio and threw it away.
They brought me into the office.
Gabriel stood behind a steel desk.
Up close, the resemblance to Adrien was unmistakable.
Same eyes.
Different soul.
“You look disappointed,” he said.
“I expected a monster.”
“And?”
“You look ordinary.”
That annoyed him.
Good.
He placed the drives on the desk.
“Password.”
“Open Jacob’s door.”
“After.”
“Before.”
He studied me.
“Your brother was equally stubborn.”
“I taught him.”
“You’re younger.”
“Emotionally, he needed guidance.”
For one brief second, I remembered Jacob laughing.
It nearly broke me.
Gabriel entered a code into a control tablet.
Below us, the steel door opened.
Two guards dragged a man into the light.
Thin.
Gray in his beard.
Longer hair.
Scar near his temple.
But him.
Jacob.
My brother lifted his head.
Our eyes met.
Everything inside me stopped.
“Mara?”
I covered my mouth.
He looked as if he couldn’t believe his own vision.
“Mara.”
I started toward the stairs.
Gabriel blocked me.
“Password.”
I looked at Jacob.
Tears ran down his face.
Mine too.
Adrien stood near him below.
He put one arm around Jacob’s shoulders when my brother nearly collapsed.
Strange image.
The man I’d awakened beside supporting the brother I thought I had buried.
I looked back at Gabriel.
“J-E-1-9-8-7.”
He typed.
Access denied.
His face hardened.
I smiled.
“That was Jacob’s birthday.”
“I know.”
“Then you know he never uses birthdays as passwords.”
Gabriel slapped me.
Hard.
My lip split.
Below, Adrien moved.
Ten rifles redirected toward him.
“Mara!” Jacob shouted.
I tasted blood.
Gabriel grabbed my jaw.
“Password.”
I looked directly into his eyes.
“Go to hell.”
He raised his hand again.
Then the lights went out.
Complete darkness.
Someone had cut power.
A gunshot exploded.
Then another.
Chaos.
I dropped immediately.
Emergency lights flickered.
Marco.
He had reached the electrical room.
Adrien’s men fired toward the walkways.
Ward shouted.
I crawled behind the desk.
Gabriel grabbed the evidence bag.
I caught his ankle.
He kicked me.
I held on.
He reached for his gun.
Then Vale appeared in the doorway.
“Gabriel.”
Both men froze.
Vale’s pistol aimed at his chest.
Gabriel smiled.
“You won’t.”
Vale fired.
The bullet struck Gabriel’s shoulder.
He staggered.
The bag fell.
I grabbed it.
Gabriel fired back.
Vale fell.
Ward reached the stairs.
Luca shouted from the walkway.
“Uncle!”
He fired toward Adrien.
Jacob saw it first.
He shoved Adrien sideways.
The bullet struck a steel column.
Adrien returned fire.
Luca dropped behind cover.
I ran downstairs with the drives.
Jacob saw me.
For six years I had imagined what I would say if I had one impossible minute with my brother.
I thought I’d tell him I missed him.
That Mom never recovered.
That I kept his old baseball glove.
That I was angry he drove in the rain.
Instead I crashed into him and screamed his name.
He wrapped both arms around me.
“Mara.”
“You’re alive.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re alive.”
“I tried to get out.”
“I know.”
“I thought they’d kill you if I contacted you.”
I pulled back and held his face.
“You’re alive.”
That was all my brain could process.
A bullet struck the floor near us.
Adrien grabbed both of us.
“Reunion later.”
Fair.
We moved behind machinery.
Ward reached Vale.
He was alive, hit high in the chest.
She applied pressure.
Marco’s men took control of the lower floor.
Above us, Gabriel retreated through the office.
Luca followed.
“They’re leaving,” Adrien said.
I looked at Jacob.
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
“That sounds genetic.”
Despite everything, he laughed.
I nearly cried again.
Adrien looked toward Marco.
“Get Mara and Jacob outside.”
“No,” I said.
Adrien stared at me.
“Absolutely not.”
“Gabriel still has—”
“The drives are here.”
“Not what I mean.”
I pointed toward the office.
“There’s a laptop on his desk.”
“So?”
“He typed a password.”
Adrien understood.
“He accessed something.”
Jacob looked at me.
“What did he try?”
“The drives.”
“No. Gabriel wouldn’t need the physical drives just to read financial files.”
“What would he need them for?”
Jacob’s expression changed.
“Transfer keys.”
“Meaning?”
“He’s moving money.”
“How much?”
Jacob looked toward Gabriel’s office.
“Potentially everything.”
We ran back upstairs.
The computer screen remained active on battery backup.
A transaction window showed funds moving through dozens of accounts.
$38 million.
$71 million.
$112 million.
Total climbing.
Adrien stared.
“He’s draining the organization.”
Jacob moved to the keyboard.
“Not only yours.”
“What?”
“These shell accounts include pension funds, construction escrow, legitimate employee benefits.”
I felt sick.
Hundreds of ordinary people.
“Can you stop it?”
Jacob sat.
His hands trembled.
“Maybe.”
He began typing.
Fast.
Faster than I remembered.
Six years imprisoned hadn’t taken that from him.
The transaction froze at 63%.
ACCESS KEY REQUIRED.
Jacob looked toward the drives.
“Give me number three.”
I handed it over.
He inserted it.
A new prompt.
VOICE AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.
Adrien stared.
“Whose?”
Jacob looked at him.
“Your father’s.”
Silence.
“My father is dead.”
Jacob nodded.
“I know.”
“Then how?”
Jacob opened a directory.
“There’s a recording.”
Adrien went still.
Jacob selected an audio file.
Matteo Moretti’s voice filled the room.
“If you are hearing this, then Vittorio or Gabriel has made their move.”
Adrien’s face collapsed for one second.
His father continued.
“Adrien, I am sorry I did not tell you sooner.”
Nobody spoke.
“I thought protecting you meant keeping you outside the truth. I was wrong.”
Adrien closed his eyes.
“I built things I regret. Your brother embraced them. Vittorio profited from them. You still have a choice.”
The recording contained a verification phrase.
Jacob played it into the system.
Transfer canceled.
Accounts locked.
A confirmation appeared.
Adrien stared at the screen.
Then a shot rang out.
The laptop exploded.
Gabriel stood in the doorway.
Bleeding from his shoulder.
Gun aimed.
“You always were Dad’s favorite.”
Adrien turned.
Gabriel fired again.
We dove.
Adrien tackled him.
Both crashed into the railing.
The gun fell to the factory floor below.
They fought with twelve years of grief behind every blow.
Gabriel hit Adrien’s wounded arm.
Adrien staggered.
Gabriel grabbed him around the neck and forced him toward the railing.
“You were supposed to stay weak!”
Adrien drove an elbow backward.
Gabriel lost balance.
The railing broke.
He slipped.
For one horrifying second Gabriel hung above the factory floor, one hand gripping twisted metal.
Adrien stood over him.
Gabriel looked up.
“Help me.”
Silence.
This was the man who murdered their father.
Who erased himself for twelve years.
Who imprisoned Jacob.
Who tried to kill me.
Who helped stage Adrien’s death.
Adrien crouched.
Reached down.
And grabbed his brother’s wrist.
Gabriel stared at him in disbelief.
Adrien strained.
Marco arrived and helped pull Gabriel onto the floor.
The moment Gabriel was safe, Adrien rolled him over and cuffed his hands.
Gabriel laughed bitterly.
“You should have let me fall.”
Adrien stood.
“No.”
“Why?”
Adrien looked down at him.
“Because I refuse to become you.”
Police sirens approached in the distance.
Federal units.
Ward’s backup had finally broken through the jammer.
I found Jacob beside the stairs.
He reached for my hand.
For the first time in six years, I held my brother’s fingers.
Warm.
Real.
Alive.
But Luca Moretti was gone.
And when Marco searched the mill, they found the rear door open.
A vehicle missing.
May you like
And one handwritten message on the windshield of Adrien’s car.
THIS ISN’T OVER.
