Chapter 5 - The Enemy Inside Ethan’s House
I didn't go to Brooklyn at midnight.
I went at eleven forty.
Predictability was an expensive habit.
Marco came with me, but we left our cars three blocks away.
The address belonged to an abandoned printing warehouse.
“Could be Gabriel,” Marco said.
“Could be.”
“Could be someone trying to start a war.”
“Also possible.”
“You seem strangely calm.”
“I became a father yesterday.”
Marco looked at me.
“Apparently that changes your definition of a bad day.”
Inside the warehouse, we found Vincent.
Alive.
Alone.
Terrified.
He wasn't restrained.
That surprised me.
“Boss.”
“Sit.”
He did.
“Why were you watching Elena?”
“Gabriel ordered it.”
“How long?”
“Three years.”
The answer nearly made me lose control.
“Three?”
“He said she was connected to a threat against you.”
“And Leo?”
Vincent looked down.
“He knew.”
“Everyone seems to know about my son except me.”
Vincent swallowed.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don't waste my time apologizing. Tell me why Gabriel arranged yesterday.”
“I don't think he did.”
That stopped me.
“Explain.”
“The message Elena received didn't come from us.”
“Then who?”
“I don't know. Gabriel panicked when he learned she'd gone to Riverside Cafe. He sent me to watch.”
“Why?”
“Because you drive that route every Thursday morning.”
Someone else had brought Elena into my path.
Someone who knew Gabriel was watching her.
“Who sent me the address here?”
Vincent shook his head.
“Wasn't me.”
Marco looked around.
“We're being played.”
“Yes,” I said. “But maybe by someone who wants the truth exposed.”
Vincent reached into his jacket slowly.
Marco tensed.
“Easy.”
Vincent removed a flash drive.
“Gabriel keeps records.”
“Of course he does.”
“He had me destroy these.”
I took the drive.
“What are they?”
“Files from the night your father died.”
We returned to the safe apartment before dawn.
Elena remained awake.
Leo slept.
Marco opened the files on an isolated laptop.
There were surveillance logs.
Phone records.
Payments.
Then an audio recording.
My father's voice filled the room.
“If anything happens to me, Elena Rossi stays out of this.”
Gabriel answered.
“She knows too much.”
“She knows nothing.”
“She knows Ethan.”
“That is not a crime.”
“It is a vulnerability.”
My father's voice hardened.
“You leave the girl alone.”
The recording ended.
I stared at the screen.
All these years I had believed my father disapproved of Elena.
That was what Gabriel had told me.
Apparently he had lied about that too.
Another file contained a letter.
Addressed to me.
Never delivered.
Ethan,
If you are reading this, Gabriel has probably already told you that Elena left because she could not accept our life.
Do not believe him.
I stopped.
Elena covered her mouth.
Marco whispered, “Jesus.”
I continued.
My father had discovered Gabriel was quietly consolidating power.
He feared Gabriel would use anyone I loved to control me.
He intended to remove him.
He died before he could.
The implications were obvious.
But proof was not.
The files showed motive.
Not murder.
Then Elena said something.
“The red truck.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“Your father gave it back to me.”
I frowned.
“No. I gave it to you.”
“You did. But I left it at your apartment the night everything happened.”
My skin prickled.
“What are you saying?”
“Gabriel came to me the next morning. He had the truck.”
She looked at Leo’s sleeping form.
“He said you wanted me to have it.”
That meant Gabriel had entered my apartment after my father died.
Or someone had given it to him.
“Why would that matter?” Marco asked.
I remembered my father.
Old-fashioned.
Paranoid.
He never trusted banks with sensitive information.
He liked hiding things in ordinary objects.
I walked to Leo.
Carefully, I lifted the truck.
One wheel was black.
The replacement wheel.
I turned it.
Nothing.
Then I pressed inward and twisted.
Click.
The wheel came free.
Inside the axle was a tiny hollow compartment.
Marco stared.
“You have got to be kidding.”
Something metallic glinted inside.
A micro-storage capsule.
My father had hidden something inside my childhood toy.
And for seven years, the evidence had been traveling with Elena.
Then Leo.
We accessed the capsule.
One file.
A recording.
Gabriel’s voice.
Then my father’s.
The conversation was unmistakable.
Gabriel had been stealing from the organization.
My father confronted him.
Gabriel threatened to expose businesses, accounts, and families unless he stepped aside.
My father refused.
The recording stopped before anything violent occurred.
But it was enough to explain seven years of lies.
Elena whispered, “That's why he wanted the truck.”
Yes.
Gabriel hadn't been watching Elena because of Leo.
He had been watching her because somewhere in her belongings was the one object he had failed to recover.
And he never knew what it contained.
My phone rang.
Gabriel again.
I answered.
“You opened it,” he said.
Nobody moved.
“How do you know?”
“Because your father was always too clever for his own good.”
“Did you kill him?”
A long silence.
“No.”
“Then who did?”
“Ask Marco.”
I turned.
Marco’s face changed.
Gabriel laughed softly.
“Didn't he ever tell you where he was that night?”
The call ended.
I stared at the man I had trusted more than anyone alive.
Marco slowly raised his hands.
“Ethan.”
“Where were you?”
He looked toward Elena.
Then Leo.
Finally, back at me.
“With your father.”
May you like
And for the second time in forty-eight hours, the foundation of my life cracked beneath my feet.
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