Chapter 14 - The Last Night at St. Jude's
At 11:53 p.m., I stood across the street from my clinic and watched Victor Morelli pour gasoline across the floor where I had once taught a teenager how to use an inhaler.
Rage is a dangerous kind of clarity.
It made every detail sharp.
The plywood over the broken window.
The faded blue cross above the door.
Kline's silhouette near the back corridor.
Victor standing at reception as if he had always owned the place.
Federal tactical teams waited out of sight on both ends of the block.
Agent Park wanted to breach immediately.
I stopped her.
"If he lights the gasoline, people in the apartments above the neighboring storefronts could be hurt."
"Fire crews are staged."
"He wants us inside."
Gabriel looked at me.
"Then we give him what he expects, but not what he wants."
The plan was simple enough to terrify me.
Lara would stay in the command van.
The "original recording" Victor demanded was a copy.
Gabriel and I would enter through the front.
I wore a microphone.
Gabriel wore no visible weapon.
A federal sniper had eyes on Victor through a second-floor window across the street.
I hated every part of it.
"You can still stay outside," Gabriel said.
"So can you."
"He asked for Lara and the recording."
"And he will not believe Lara stayed away unless someone he thinks he can manipulate walks in instead."
"You mean you."
"Yes."
Gabriel's jaw tightened.
"I dislike this plan."
"Good. That makes two of us."
We crossed the street.
Victor opened the clinic door before we knocked.
"The nurse and the prince," he said. "How sentimental."
Gabriel's voice was cold.
"Where is Kline?"
"Sulking."
Kline emerged from the hallway, no tie, face drawn.
"This was not the agreement," he said to Victor.
Victor ignored him.
His gaze moved to the small drive in Gabriel's hand.
"Recording?"
"Yes."
"Lara?"
"No."
Victor's expression hardened.
"Then you wasted the walk."
I stepped forward.
"You don't need Lara."
He smiled.
"You still think this is about evidence."
"Isn't it?"
"Evidence is paper. Power is what people fear will happen if paper reaches the wrong hands."
"Your accounts are frozen. Pier Nine is in federal custody. Carlo is talking. Kline is wanted. You're running out of power."
Kline glared at me.
Victor laughed.
"You sound exactly like your father."
"You said that before."
"He thought truth automatically won if you documented it carefully enough."
"No. He thought people had to choose what to do with truth."
Victor tilted his head.
"And what did Gabriel choose?"
I looked at Gabriel.
He answered for himself.
"To end it."
Victor's smile disappeared.
"End what?"
"North Vale. Gray Meridian. The labor crews. The clinic lists. The bribery system. The old shipping routes. Everything my father allowed and you expanded."
"Those routes built you."
"Then I can survive without them."
"You think these people will forgive you?"
Victor gestured toward me.
"She won't. The government won't. Your sister won't."
Gabriel's voice stayed quiet.
"This isn't about forgiveness."
That line again.
This time, I understood it completely.
Victor reached into his pocket.
Park's voice whispered through my earpiece.
"Hands. Watch his hands."
Victor withdrew a lighter.
My heart hammered.
"You always were weak where family was concerned," he said.
Gabriel stepped slightly in front of me.
"Put it down."
Victor flicked the lighter open.
A small flame appeared.
"Tell Lara I'm sorry she wasted fourteen years hiding."
Kline suddenly moved.
Not toward us.
Toward Victor.
He grabbed Victor's wrist.
"Are you insane? There is gasoline everywhere."
Victor struck him across the face.
The lighter fell.
I saw it spin through the air.
Time slowed.
It landed inches from the wet trail of gasoline.
The flame went out on impact.
For one second, everyone stared.
Then federal agents breached both entrances.
Chaos erupted.
Victor grabbed me.
His arm locked around my throat, and something cold pressed against my side.
A gun.
Gabriel froze.
"Let her go."
Victor dragged me backward.
"Drop the drive."
Gabriel did.
"Gun," Victor snapped.
"I don't have one."
"Liar."
Gabriel slowly opened his coat.
Empty.
Victor actually looked surprised.
"You came unarmed?"
"She asked me to."
Something ugly flashed across Victor's face.
"Of course she did."
I felt his grip tighten.
"You turned him into a pet."
I drove my heel down on his foot.
Not elegant.
Not heroic.
Effective.
Victor cursed and loosened his arm.
I dropped my weight and twisted away exactly as Gabriel lunged.
They hit the floor.
The gun skidded under a chair.
Gabriel got on top of Victor and raised his fist.
Victor smiled through blood at the corner of his mouth.
"Do it. Show her what you are."
Gabriel's fist stayed suspended.
I could see every old instinct fighting across his face.
All the rage.
All the grief.
My father.
Lara.
Eli.
The ambush.
Years of betrayal.
Then Gabriel lowered his hand.
He stood.
"No."
Victor's smile vanished.
Agent Park cuffed him.
Kline was arrested beside the treatment hallway.
Firefighters ventilated the building and removed the gasoline before it could ignite.
No one died.
That mattered to me more than any confession.
Outside, Lara ran to Gabriel and hugged him.
Mateo stood nearby pretending not to be emotional and failing completely.
Miriam touched my shoulder.
"Your father would be proud."
I looked at St. Jude's.
"He'd complain about the broken door first."
She smiled.
Gabriel joined me on the curb.
His knuckles were scraped.
"You didn't hit him," I said.
"I hit him once while falling."
"You know what I mean."
He looked at the police cars, federal vans, and agents moving through the street.
"I wanted to."
"I know."
"Very badly."
"I know."
"I chose not to."
I looked at him.
"I know."
His shoulders dropped slightly, as if those two words weighed more than the entire night.
At 2:06 a.m., almost exactly three weeks after he had first stumbled bleeding through my door, Gabriel Rossy was taken into federal custody.
Not as Victor's victim.
Not as a protected witness.
As a cooperating defendant.
Before entering the car, he turned back toward me.
"Norah."
I walked closer.
"What?"
"Don't wait for me."
I hated him instantly.
"That is an extremely manipulative thing to say before being driven away."
A faint smile.
"I mean it."
"Too bad. You don't get to prescribe my life."
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
He looked like he wanted to say more.
Instead he nodded.
The car door closed.
I watched it disappear down the street.
May you like
For the first time since meeting him, Gabriel was going somewhere I could not follow.
And for the first time in my life, I had no idea whether doing the right thing would bring someone back to me.
