Chapter 7 - THE MAN WHO ORDERED THE HIT
We found Gabriel before dawn.
He had never gone to Montreal.
The plane had.
Gabriel remained in Grayhaven.
Hiding inside St. Catherine Medical Center.
That was almost funny.
The hospital that destroyed my career had become a safe house for the man who helped build the machine behind it.
“How do we get him out?” Nico asked.
I looked at the hospital schematic.
“We don’t.”
Dante raised an eyebrow.
“We go in.”
“No.”
I smiled.
“You’ve been waiting to say that.”
“I have.”
“He’s in a hospital.”
“So?”
“So your people walking through the lobby will create a lockdown.”
Nico nodded.
“She’s right.”
Dante glared.
I continued.
“I can get inside.”
“No.”
“I worked there for eight years.”
“You were fired.”
“Suspended.”
“You’re proud of the distinction?”
“Yes.”
I still had friends.
Not many.
Enough.
A respiratory therapist named June let me through the employee garage wearing spare scrubs and a mask.
Dante hated the plan.
That improved my mood.
Gabriel was in an unused administrative suite on the ninth floor.
Why?
Because Calder had arranged it.
I reached the corridor.
No guards.
Too easy.
I entered.
Gabriel sat beside the window.
“You came alone.”
“No.”
He looked toward the door.
“Nobody there.”
“I didn’t say they were.”
He smiled.
“You remind me of Sofia.”
“Everybody seems to think that will flatter me.”
“It should.”
“What do you want?”
“You.”
I stopped.
“Why?”
“Because Dante listens to you.”
“That sounds like his problem.”
“He’s dismantling everything his father built.”
“Maybe his father built the wrong things.”
Gabriel’s face hardened.
“You think morality keeps a city alive?”
“No.”
“What does?”
“People who aren’t poisoning hospitals for profit would be a start.”
He laughed.
“Meridian made billions in legitimate contracts.”
“And how much from counterfeit drugs?”
His smile vanished.
Enough.
“You burned my apartment.”
“No.”
“Who did?”
“Calder.”
“Dr. Weiss?”
“Calder.”
“Ethan’s car?”
“Calder.”
“And the ambush?”
Gabriel leaned back.
“That was mine.”
My heartbeat slowed.
“Why Dante?”
“Because he found the ledger.”
“You’re his uncle.”
“He is destroying the organization.”
“Maybe it needed destroying.”
“You really do sound like Sofia.”
I hated him.
Not emotionally.
Precisely.
“Did you know the drugs were contaminated before her surgery?”
His eyes shifted.
“Yes.”
One syllable.
A sister died inside it.
A brother spent four years grieving.
And this man had known.
“Why didn’t you warn her?”
“It wasn’t supposed to reach St. Catherine.”
I stared.
“That is your defense?”
“No.”
“Then what is?”
“Business.”
I understood Dante’s impulse to kill him.
Completely.
Gabriel rose.
“Tell Dante to stop.”
“No.”
“He loses everything otherwise.”
“Maybe that’s the point.”
He stepped closer.
“Tell him.”
“No.”
His hand moved toward his coat.
I froze.
Then a voice behind me said:
“Take your hand out slowly.”
Dante.
Gabriel closed his eyes.
Of course Dante had ignored my plan.
Nico stood beside him.
Gun lowered but ready.
Dante looked at his uncle.
“You knew about Sofia.”
Gabriel said nothing.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
The word hung there.
Dante’s face did not change.
“You could have called her.”
“Yes.”
“Sent a message.”
“Yes.”
“Stopped the surgery.”
“Yes.”
Dante approached.
I watched his hands.
Steady.
Gabriel whispered, “I thought the batch had been pulled.”
“You knew there was a risk.”
“Yes.”
“And money mattered more.”
Gabriel’s eyes filled.
“For one day.”
Dante stopped.
“What?”
“I needed one day before regulators learned. Calder was finalizing the state contract.”
One day.
Sofia happened to have surgery on that day.
Entire lives are sometimes destroyed by someone else asking the universe for twenty-four convenient hours.
Dante stood inches from him.
I expected violence.
Instead, he stepped back.
“Call the police.”
Gabriel stared.
Nico stared too.
“Dante—”
He looked at me.
I understood what this cost him.
Not killing Gabriel.
Not because Gabriel deserved mercy.
Because Dante wanted something other than revenge to decide who he became.
Police arrived.
Gabriel was arrested on outstanding federal financial warrants that Dante’s attorneys had helped trigger.
As they led him away, Gabriel turned.
“You think she’ll stay when she sees what you are?”
Dante said nothing.
But I heard it.
He did too.
The question hit.
Later, on the hospital roof, Dante stood beside me.
“You should go.”
“What?”
“Grayhaven.”
“No.”
“Leave.”
“You don’t get to decide.”
“I’m not deciding.”
He looked at me.
“I’m asking.”
“Why?”
“Because Gabriel is right about one thing.”
“What?”
“You don’t know everything I’ve done.”
I waited.
“I’ve hurt people.”
“I assumed.”
“Not only criminals.”
The wind lifted my hair.
“Tell me.”
He looked at the city.
“When I was twenty-six, a warehouse owner refused to sell property my father wanted.”
I listened.
“I had men frighten him.”
“How?”
“Broke windows. Threatened his business.”
My stomach tightened.
“He sold.”
“Was he hurt?”
“Not physically.”
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
“I know.”
Another admission.
No defense.
“I’ve collected debts using fear. I’ve bribed officials. I knew some of our companies paid people to look away.”
“Did you traffic drugs?”
“No.”
“People?”
His face sharpened.
“Never.”
“Did you order murders?”
Silence.
That was an answer.
I looked away.
“Mara.”
“How many?”
“Three.”
My chest tightened.
“Who?”
“One man killed my father. Two tried to kill me.”
Not innocents.
Still killings.
“You’re telling me this because?”
“Because if you stay near me, you stay near that.”
I looked at him.
“And what are you doing now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
He frowned.
“You called police on Gabriel.”
“That doesn’t erase anything.”
“No.”
I stepped closer.
“But maybe the next thing matters too.”
He stared at me.
Then my phone rang.
June.
I answered.
“Mara?”
She was whispering.
“What’s wrong?”
“There are men in records.”
“What records?”
“Old surgical archives.”
My stomach dropped.
“They’re destroying files.”
Dante heard.
“Where?”
I asked.
May you like
June said:
“Your case.”
