Chapter 5 - The Cost of Knowing First

Gabriel was waiting in the penthouse conference room when Nico brought Paige upstairs.

He took one look at her face and dismissed everyone else.

Paige did not sit.

“Three weeks.”

Gabriel’s expression hardened.

“Nico told you Kevin appeared?”

“Three weeks, Gabriel.”

He went still.

That was answer enough.

“You knew about the calls.”

“Yes.”

“You knew Danner’s people were pressuring me.”

“Yes.”

“You knew Kevin had used my name.”

“Not immediately.”

“How long?”

Gabriel looked at her for a moment, then walked to the window.

“Nineteen days.”

Paige laughed once.

There was no humor in it.

“Nineteen days.”

“I learned your name when one of Danner’s collectors requested approval to escalate.”

The word made her stomach twist.

“Escalate how?”

“They wanted permission to approach you in person.”

“And?”

“I refused it.”

“You refused it.”

“Yes.”

“You expect me to thank you?”

“No.”

His answer was too calm.

Paige stepped closer.

“You watched me take those calls.”

“I had them monitored.”

“You watched me beg for another day.”

His jaw tightened.

“I did not hear the calls.”

“You knew they were happening.”

“Yes.”

“And you let them continue.”

Gabriel turned.

“That was a mistake.”

The admission should have cooled her anger.

It did not.

“Why?”

“Because Danner’s operation had become one of the routes we were examining after the missing shipments. Kevin’s debt connected to a transfer that should not have existed. If I shut the collectors down immediately, whoever was using them would know I had noticed.”

“So I was bait.”

“No.”

“That is exactly what bait is.”

“I did not put you in danger.”

“You let me believe I was.”

The sentence hit him.

Paige saw it.

Good.

“I was sleeping three hours a night. I took a second job. I sent four hundred dollars I did not have to men collecting on a debt you already knew was forged.”

“We returned that payment this morning.”

“That is not the point.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

Gabriel came around the table.

“I knew the debt was suspicious. I did not know your signature was forged until yesterday. I knew the calls were designed to create pressure. I believed keeping them at a distance while we traced the source was safer than confronting Danner.”

“You believed.”

“Yes.”

“You never asked me.”

“No.”

For the first time since she had met him, Gabriel looked less powerful because he was not defending himself.

Paige hated that too.

“I made the decision for you,” he said. “I should not have.”

She folded her arms because her hands had begun to shake.

“Kevin said somebody close to you is feeding Voss information.”

Gabriel’s face closed immediately.

“Did he name them?”

“No.”

“What exactly did he say?”

Paige repeated it.

Gabriel listened without interruption.

When she finished, he pressed both hands against the conference table and stared down at the wood.

“That explains the envelope,” he said.

“How?”

“Only six people knew we were comparing archived templates. The collector arrived less than an hour later.”

Paige’s anger paused long enough for fear to reenter.

“Six?”

“Me. Nico. Sylvia. You. My attorney. And my head of internal security.”

“Who?”

“Enzo Bell.”

Paige had seen Enzo twice. Quiet man. Early forties. Always near Gabriel but never in front of him.

“Do you trust him?”

“I did.”

The past tense was small.

It changed the room.

Paige picked up her tote.

Gabriel looked at it.

“What are you doing?”

“Leaving.”

“You cannot go home tonight.”

“I’m not asking permission.”

“Voss has your mother’s information.”

“And Kevin is being followed.”

“Nico has men looking for him.”

“Of course he does.”

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed.

“What does that mean?”

“It means every solution in your world seems to involve somebody else deciding where I can go, who watches me, what I’m allowed to know, and when I’m allowed to know it.”

“This is not about control.”

“It feels exactly like control.”

“It is about keeping you alive.”

“That sentence is becoming very popular with men who lie to me.”

Silence.

Gabriel looked as if she had struck him.

Paige regretted the cruelty for half a second.

Then she remembered nineteen days.

She moved toward the door.

“Paige.”

She stopped without turning.

“The debt is gone,” he said.

She looked back.

“What?”

“Danner signed the release this morning. Your name is removed. The four hundred dollars was returned to your account. You owe nothing.”

“I didn’t ask you to do that.”

“No. You didn’t.”

“Then why?”

“Because the signature was forged.”

“Only because of that?”

Gabriel held her gaze.

“No.”

That was worse.

Paige shook her head.

“I don’t want to owe you.”

“You don’t.”

“You say that like money is the only kind of debt.”

He had no answer.

She opened the door.

Nico stood outside.

Paige looked at him.

“If you follow me, do it badly enough that I can pretend you aren’t there.”

Nico glanced at Gabriel.

Gabriel said, “Her choice.”

It was the first thing he had given her that night without resistance.

Paige left.

She did not go home.

She went to Sylvia’s apartment in Queens.

Sylvia opened the door wearing silk pajamas, reading glasses, and the expression of a woman who had expected a peaceful evening and received Paige instead.

“You look terrible.”

“Thank you.”

“Is this a murder emergency or an emotional emergency?”

“I’m hoping neither.”

Sylvia stepped aside.

Her apartment smelled like lemon cleaner and tomato sauce.

It was painfully normal.

Paige sat at the small kitchen table while Sylvia poured tea.

For ten minutes, Paige told her everything she could without mentioning Gabriel’s private ledgers.

The monitoring.

Kevin’s return.

Voss.

The unknown person close to Gabriel.

Sylvia listened.

When Paige finished, she said, “You should quit.”

Paige blinked.

“That’s your advice?”

“Yes.”

“You’re the person who threatened to fire me for calling him honey.”

“I contain multitudes.”

Despite herself, Paige smiled.

Sylvia pushed a mug toward her.

“Quit the fifth floor. Quit being useful to people who don’t explain the game. But don’t stop looking.”

Paige stared at her.

Sylvia stood and went to a desk in the living room.

She returned with a folder.

“I found this after you left.”

Inside were six print-service tickets.

Paige scanned them.

The same fake vendor symbol appeared on two.

Northstar Office Systems.

One ticket serviced Voss’s printer.

The second serviced a machine on the forty-second floor.

Gabriel’s floor.

Paige looked up.

“Whose printer?”

“Internal security.”

“Enzo Bell.”

Sylvia nodded.

Paige’s pulse slowed instead of quickening.

The pattern was becoming visible.

Not proof.

But direction.

“Why didn’t you give this to Gabriel?”

“Because five minutes after I printed copies, someone remotely deleted the service archive.”

Paige stared at her.

“I thought only IT could do that.”

“So did I.”

“Did they delete these?”

“They tried.”

Sylvia smiled thinly.

“I have been managing offices since before cloud storage convinced men that paper was obsolete.”

Paige almost laughed again.

Then she noticed a handwritten number at the bottom of one ticket.

“Who wrote this?”

“I don’t know.”

It was a printer serial number.

Paige took out her phone, then stopped herself.

No searches.

No messages.

She looked at the physical pages instead.

Two printers had supposedly received the same replacement imaging drum on the same day.

“That can’t be right.”

“Why?”

“Those parts have unique serial numbers.”

Sylvia leaned closer.

Paige pointed.

“This work order says the drum from Voss’s printer was removed.”

“And this one?”

“Installed upstairs.”

“In internal security?”

“Yes.”

Sylvia frowned.

“So somebody moved a printer part.”

“Maybe.”

“What does that prove?”

“Nothing yet.”

Paige looked at the warm-blue artifact in her memory.

Calibration marks.

Magenta drift.

A machine fingerprint.

If the imaging drum had moved, the print defect might have moved with it.

The forged manifests had appeared to come from Voss’s printer.

But perhaps the flaw had been deliberately transferred there.

Or away from somewhere else.

Paige stood.

“I need samples from both printers from before and after this service date.”

Sylvia stared at her.

“It is ten thirty at night.”

“I know.”

“You quit thirty minutes ago.”

“I know.”

“And Mr. Moretti told you to stay somewhere safe.”

“I know.”

Sylvia sighed.

“I dislike what your confidence is doing to my blood pressure.”

Paige reached for the folder.

Sylvia put one hand over it.

“One condition.”

“What?”

“If we do this, we do it my way.”

“What is your way?”

“We walk into the office tomorrow morning with coffee and act as if nothing happened.”

Paige considered it.

No secret break-in.

No dramatic midnight search.

Just two administrative employees using access they already had.

It was almost disappointingly sensible.

“I like it.”

“I knew you would.”

Paige sat again.

Her phone vibrated.

Gabriel.

She watched his name appear.

Once.

Then stop.

No second call followed.

No command.

No demand.

A minute later, one message arrived.

I was wrong not to tell you. You do not owe me an answer tonight.

Paige read it.

Then turned the phone facedown.

Sylvia pretended not to notice.

“Tea?”

“Yes.”

Outside, a car idled across the street.

Paige could see its headlights through the curtains.

Nico’s idea of bad surveillance.

For once, she let it stay.

Because protection chosen was different from protection imposed.

And tomorrow, she intended to find out whether Adrian Voss had been framed too.

May you like

[COMPLETED] “GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY DRESS! YOU’RE NOTHING BUT AN OLD SEAM...

[COMPLETED] At the Mafia Boss's Engagement Party, I Served His Hungry So...

[COMPLETED] The Mafia Boss’s Fiancée Tried to Dismiss His Father’s Loyal...

If he had, then the real traitor was not standing outside Gabriel’s circle.

He was already inside it.