Chapter 10 - The False Traitor

The recording should have changed everything.

Instead, it made everyone more dangerous.

Gabriel returned to the estate before sunrise with Harrow under guard and Isabella beside Marco. The chapel confession was copied to five encrypted drives. One went into a safe. One went to Maria. One went to an attorney Gabriel trusted with instructions to release it if anything happened to Sadi or her mother.

The remaining two never left Gabriel’s sight.

“Now we wait,” Marco said.

Sadi shook her head. “Victor has the key. Waiting is exactly what he wants.”

Enzo stood near the study door.

“He still needs the account authentication.”

Harrow, seated under guard, looked toward him.

“No. The trustee key is the authentication.”

Enzo frowned. “It was not fifteen years ago.”

“The bank changed the protocol after Salvatore died.”

Gabriel’s head turned.

“How do you know that?”

Harrow looked at Isabella.

“Because she asked me to track the account.”

Marco stared at his mother.

“How many secrets do you have?”

“Fewer every hour.”

Enzo opened his laptop.

“If Victor has full access, he can empty White Glass.”

Sadi asked, “What is in it now?”

Enzo’s fingers stopped.

“Enough money to start a war.”

Gabriel looked at him.

“How much?”

“Approximately eighty-six million.”

Marco whistled softly.

Sadi felt sick.

“Money stolen through a rehabilitation charity?”

“Some of it,” Enzo said. “Some came from businesses Victor hid from Salvatore.”

Gabriel’s voice sharpened. “And you knew?”

“I knew the account existed. I did not know the current balance.”

Gabriel looked away.

There it was again.

Another piece of truth Enzo had kept in the name of protection.

Sadi stepped toward the desk.

“Victor does not just want the money.”

Gabriel looked at her.

“He could have stolen it years ago if he had the resources to reconstruct the key.”

“He did not have the key.”

“But he knew where Rafael hid it. He could have torn Belladonna apart after Rafael died.”

Enzo shook his head. “Salvatore watched Table Twelve for years.”

“And after Salvatore died?”

No one answered.

Sadi continued. “Victor waited because the money was useful where it was. Hidden. Untouchable. The attack on Gabriel changed something.”

Marco’s face hardened.

“Succession.”

Gabriel looked at him.

Marco continued. “If Gabriel died without naming a successor, the family council would vote. Victor still controls half the older captains.”

Sadi understood.

“He gets the account and the organization.”

“Exactly.”

Gabriel looked at Harrow.

“You said you reduced the dosage. Who gave you the order?”

Harrow hesitated.

Gabriel’s voice lowered.

“Do not make me ask twice.”

“A man named Carter Voss.”

Enzo swore.

Sadi looked at him. “Who?”

“Former Falcone security. Fired eight years ago.”

“By whom?”

“Me.”

Harrow said, “Voss handled payment, delivery instructions, and the medical compound.”

Gabriel looked at Enzo.

“The man Sadi threw at Belladonna?”

Enzo pulled up a photograph.

Sadi recognized him immediately.

Carter Voss.

The attacker from the dining room.

Lucia, standing near Maria, whispered, “He was the man outside in the car.”

Sadi turned. “You said you could not see the driver.”

“I couldn’t. Carter was outside the car when I first saw them. Then he went inside.”

“Who was driving?”

Lucia closed her eyes.

“The hand with the ring.”

Marco’s stolen ring.

Enzo’s phone rang.

He answered, listened, and looked toward the security chief.

“What?” Gabriel asked.

Enzo ended the call.

“Carter Voss was never in our holding room.”

Gabriel’s expression went flat.

“What does that mean?”

“The guards who removed him from Belladonna transferred custody in the underground garage. The paperwork was forged.”

“By who?”

Enzo did not answer.

Gabriel stood.

“By who?”

Enzo turned the screen around.

The digital authorization carried his credentials.

E. RINALDI.

Marco looked at him.

Sadi felt the room shift again.

Enzo stared at the authorization.

“I did not sign this.”

Gabriel’s voice was quiet.

“Your credentials opened the estate archive. Your credentials transferred Voss. Your signature is in Rafael’s ledger.”

“And I told you why.”

“You told me one version.”

Enzo stepped forward.

“Gabriel.”

“Give me your weapon.”

The words landed like a door closing.

Enzo’s face changed.

For a moment Sadi thought he might refuse.

Then he removed his pistol, placed it on the desk, and slid it toward Gabriel.

Marco looked away.

Gabriel said, “Your phone.”

Enzo placed it beside the weapon.

“Laptop.”

He closed it and pushed it forward.

Gabriel called two guards.

“Take him downstairs.”

Sadi stepped between them.

“No.”

Gabriel stared at her.

“This is not your decision.”

“Then make a better one.”

“You think he is innocent?”

“I think someone has spent twenty-four hours planting evidence that is almost too perfect.”

Enzo looked at her, surprised.

Sadi pointed at the digital authorization.

“Carter Voss was a security specialist. He would know how credentials work. Victor had access to old records. Harrow just told us Voss was the intermediary.”

Gabriel’s jaw tightened.

“And the ledger?”

“Real. Enzo already admitted the signature.”

“And the lies?”

“Also real.”

Enzo lowered his eyes.

Sadi continued. “But lying about the past does not prove he engineered last night.”

Gabriel looked at her for a long moment.

Then he turned to the guards.

“Take the devices. Enzo stays in this room.”

Enzo exhaled.

“Thank you.”

Gabriel’s expression remained cold.

“Do not thank me.”

Sadi picked up Enzo’s phone using a cloth.

“When did you last replace this?”

“Three months ago.”

“Who set it up?”

“My assistant.”

“Name?”

“Peter Lang.”

Gabriel looked at the security chief.

“Find him.”

The answer came ten minutes later.

Peter Lang had not reported to work.

His apartment was empty.

His bank account had received two hundred thousand dollars from a shell company forty-eight hours before the shooting.

The shell company traced to a holding firm controlled by Victor Falcone.

Marco leaned against the desk.

“There’s your credential leak.”

Sadi was not satisfied.

“Still too clean.”

Gabriel looked at her. “You are becoming difficult to impress.”

“My father died because he trusted clean numbers.”

Maria corrected her gently. “Your father died because he refused to.”

Sadi looked at the ledger again.

One notation beside White Glass had bothered her from the beginning.

V.F. authorized.

I.F. received.

E.R. countersigned.

But beneath the line was a fourth code.

S.F.-2.

“Who is S.F.-2?” she asked.

Gabriel looked over.

“Salvatore Falcone had two family accounts. S.F.-1 and S.F.-2.”

“What was the second?”

Enzo answered.

“A contingency identity. Used if Salvatore had to disappear.”

Sadi looked at Harrow.

“Did Victor know?”

Harrow nodded.

“Everyone at that level knew.”

Sadi’s pulse quickened.

“Then maybe White Glass was never Victor’s account.”

Gabriel frowned.

“What are you saying?”

She turned the ledger toward him.

“Rafael wrote that the account was controlled by a trustee code and was not Victor’s. What if Salvatore created it after Gianna died?”

Enzo stared at the page.

“To collect evidence.”

“And money,” Sadi said. “Money Victor thought he was hiding.”

Harrow leaned forward.

“That would explain why Victor could never close it.”

Gabriel looked at Enzo.

“Can we see who the legal trustee is?”

“Not without bank access.”

Sadi smiled faintly.

“We have something better than access.”

“What?”

“Victor thinks he has the key.”

Gabriel understood.

“You want to let him open it.”

“I want to let him believe he opened it.”

Marco grinned for the first time all day.

“A trap.”

Sadi looked at Gabriel.

“A dinner.”

He glanced toward his injured shoulder.

“At Belladonna.”

“At Table Twelve.”

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Gabriel’s expression turned cold and almost amused.

“Now you are speaking my language.”