Chapter 2 - The Man in Gabriel’s Tuxedo

The second deletion stopped at seventy-one percent.

Marco did not celebrate.

He simply locked the audit server behind three new layers and looked at Luca.

“Both accounts are frozen.”

Emma stared through the gallery doors.

Gabriel was still in the ballroom.

Same tuxedo.

Same face.

Same expression of growing irritation.

And thirty seconds earlier, another man wearing his face had stood beside Belini and Carlo inside a service elevator.

Emma folded her arms.

“I would like tonight to become less strange.”

Luca glanced at her.

“That seems unlikely.”

Gabriel entered the gallery.

“What did you do to my account?”

Emma turned.

“That is an interesting opening question.”

His expression sharpened.

“My phone stopped authenticating.”

Luca handed him the security image.

Gabriel looked once.

Then again.

His anger vanished.

“That’s me.”

“No,” Luca said.

Gabriel enlarged the reflection.

The black onyx signet was visible on the stranger’s hand.

A crowned serpent.

Salazar crest.

Gabriel’s jaw tightened.

“Carlo.”

Emma looked at him.

“Carlo has that ring?”

“All Salazar men do.”

Luca’s eyes narrowed.

“All?”

Gabriel nodded.

“Direct male line.”

Marco returned.

“Service elevator is empty. Laptop abandoned on level twelve.”

“Belini?”

“Missing.”

“Carlo?”

“Also missing.”

Luca looked at Gabriel.

“What did Carlo want from you tonight?”

Gabriel hesitated.

Emma saw it.

“So there is something.”

He exhaled.

“He brought a revised financing agreement.”

“The one removing my veto rights?”

“Yes.”

“You told me it was postponed.”

“It was.”

“Then why was it here?”

“Carlo said Moretti Capital demanded it before midnight.”

Luca’s voice became colder.

“I did not.”

Gabriel looked at him.

“I realize that now.”

Marco placed the abandoned laptop on a table.

The drive had been wiped.

Not cleanly enough.

One recovered directory remained.

NAVARRO POSITION.

Emma’s stomach tightened.

The same phrase from the audit emails.

Inside were photographs.

Emma entering work.

Emma at her apartment.

Emma meeting Luca two weeks earlier.

Gabriel turned pale.

“You were being watched.”

Emma looked at Luca.

“You knew?”

“No.”

That answer came too fast to be performative.

Marco opened another folder.

Gabriel’s schedule.

Passwords.

Voice samples.

Three-dimensional facial scans.

Everything needed to imitate him.

Emma stared.

“This was planned before tonight.”

“Yes,” Luca said.

A third folder appeared.

CARLO S.

Payment records.

But the payer was masked.

Gabriel leaned closer.

“Can you trace it?”

Marco shook his head.

“Not here.”

Emma looked back into the ballroom.

Belini was gone.

Carlo was gone.

But Gabriel’s mother, Elena Navarro, still sat beneath the chandeliers.

She was speaking to an elderly banker.

Calm.

Unbothered.

Then Emma noticed the chair beside her.

Empty.

“Who was sitting there?”

Gabriel followed her gaze.

“Mr. Vale.”

“Who?”

“Edmund Vale. Our outside trustee.”

Luca turned.

“Trustee of what?”

Gabriel frowned.

“My uncle’s estate. Old Navarro holding companies.”

Emma’s pulse changed.

“My father’s companies?”

“Some.”

Marco was already searching.

Edmund Vale had left the ballroom nine minutes earlier.

At the exact moment the second deletion began.

Luca looked at the recovered laptop again.

Then at Emma.

“The fake Gabriel drew attention to the service elevator.”

Emma understood.

“So someone else could leave.”

Marco’s phone vibrated.

He read once.

“Boss.”

“What?”

“Vale’s car just exited the underground garage.”

Luca’s eyes hardened.

“Destination?”

“Unknown.”

Gabriel stepped closer.

“Why would Vale run?”

Marco looked at Emma.

“Because he just accessed Navarro Transportes Patrimoniales using Daniel Navarro’s old trustee key.”

Silence.

Emma stopped breathing.

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Her father had been dead eleven years.

Yet somewhere beneath the gala, his oldest financial authority had just come back to life.