Chapter 13 - THE DOCTOR WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO LET ME DIE
Dr. Feld did not run.
She looked furious when confronted.
“Check the account.”
Investigators did.
The payment was scheduled to an account using her name.
Not hers.
Another impersonation.
Marco wanted us to distrust the surgeon.
Maybe remove me from competent care.
Maybe move me somewhere easier to reach.
The real recipient was a shell company.
Owner:
Mrs. Gable.
The housekeeper who had called in sick on the day of the attack.
The same woman whose absence put me in the sunroom with Leo.
My blood went cold.
Mrs. Gable had worked at the estate sixteen years.
Longer than me.
Longer than Anna.
Almost family.
She had arranged staffing.
Schedules.
Rooms.
She knew exactly who would be where.
Police found her at a motel outside Saratoga.
She confessed quickly.
Marco paid her.
At first, to report household movements.
Then to ensure I covered Leo's room on specific days.
“Why me?”
Because Marco knew Sofia had designated me as heir protector.
He needed me dead too.
But he couldn't kill me openly before Leo turned seven without drawing attention to the succession clause.
The attack solved both problems.
Leo dead.
Me dead.
Marco positioned to seize voting control if Gabriel later fell.
Mrs. Gable hadn't expected me to survive three bullets.
Neither had Marco.
“Where is Marco?” Mara asked.
She gave them a location.
An abandoned lakeside lodge once owned by the Bellinis.
By the time authorities arrived, Marco was gone.
But he'd left a message.
For Gabriel.
Bring Elena and both boys' trust documents, or Lorenzo dies.
Marco had taken his own father.
Gabriel stared at the note.
I said:
“No.”
He looked at me.
“No what?”
“You're not trading children for your father.”
“I wasn't.”
Good.
“We let police handle it.”
He nodded.
Even better.
Mara designed the operation.
No vigilante rescue.
No mafia army.
Lorenzo wore a tracker? No. Marco had removed his devices.
But the lodge had an old emergency radio system.
Anna remembered it from childhood Bellini visits.
Authorities triangulated a signal.
Marco was in a boathouse two miles north.
Police surrounded it.
Gabriel was ordered to stay back.
He did.
Barely.
Marco tried to flee by boat.
Engine failed.
Sabotaged?
No.
Old fuel line.
Irony had terrible timing.
He was arrested alive.
No execution.
No revenge.
Just handcuffs.
When officers led him past Gabriel, Marco smiled.
“You think this makes you clean?”
Gabriel answered:
“No.”
Marco's smile faded.
Gabriel continued:
“It makes me responsible for what I do next.”
That was the strongest thing I'd ever heard him say.
Then Marco looked at me.
“You still don't know why Catherine chose the Rossi house.”
I frowned.
“She didn't.”
He laughed.
“Yes, she did.”
My mother had made one final arrangement before death.
Not with Sofia.
With Gabriel himself.
Except Gabriel claimed he'd never met her.
Marco said:
“You did.”
I looked at Gabriel.
May you like
He went pale.
And suddenly he remembered a woman from seven years earlier who had used another name.
