Chapter 2 - THE MAN GABRIEL TRUSTED WITH HIS SON
Vincent Hale had worked for Gabriel for eleven years.
That was the first thing Gabriel told me after Leo was taken to another room.
Eleven years.
He had protected Gabriel's wife.
Driven Leo home from the hospital after birth.
Organized every guard rotation on the estate.
And according to a terrified six-year-old, Vincent had spoken to one of the gunmen before the attack.
Gabriel did not confront him immediately.
That surprised me.
The man I'd imagined from whispered household stories would have dragged Vincent into the basement.
Instead, Gabriel called his attorney.
Then an outside security firm.
Then the state investigator he apparently trusted when family business crossed into attempted child murder.
“You're calling police?”
His eyes moved toward me.
“My son was targeted.”
Apparently certain rules still existed.
Good.
“What happens if Leo is wrong?”
“Then Vincent survives being investigated.”
“And if Leo is right?”
Gabriel's face became completely still.
“He answers for it.”
I didn't ask how.
A doctor entered before I could.
Dr. Naomi Feld.
Trauma surgeon.
She explained the third bullet had been removed, but I would need weeks of rehabilitation.
Gabriel interrupted only once.
“What does she need?”
Dr. Feld glanced at him.
“Time.”
“I can buy everything except that.”
“Then learn patience.”
I liked her immediately.
When she left, Gabriel placed a sealed evidence bag on the table beside me.
Inside were the three bullets removed from my body or recovered from my clothing.
“You kept them?”
“The police collected them.”
One bullet had a strange marking scratched into the casing.
A tiny crescent.
I stared.
“I've seen that.”
Gabriel leaned forward.
“Where?”
I searched my memory.
Laundry room.
Suit jackets.
Two months earlier, I'd emptied the pockets of a coat belonging to one of Gabriel's visitors.
There had been a loose cartridge inside.
Same crescent.
“Whose coat?”
I closed my eyes.
“Your brother.”
Gabriel froze.
Marco Rossi.
Forty-one.
Gabriel's older half-brother.
Rarely stayed at the estate.
Always smiled at me as if household staff were furniture.
Gabriel's voice became dangerous.
“You're certain?”
“No.”
Then I remembered the initials embroidered inside the coat.
M.R.
“Yes.”
He stood immediately.
I caught his wrist.
The movement hurt badly enough to make me gasp.
Gabriel stopped.
“Don't do something stupid because I'm drugged and remembering laundry.”
His eyes dropped to my hand on him.
I released him.
“Sorry.”
“Don't be.”
Another first.
Then the outside investigator arrived.
Detective Mara Ellison.
She had already examined perimeter-camera logs.
Every exterior camera failed for exactly four minutes and eleven seconds.
Not random.
Manual override.
Security code used:
Vincent Hale's.
But Vincent had an alibi.
At 3:15, he was visible inside Gabriel's downtown Albany office, twenty-seven miles away.
Someone used his credentials.
Then Mara revealed something worse.
The attack team hadn't driven onto the estate intending to escape.
Their SUV contained no return route, no spare fuel, and no personal phones.
It was a suicide mission.
And inside the glove compartment, police found a photograph.
Not Leo.
Me.
Taken six months earlier while I was carrying groceries into the servants' entrance.
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The attackers hadn't only been told where Leo would be.
They had been told who might protect him.
