Chapter 3 - THE MAN AT THE FUNERAL
My father’s funeral had been small.
Rain.
Black umbrellas.
Cheap flowers.
People I barely knew pretending they had been close to him.
I remembered almost nothing clearly.
Except one man.
Tall.
Silver-haired.
Expensive coat.
He had stood away from everyone else.
After the burial, he approached me.
“Your father was braver than people realized.”
I assumed he was a business associate.
He gave me no name.
Just a card.
No company.
Only a telephone number.
I never called it.
Until six months later.
That number belonged to the man who sent me the photograph of Julian’s wrecked car.
My heartbeat accelerated.
Julian watched me.
“You know who the gunman means.”
“I met someone.”
“Name.”
“I don’t know.”
“Describe him.”
I did.
Silver hair.
Blue eyes.
Scar beneath his left ear.
Margaret went pale.
Julian noticed.
“You know him.”
She whispered one name.
“Gabriel.”
Julian’s expression hardened.
“No.”
“Julian—”
“Gabriel is dead.”
Margaret shook her head.
“We never found a body.”
I stared between them.
“Who is Gabriel?”
Julian’s voice was flat.
“Our uncle.”
Their father’s younger brother.
A man who had once controlled Cross shipping operations.
According to the family story, Gabriel disappeared after betraying the organization fifteen years earlier.
His car had been found burned near the Canadian border.
Everyone assumed he was dead.
Margaret apparently did not.
“How long have you suspected he was alive?” Julian asked.
“Three years.”
His face darkened.
“You kept that from me.”
“I had no proof.”
“You had enough proof to place Elena inside my house.”
Margaret looked at me.
“I found the same funeral photograph.”
“You knew he contacted her?”
“Yes.”
I stepped back.
“You used me.”
Margaret flinched.
“Elena—”
“No.”
My anger finally found somewhere to go.
“You forged my references.”
“Yes.”
“You put me inside a mafia boss’s house.”
“Yes.”
“You knew Julian was testing everyone around him.”
“I suspected.”
“And you never told me?”
“I needed Gabriel to believe you were close enough to Julian that you might learn something.”
Julian stared at his sister.
“You made her bait.”
Margaret’s voice broke.
“I was trying to protect both of you.”
Julian laughed once.
Cold.
“Nobody in this family knows what that word means.”
Silence followed.
Then Luke, Julian’s security chief, entered.
“We searched the gunman.”
“What did you find?”
“A burner phone.”
“Anything useful?”
Luke placed it on the table.
“One saved number.”
Julian looked.
Margaret looked.
Then I did.
It was the same number printed on the card from my father’s funeral.
My skin went cold.
Then the phone rang.
Everyone froze.
Julian answered on speaker.
A man’s voice said:
“Elena.”
I stopped breathing.
The voice was older now.
But I knew it.
The man from the funeral.
Gabriel Cross.
May you like
Then he spoke again.
“You were never supposed to fall in love with Julian.”
