Chapter 10 - THE TRAP AT PIER NINE
Gabriel went to Pier Nine anyway.
Of course he did.
The difference was that this time he listened to me.
We didn’t enter through the front.
Leo took a small team through the river entrance while Gabriel, Vivian, and I approached from an abandoned loading tunnel Elias had marked on an old blueprint.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Gabriel whispered.
“You’ve mentioned that.”
“I mean it more every time.”
“That must be exhausting.”
Even in the darkness, I saw his smile.
Then we heard Rosa scream.
Gabriel stopped smiling.
We ran.
The warehouse was enormous.
Rusted containers formed narrow corridors.
A generator powered floodlights near the center.
Rosa sat tied to a chair.
Marcus lay nearby.
The countdown clock read six minutes.
Gabriel stepped forward.
“Mom.”
Rosa lifted her head.
For twenty-six years, Gabriel had believed she was dead.
For seventeen years, I had believed she simply moved away.
Now she looked between us and began to cry.
“My babies.”
A gunshot struck the floor.
We scattered.
Men appeared along the upper catwalk.
Leo’s team returned fire.
Gabriel reached Rosa first.
I crawled toward Marcus and checked his pulse.
Alive.
Weak.
“Bomb?” Gabriel shouted.
Marcus shook his head.
“Fake clock.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“No explosives. Psychological trap.”
Then why bring us here?
A speaker clicked on.
A distorted voice filled the warehouse.
“Gabriel.”
He froze.
“You wanted the truth. Look at your mother.”
Rosa’s face changed.
She recognized the voice.
Gabriel did too.
“No.”
I turned toward him.
“Who is it?”
He whispered:
“Uncle Raymond.”
Raymond Hayes.
Charles Hayes’s younger brother.
The man who had served as Gabriel’s legal guardian after Charles died.
The man who retired to Florida seven years ago.
Or so everyone believed.
Raymond stepped onto the catwalk.
He was older, heavier, but unmistakable from the photographs in Gabriel’s penthouse.
“Hello, son.”
Rosa spat at the floor.
“You’re not his father.”
Raymond smiled.
“No.”
Gabriel’s voice was ice.
“Then why does she say you call me son?”
“Because after Charles died, who raised the empire?”
“You advised me.”
“I created you.”
Gabriel lifted his gun.
Raymond smiled wider.
“Shoot me, and you never learn who your father was.”
That stopped him.
Raymond spread his arms.
“Charles stole Rosa from another man. A man he could never defeat openly.”
Gabriel demanded, “Who?”
Raymond looked toward Rosa.
She closed her eyes.
Then whispered:
“Antonio Ventura.”
Gabriel stared.
“The Ventura family died out.”
Rosa shook her head.
“No.”
A door opened behind Raymond.
A man stepped forward.
Dark hair.
Gabriel’s eyes.
The face from the photograph.
Elias.
Raymond placed a hand on his shoulder.
May you like
And said:
“Meet the brother who has been working for me.”
