Chapter 7 - VIVIAN’S REAL NAME
Vivian sat across from Gabriel with no jewelry, no handbag, and no phone.
She looked smaller without the armor.
“My real name is Vivian Moreno.”
Gabriel stared at her.
Moreno.
Paulie Moreno.
Leo swore softly.
Gabriel’s voice turned flat.
“Relationship?”
“He was my father.”
The room erupted.
Gabriel silenced everyone with one look.
“You told me your father died when you were a child.”
“He did to me.”
“What does that mean?”
Vivian’s eyes filled with tears she seemed furious to show.
“Paulie abandoned my mother when I was nine. She changed our surname. I didn’t see him again until three years ago.”
“And you never thought to mention you were engaged to the daughter of my underboss?”
“He made me promise.”
“Why?”
“Because he was investigating something.”
Gabriel leaned forward.
“What?”
“You.”
Silence.
Vivian quickly continued.
“Not to hurt you. To protect you.”
She explained that Paulie had discovered irregularities in Gabriel’s businesses.
Money disappearing.
Shipments being rerouted.
Employees hired under false identities.
Someone had been quietly building a second organization inside Gabriel’s empire.
Paulie believed the conspiracy reached back decades.
“He told me one name,” Vivian said.
“Elias?”
“No.”
“Rosa?”
“No.”
She looked toward Leo.
Then me.
“Charles Hayes.”
Gabriel’s dead father.
Gabriel shook his head.
“He’s been dead fifteen years.”
“Paulie believed Charles created a contingency network before he died. People loyal to him, not you.”
Leo looked grim.
“For what?”
“To remove Gabriel if he ever learned the truth about Rosa and Elias.”
Gabriel stood.
“What truth?”
Vivian reached into her coat pocket.
Two guards reacted.
She stopped.
“It’s paper.”
Gabriel nodded.
She removed an old photocopied birth certificate.
The father’s line had been blacked out.
The mother:
ROSALIA VENTURA.
Child:
GABRIEL VENTURA.
Not Hayes.
Gabriel read it twice.
“My name wasn’t Hayes.”
“No.”
“Who was my father?”
Vivian’s voice dropped.
“Paulie didn’t know. But he believed Charles killed him.”
Gabriel looked almost numb.
I suddenly understood.
This wasn’t about territory.
It wasn’t even about money.
Someone had spent decades constructing Gabriel’s identity around a lie.
His mother dead.
His brother erased.
His real surname buried.
His father unknown.
And now anybody who got close to the truth was disappearing.
Paulie.
Rosa.
Marcus.
Maybe Elias next.
A phone rang.
Not ours.
The sound came from inside the wall.
Leo found a hidden burner taped behind an air vent.
It was ringing.
Gabriel answered.
“Hello?”
No voice.
Only a recording.
Rosa’s voice.
Weak.
Terrified.
“Gabriel, if you hear this, don’t search for me.”
A man in the recording shouted something in the background.
Then Rosa hurried:
“Elias is not your enemy. Vivian is not your enemy. The poisoner knows you better than either of them.”
The recording crackled.
May you like
Rosa’s final words froze the room.
“He calls you son.”
