Chapter 6 - THE MAN BESIDE GABRIEL
Gabriel had trusted Elias with his life for eleven years.
Now Leo’s recording called him a traitor.
Elias stood across the room when the name played.
He did not move.
Norah looked between them.
Gabriel’s voice was quiet.
“Gun.”
Elias slowly removed his weapon and placed it on the table.
“Phone.”
He added it.
“Keys.”
Done.
Then he raised both hands.
“I didn’t betray you.”
Gabriel looked at the recording.
“Leo says you did.”
“He says my name.”
“That sounds like betrayal.”
Elias shook his head.
“Ask when the recording was made.”
Norah checked the timestamp.
Three years ago.
Elias nodded.
“I was undercover inside Matteo’s network.”
Gabriel stared.
“For whom?”
“Your father.”
Silence.
“My father had been dead five years.”
“No.”
Gabriel’s entire body went still.
Elias immediately corrected himself.
“I mean his contingency plan.”
Before Vincent Costa died, he suspected Matteo was stealing.
He instructed Elias to infiltrate Matteo’s network if anything happened to him.
Gabriel had never been told.
“Why?”
“Your father didn’t trust your temper.”
Gabriel almost smiled.
“That sounds like him.”
Elias continued.
“Leo saw me meeting Matteo’s men. He assumed I worked for them.”
“Then why didn’t you protect him?”
Pain crossed Elias’s face.
“I didn’t know about Leo until after the crash.”
Norah looked unconvinced.
“Convenient.”
“Yes.”
At least he admitted it.
Gabriel studied him.
“Prove it.”
Elias gave him a bank account number.
A dormant Costa security account.
Inside were years of reports addressed to Vincent Costa.
The final entry had been written after Vincent’s death.
MATTEO HAS SECONDARY PARTNER. IDENTITY UNKNOWN.
Then Norah found a photograph attached to the last report.
A woman leaving Costa Enterprises late at night.
Long dark coat.
Face partially obscured.
Gabriel knew the posture.
“No.”
Norah looked at him.
“Who?”
His mouth tightened.
“My mother.”
Isabella Costa had supposedly moved to Florence six years earlier.
She called twice a month.
Sent birthday cards.
Complained about Italian doctors.
Gabriel had not seen her in person in nearly five years.
But the photograph was unmistakable.
Elias said:
“She never went to Italy.”
Gabriel looked at him.
“Where is she?”
“New Jersey.”
“Why?”
“Because after your father died, she started meeting Matteo.”
Norah whispered:
“They were working together?”
Elias shook his head.
“I thought so.”
“Thought?”
“I was wrong.”
He opened one final report.
Isabella Costa had been secretly paying Leo Hayes’s medical bills for the first year after the accident.
Norah stared at the screen.
“Why would Gabriel’s mother pay for Leo?”
Gabriel had no answer.
Then Elias found the original transfer memo.
One handwritten note had been scanned beside it:
FOR MY SON.
Gabriel looked at Norah.
Norah looked back.
Neither understood.
May you like
Until Gabriel whispered:
“Leo isn’t your brother, is he?”
