Chapter 5 - The Silent WarningThe morning sun washed the Westchester estate in golden light, but inside the grand conservatory, the atmosphere was thick with tension.
Beatrice sat in her velvet armchair, her hands moving with fierce, urgent velocity.
Gabriel is making a terrible mistake, she signed rapidly, her face pale with worry. He’s meeting with Marcus Vance tonight at the docks in Brooklyn. Vance cannot be trusted. He set a trap three years ago that cost my husband his life, and now he’s doing the same thing to my son.
Chloe knelt beside Beatrice’s chair, her fingers trembling slightly as she translated the frantic messages in her head.
“Vance?” Chloe asked, her mind racing back to the conversation she had overheard in the library about the federal mole leaking internal memos. “Is Marcus Vance the one leaking the syndicate’s financial ledgers?”
Beatrice nodded violently.
Worse. He’s working with the federal task force to frame Gabriel for corporate murder. If Gabriel goes to the Brooklyn docks tonight unarmed and alone, he won't come back alive.
Chloe’s heart skipped a beat. She thought of Gabriel standing in the library last night—exhausted, cynical, bearing the crushing weight of an empire that was actively trying to consume him from the inside out. He might be a dangerous syndicate boss, but he was also a son whose mother loved him desperately, and a man who was fighting a war on a hundred fronts.
“Does he know?” Chloe asked. “Does Gabriel know it’s a trap?”
Beatrice shook her head bitterly.
He’s too proud to listen to me. He thinks I’m fragile. He thinks because I can't hear the world, I don't see what's happening right beneath his nose.
Chloe stood up abruptly, her mind made up.
“Where is he now?”
Third floor office. Preparing for tonight.
Without another word, Chloe turned and bolted up the grand staircase, racing past the bewildered security guards toward the private elevator. She didn't knock when she reached Gabriel’s office door; she threw it open so hard it slammed against the wood-paneled wall with a loud bang.
Gabriel looked up from his mahogany desk, where he was locking a black steel Taurus pistol into a leather shoulder holster.
“Chloe,” Gabriel said, his voice dropping into a cold, warning register. “I told you the third floor is off-limits during working hours.”
“You’re walking into a slaughterhouse tonight,” Chloe said, marching straight across the room until she stood right in front of his desk.
Gabriel froze, his hands resting on the holster. His eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“Marcus Vance,” Chloe said, her voice shaking with adrenaline. “Your mother told me. It’s a trap. Vance is working with the federal task force to frame you for murder at the Brooklyn docks tonight. He’s the one leaking your financial ledgers!”
Gabriel’s face went completely blank—the expression of a professional poker player holding a royal flush, or a man whose worst fears had just been confirmed.
“My mother cannot hear what goes on in my meetings, Chloe,” Gabriel said coldly, standing up to his full height and towering over her. “How could she possibly know what Marcus Vance is planning?”
“Because she sees things you’re too blind and arrogant to notice!” Chloe snapped, her temper finally boiling over. “She watches every person who walks through these doors! She reads the micro-expressions on your lieutenants' faces while you’re busy staring at spreadsheets! Just because she can't hear your stupid voice doesn't mean she isn't the smartest person in this entire corrupt family!”
Gabriel stepped around the desk, closing the distance between them until Chloe could feel the heat radiating off his broad shoulders.
“You care about what happens to me,” Gabriel stated quietly, his dark eyes searching her face with an intensity that made her breath catch.
“I care that if you die tonight, your mother loses the only family she has left in this house,” Chloe lied defensively, though her voice lacked any real conviction.
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Gabriel reached out, his warm fingers gently brushing against her jawline. The touch was so tender, so completely out of character for the syndicate boss, that Chloe froze.
“I’m not going to die tonight, Chloe,” Gabriel whispered, his thumb lightly tracing her cheekbone. “Because I’ve known about Vance’s leak for three weeks. Tonight at the docks isn't an ambush. It’s an execution.”
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