Chapter 3 - Ghosts of the Past
Gabriel led us through the labyrinthine corridors of the estate, moving past the gilded ballrooms and grand staircases until we reached the private family wing—a section of the mansion where no domestic staff had ever been permitted to enter.
He pushed open the heavy oak doors to his private quarters. Unlike the ostentatious luxury of the public rooms, this space was warm, muted, and lined with thousands of leather-bound books. A fire crackled in a broad stone hearth, casting long, golden shadows across deep leather armchairs.
“Sit,” Gabriel murmured, gesturing toward the sofa nearest the hearth.
I sat down cautiously, holding Lily on my lap. Her eyelids were growing heavy, the sheer adrenaline of the confrontation giving way to the exhaustion of a five-year-old kept awake long past her bedtime.
Gabriel disappeared into an adjoining room and returned a moment later with a soft cashmere throw blanket. He knelt down beside the sofa—a man who had just pinned his cousin’s hand to a table with a blade—and gently tucked the blanket around Lily’s small shoulders.
“Are you hungry, sweetheart?” he asked her.
Lily shook her head against my shoulder. “Just sleepy. Is Uncle Gabe mad at Mommy?”
Gabriel looked as though someone had struck him across the face. “No, Lily. I will never be mad at your mommy. I am only mad at myself.”
He stood up, walking over to a mahogany sideboard. He poured three fingers of amber scotch into a crystal tumbler, drank half of it in a single swallow, and leaned his forehead against the mantelpiece.
“Three years, Rachel,” he said, his back to me. “For three years, I believed I was entirely alone. How did you survive?”
I took a deep breath, stroking Lily’s soft hair. “When the explosion happened at the shipyard, Daniel called me from an encrypted burner phone while he was bleeding out in the ambulance bay. He told me that Marco had locked the perimeter gates from the outside. He knew it was an inside job. He told me: *Take Lily, grab the cash under the floorboards, and disappear. Do not trust Gabe’s inner circle until you know who held the knife.*”
Gabriel closed his eyes tightly, his knuckles turning white against the stone mantel. “He was trying to protect you from my own blind spots.”
“Two days later,” I continued, “Marco and Vanessa found my apartment. They didn't come to kill me right away. They wanted Daniel’s personal journal. Daniel kept records of every serial number, every shipping manifest, and every kickback that flowed through the Bellini terminals. I told them I didn't have it. Vanessa laughed in my face. She said you were too broken by Daniel’s death to run the family properly, and that within a year, she would be running the Moretti syndicate through marriage.”
“And you believed I had forgotten him?” Gabriel’s voice was hollow.
“No,” I replied honestly, looking straight at him. “I believed you were blind. I believed Vanessa had wrapped you around her finger so tightly that if I came to you with accusations, Marco’s men would slit my throat before I made it past the gatehouse.”
Gabriel turned around. The raw agony in his eyes was almost unbearable to witness. “You were right. I was blind. I was drowning in grief, Rachel. Daniel was my brother in every way that mattered. When he died, I felt like the best part of me was buried with him. Vanessa was there every day, whispering comfort, offering alliances, managing my schedule. She isolated me from the loyal captains. She fed my paranoia about external rivals while the vipers were sleeping in my own bed.”
“Why did you apply to work here?” he asked suddenly, stepping closer. “Nine months ago. Why put yourself in the lion’s den?”
“Because I saw her face on the news,” I said, my voice hardening. “The society pages announced your engagement to Vanessa Bellini. They said the wedding would unite the two largest syndicates in Illinois. And then I overheard two of Marco’s collectors shaking down a convenience store in my neighborhood, talking about how once Gabriel married the Bellini girl, *the boss would have a tragic hunting accident* and Marco would take the throne.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“I couldn't let them kill you, Gabriel,” I whispered, looking down at my sleeping daughter. “Daniel gave his life to keep you breathing. If I let them murder you after everything Daniel sacrificed, then his death meant nothing. I changed my hair, forged references through an old friend in the quarter, and took the maid position. I was looking for Daniel’s journal. I knew he had hidden it somewhere inside your estate before the shipyard raid.”
Gabriel stared at me in stunned disbelief. “You risked your life... you scrubbed floors and took insults from that woman... to save mine?”
“I did it for Daniel,” I corrected him softly. “And because Daniel believed you were a good man beneath the blood on your hands.”
Gabriel slowly sank down onto the coffee table across from me, his head bowed. For several long minutes, the only sound in the room was the crackle of the burning oak logs and Lily’s rhythmic, peaceful breathing.
“Where is the journal, Rachel?” Gabriel asked quietly. “Did you find it?”
“No,” I replied. “Daniel never hid it in the house. He hid it where no mafia don would ever look.”
Gabriel frowned slightly. “Where?”
“Inside Lily’s old mechanical music box. The one Daniel carved for her first birthday. It’s sitting in a storage locker off 47th Street, behind three years of unpaid rent.”
Gabriel reached out, his large, rough hand hovering for a second before he gently laid it over mine. His skin was warm, his touch remarkably steady despite the storm raging inside him.
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“Tomorrow morning, we retrieve that box,” Gabriel said, his gray eyes burning with lethal determination. “And then, Rachel, we burn the Bellini empire to the ground.”
***
