Chapter 11 - The Voice on the Wire
That evening, the manor was bathed in the warm amber glow of roaring fireplaces. Lily was asleep upstairs, exhausted from her afternoon at the stables, guarded by two trusted men who would have died before letting a shadow fall across her bed.
Gabriel and I sat in his private study on the ground floor, sharing a vintage red wine Daniel had cellared years ago. A comfortable, intimate ease had developed between us—an unspoken understanding forged in fire, grief, and newfound affection.
"You should sleep, Rachel," Gabriel murmured, leaning back in his leather wingchair, watching the flames dance in the hearth. "You've been awake since dawn."
"I like the quiet," I smiled, holding the wine glass with two hands. "When it's quiet now, it means peace. For nine months, quiet just meant waiting for the next blow."
Suddenly, the encrypted satellite phone on Gabriel’s desk let out a sharp, piercing chime.
Gabriel frowned. That phone was an emergency direct line known to only three people on earth: Marcus, the regional commissioner of the families, and an encrypted offshore relay box.
He rose from his chair, his easy demeanor vanishing in an instant. He picked up the receiver and pressed the button.
"Vance."
Silence hung on the line for three agonizing seconds. Then, a blast of harsh static crackled through the speaker.
"Boss," Marcus’s voice broke through, breathing heavily, panic distorting his words. "Boss, you need to hear this. We just opened the subterranean vault beneath Moretti’s private residence in the Hamptons. The one behind the blast doors."
Gabriel’s brow furrowed. "Did you find the offshore bonds?"
"No, boss," Marcus stammered, his voice shaking with a terror I had never heard in the veteran soldier before. "There were no bonds. There was a medical bed. IV drips, life-support monitors, and a specialized recovery chamber that was disconnected less than three hours ago."
Gabriel gripped the phone so hard his knuckles turned dead white. "What are you talking about, Marcus?!"
"The dental records on the body we pulled from the burned car nine months ago... they were swapped, Gabe," Marcus breathed, each word falling like an artillery strike into the room. "The man who burned in that car wasn't Daniel."
My wine glass slipped from my fingers, shattering against the hardwood floor, dark red wine spreading like fresh blood across the boards.
Gabriel’s eyes snapped to mine, completely dilated with shock.
Then, through the speaker of the satellite phone, another sound came over the line.
It wasn't Marcus.
It was a secondary radio patch, clicking into the frequency with a low, metallic hiss. A voice—hoarse, scarred by smoke inhalation, breathing through what sounded like a mechanical ventilator—spoke slowly, directly into Gabriel’s ear.
"Gabriel..." the voice wheezed, rough as sandpaper, but completely, unmistakably familiar. "Don't let Rachel leave the house. Vanessa’s father didn't work for the Commission... he was working for me."
Gabriel froze, the phone slipping a fraction of an inch in his hand.
May you like
"Daniel?" Gabriel whispered into the dark.
From the upstairs corridor, right outside Lily’s bedroom door, the piercing shriek of the security alarm suddenly began to wail.
