Chapter 6: Gabriel’s Part
Gabriel’s face had gone completely still.
That frightened me more than if he’d denied everything.
The security officer kept the note in a gloved hand. Down the corridor, a nurse was telling someone to move away from Tommy’s door. The hospital continued around us, full of beeping monitors and brisk footsteps, as if nobody had just left a threat with my name on it.
I looked at Gabriel.
“What did you do that night?”
His eyes flicked toward Luca. For a second, I thought he’d refuse to answer with his boss standing there.
“Not here,” he said.
“Then somewhere private,” I replied. “But not somewhere you can decide I’m safer if I don’t hear it.”
Luca’s expression tightened.
“Nina—”
“I’m not asking you to take me anywhere. I’m asking him a question.”
Luca glanced at Gabriel, then toward a small consultation room off the hall.
“The security supervisor can stay outside,” he said. “The door stays open.”
“Fine.”
“And I’ll be right here.”
“Outside,” I said. “Not in the room.”
A muscle moved in Luca’s jaw. Then he gave a short nod.
Gabriel walked ahead of me. I followed, keeping my phone in my hand. It had barely enough battery to be useful, but I wasn’t surrendering it to anyone. At the doorway, I turned back.
“Is the note being documented?”
The security officer nodded.
“We’ve photographed it and logged where it was found. Police are on their way.”
“Good. Please keep the original.”
He gave another nod. Only then did I step inside.
The room held a table, four chairs, and a box of tissues. Gabriel took the chair nearest the door. He didn’t block it. I sat across from him.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then I asked, “What did you do that night?”
“I moved Elena.”
The name seemed to make the room smaller.
“Luca’s sister?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I can’t tell you that yet.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Won’t. Not until I know who else is listening.”
I glanced at the open door. The security supervisor stood in the hall, watching the corridor. Luca was a few yards away, his back turned to us. It wasn’t perfect privacy, but it was more than I’d had in the car.
“Why did you move her?”
“Silas told me it was necessary. He said Luca had approved it.”
“Did you hear that from Luca?”
“No.”
Gabriel’s hands were folded on the table. His knuckles had gone pale.
“I should have asked him. I didn’t. I thought if Luca’s brother said the decision was made, then it was made.”
“That’s not the same as Luca approving it.”
“No,” Gabriel said. “It isn’t.”
The answer came too quickly to be a defense. It sounded like a fact he’d spent years trying not to say out loud.
“What happened after you moved her?”
“Silas told us she was dead.”
“Us?”
“People close to the family. He said there’d been an accident. He said the arrangements were handled.”
“Did you see a body?”
“No.”
“Did you see a death certificate?”
“No.”
“Did Luca?”
Gabriel looked down.
“I don’t know what Luca saw. I know what I was told.”
A tremor passed through my fingers. I curled them around my phone until it stopped.
“You were part of moving a woman, then accepted that she was dead without proof.”
“Yes.”
“And you kept quiet.”
“Yes.”
The bluntness of it left no room for me to push him into a better answer.
“Why?”
“Because I’d spent years believing obedience was the same thing as loyalty.”
He looked up at me.
“It wasn’t.”
Behind him, Luca shifted in the hall but didn’t come in.
Gabriel continued. “Silas gave me a box that night. He said it had to be destroyed. I was supposed to get rid of it before anyone found out Elena had been moved.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know if I can give you a reason that makes it sound honorable.”
“I’m not asking you to make it sound honorable.”
He let out a slow breath.
“Then the truth is I was afraid. I was afraid of what it meant that Silas wanted it gone. And I was afraid of what would happen if Luca found out I’d helped without hearing it from him. So I hid it.”
“Where is it now?”
“Still hidden. Locked up. I can tell you where, and I’ll take you there. But I won’t bring it here and open it in a hospital hallway.”
“Good,” I said. “Because we’re not opening anything without Ms. Patel and a proper record of what it is.”
Gabriel nodded.
“I’ll do whatever she says.”
“You’ll answer her questions, too?”
“Yes.”
“Even if the answers make you look worse?”
His gaze held mine.
“Yes.”
I studied his face. He was still the enormous man who’d shouted at me outside the car. But fear had stripped away the certainty he’d worn then. I recognized the look. I saw it often in people who’d waited too long to tell the truth.
It didn’t mean I trusted him.
It meant he might finally be ready to stop hiding.
The doorway filled with Luca’s shadow.
“Do you want me to have him removed?” he asked me.
The question surprised me. Not because he’d asked it, but because for once he hadn’t already decided what the answer should be.
“No,” I said. “I want you to listen.”
Luca looked at Gabriel.
“I moved Elena,” Gabriel said. “Silas told me you had approved it. I never heard that from you.”
Luca didn’t move.
“Silas told me she was dead. He gave me a box and ordered me to destroy it. I kept it.”
For several seconds, the only sound was the soft rattle of the ventilation.
“Why did you believe him?” Luca asked.
“I thought I was carrying out your decision.”
“You didn’t ask me.”
“No.”
“You didn’t verify she was dead.”
“No.”
Luca lowered his eyes. His right hand had started to tremble again. He pressed it flat against the doorframe, as if he could keep the past from moving by holding something still.
“I want to hear all of it,” he said.
“So do I,” I replied. “But listening isn’t the same as taking over.”
His eyes met mine.
“I know.”
I wasn’t sure he did. But he stepped into the room without coming closer to Gabriel, and he stayed standing beside the open door.
“Where’s the box?” Luca asked.
Gabriel hesitated.
“Locked cabinet at my house. I’ll give the address to Ms. Patel. She can arrange how it’s collected and documented.”
“That’s sensible,” I said. “We don’t touch it before then.”
“I understand.”
A little later, Ms. Patel joined us by phone. She asked Gabriel to describe the box without opening it, then told him to preserve its location and not move or alter anything. Gabriel agreed. Luca offered to send someone for it.
“No,” I said before he could finish.
Luca stopped.
“Ms. Patel decides who handles it,” I continued. “Not your people.”
After a pause, he nodded.
The next hours blurred into calls and waiting. Security and police took statements about the visitor and the note. The hospital confirmed that Tommy’s room remained protected. Ms. Patel coordinated a documented retrieval of the box from Gabriel’s locked cabinet. I stayed with her, Gabriel, and the officers who handled it. Luca stayed back when she told him to.
The box was plain, the kind used for old household papers. It held a few receipts, a folded sheet of names, and an envelope with a photograph inside. Ms. Patel photographed each item as it was removed, noting where it had been and who had handled it.
I waited until she gave me permission to look.
The photograph showed a young woman standing beside a bus shelter, one hand tucked into the pocket of a winter coat. Her dark hair was shorter than Luca’s, but the shape of her face was unmistakable from the family photographs he’d shown us. Elena looked tired, wary, and unmistakably alive.
The date printed on the photograph came after the date Silas had told Gabriel she was dead.
I looked at Gabriel.
“You kept this?”
“I kept the box. I didn’t know what was in it until years later.”
“You could have come forward.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
His eyes dropped to the table.
“Because I knew what I’d done. And I knew it had helped Silas keep everyone quiet.”
Luca stood on the far side of the room. He hadn’t come closer. He studied his sister’s face as if the paper might change beneath his eyes.
“Is she alive?” he asked.
Gabriel swallowed.
“I don’t know.”
Luca looked at me, and I saw grief and hope collide there. Neither one made him entitled to an answer.
Ms. Patel turned the photograph over to document its reverse.
May you like
There, in careful handwriting, was a sentence that seemed to stop the room cold:
If Luca comes, Silas wins.
