Chapter 4 - Someone Inside the Estate Wanted Gabriel Dead
Carmine disappeared for eleven hours.
For Gabriel, those eleven hours were worse than the bullet.
Sadi could see it.
They returned to estate with Evelyn under protection.
Gabriel ordered gates locked and every member of senior organization searched.
Nobody left.
Sadi sat in library while Gabriel read blue ledger.
His recovering shoulder was heavily bandaged.
He looked better physically.
Emotionally, something had gone dark.
Carmine had entered Falcone organization at nineteen.
Gabriel had been sixteen.
Carmine taught him to drive.
Took first arrest rather than let Gabriel's name appear.
Pulled him from nightclub fire.
Stood beside him at Vittorio's funeral.
When Gabriel took control, Carmine became underboss without vote.
“He's my brother,” Gabriel said.
Sadi:
“Brothers can lie.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“Do you enjoy being right?”
“Not lately.”
At 7:12 p.m., Carmine returned voluntarily.
Unarmed.
He walked into library and placed pistol on table.
Gabriel:
“Where were you?”
“Getting proof.”
He dropped file.
Bank records.
Photographs.
Old emails.
Carmine admitted moving Lot 7714 twelve years earlier.
But claimed he had done it under orders from Lorenzo Falcone, Gabriel's uncle.
Lorenzo was family attorney and Vittorio's younger brother.
He handled medical subsidiaries.
Carmine had hidden his involvement because he feared Gabriel would assume worst.
“You ran,” Gabriel said.
“I knew you'd put bullet in me before I could prove anything.”
“Maybe I still will.”
“Then read.”
Sadi opened file.
Settlement money stolen from Amira had gone through account controlled by Lorenzo.
The forged signature originated in Falcone legal office.
Lorenzo had stolen two million dollars intended for dying factory worker.
But why?
Carmine explained.
Amira possessed evidence that Lorenzo had been selling defective industrial compounds through Falcone Biomedical.
Settlement wasn't merely compensation.
It bought silence.
Then Lorenzo stole it back.
Vittorio apparently never knew.
Sadi wasn't sure she believed that.
Powerful men often became conveniently ignorant of crimes enriching them.
Gabriel asked:
“Where is Lorenzo now?”
“Florida.”
“Bring him.”
Carmine:
“He flew out yesterday.”
“Where?”
“Cayman Islands.”
Running.
Then Gabriel noticed something.
Lorenzo was seventy-one.
He could have arranged poisoning.
But drive-by attack came from rival syndicate.
Why both bullet and poisoned stitches?
Carmine answered:
“Because shooting was never meant to kill you.”
Sadi looked up.
“What?”
“The shooters aimed at armored passenger compartment. Except one shot deliberately hit shoulder when Gabriel stepped out.”
Gabriel understood.
“Wound created reason for surgery.”
Exactly.
The bullet was doorway.
Poison was murder.
Cleaner.
A boss dying from infection after shooting looked natural enough in their world.
Gabriel:
“Who hired shooters?”
“Lorenzo used intermediaries tied to Santoro crew.”
“Why kill me?”
Carmine looked at him.
“Succession.”
Gabriel had no wife.
No children.
Under Falcone corporate trusts, if Gabriel died without direct heir, controlling legitimate holdings passed temporarily to family trustee.
Lorenzo.
Billions.
Sadi almost laughed at predictability.
“Money.”
Gabriel:
“Usually.”
But another problem remained.
Dr. Mercer.
The original surgeon had vanished.
Carmine's people found airport footage.
Mercer never boarded plane.
His car located near Hudson River.
Blood in trunk.
Sadi's stomach tightened.
“They killed him.”
“Maybe,” Gabriel said.
Then estate phone rang.
Security transferred call.
A distorted male voice:
“You're looking in wrong direction.”
Gabriel:
“Who is this?”
“The twentieth doctor.”
Call ended.
Everyone stared.
Twenty surgeons?
Only eighteen had treated Gabriel.
Nineteen had been scheduled that afternoon.
Twenty was not.
Then text arrived with photograph.
Dr. Mercer alive.
Tied to chair.
Timestamp current.
Message:
BRING SADI HADDAD AND BLUE LEDGER. MERCER LIVES.
Gabriel's expression hardened.
“No.”
Sadi:
“They want me?”
Carmine:
“They want book.”
“Then why name me?”
Nobody answered.
Second text.
A photograph of Amira.
Taken years earlier.
She stood beside Lorenzo Falcone.
And another woman Sadi didn't recognize.
On back photographed handwritten words:
Three witnesses. One remains.
Sadi.
“No.”
Gabriel:
“What?”
“My mother wasn't only collecting records.”
She remembered bank key.
Safe-deposit box.
She hadn't opened it.
The attackers knew blue ledger existed.
Maybe ledger wasn't most important evidence.
Maybe box was.
She told Gabriel.
Carmine immediately wanted men sent.
“No,” Sadi said.
Both looked at her.
“If someone inside estate is still feeding information, they'll know.”
Gabriel:
“Who do you trust?”
“Myself.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“And Evelyn.”
“Not me?”
“No.”
He almost looked amused.
“Fair.”
Next morning Sadi and Evelyn went bank under discreet federal? No, they don't yet involve law enforcement. Gabriel arranged unmarked security unknown to Carmine.
Inside deposit box:
a spool of black thread.
Original Lot 7714.
Photographs.
Audio cassette.
And letter.
For Gabriel Falcone.
Sadi opened.
Amira wrote that Lorenzo had created a side business using Falcone facilities to manufacture chemically treated materials for illegal purposes.
But she named another person.
Carmine DeLuca.
Again.
She claimed Carmine discovered operation and promised to expose Lorenzo.
Then did nothing.
Why?
Letter explained:
Carmine told me Vittorio would kill everyone if scandal became public. He begged me to take settlement and disappear.
Not mastermind.
Coward.
Different sin.
Sadi returned estate.
Handed letter to Gabriel in front of Carmine.
He read.
Carmine didn't deny.
“I was twenty-five.”
Sadi snapped:
“My mother was dying.”
“I know.”
“You knew Lorenzo stole settlement?”
“No.”
“You knew she had been poisoned by factory exposure?”
“Yes.”
“And you kept working here.”
Carmine lowered eyes.
“Yes.”
Gabriel stood.
“You told me nothing.”
“Your father was alive.”
“So?”
Carmine suddenly exploded.
“So he would have killed you too!”
Silence.
Gabriel stared.
Carmine's voice broke.
“You think you were king because he loved you? You were useful. You challenged Vittorio at twenty-two over one dockworker he beat nearly to death, and he put gun in your mouth in his office.”
Gabriel's face changed.
Sadi had never heard this.
Carmine continued.
“I spent twelve years keeping things from you because sometimes ignorance was only reason you stayed alive.”
Gabriel:
“And after he died?”
Carmine had no answer.
That was betrayal.
Fear became habit.
Just as invisibility had become Sadi's habit.
Then security rushed in.
“Boss. We found Lorenzo.”
Gabriel:
“Where?”
The guard swallowed.
“Not Cayman Islands.”
“Where?”
“Three miles from here.”
Everyone froze.
“He never left the city.”
“Location?”
Guard looked toward window.
“St. Matthew's Hospital.”
“Why?”
“He's admitted under false name.”
“For what?”
The answer changed everything.
“Stage-four pancreatic cancer.”
Lorenzo wasn't building an empire for himself.
He was dying.
May you like
Which meant money alone could not explain why he wanted Gabriel dead.
---
