Chapter 3 - THE MAN AT THE DOOR
Liam opened the door three inches with the security chain still attached.
Gabriel Ross stood outside in a navy overcoat.
He looked to be in his forties, with silver beginning at his temples and the calm posture of someone who expected danger for a living.
His hands were empty.
“Back away.”
Liam’s voice was flat.
Gabriel glanced at the baseball bat.
“If I intended to hurt either of you, Mr. Carter, I would not have knocked.”
“How do you know my name?”
“I know considerably more than your name.”
I stepped closer.
“Did Alessandro send the messages?”
Gabriel looked directly at me.
“No.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“You don’t.”
At least he did not insult me by pretending otherwise.
Gabriel lifted his phone.
“I can show you something.”
Liam did not unlock the chain.
Gabriel turned the screen toward us.
The image was grainy but clear enough.
It showed the front of our apartment building.
A black sedan had been parked across the street.
Inside were two men.
The time stamp was from forty minutes earlier.
“I had one of my people photograph them.”
Gabriel lowered the phone.
“They arrived before I did.”
“Who are they?”
I asked.
“That is precisely what Mr. Vitali wants to know.”
Liam laughed without humor.
“How convenient.”
Gabriel’s eyes shifted toward him.
“Your father taught you to distrust convenient answers.”
Liam went pale.
My stomach dropped.
“You knew Patrick?”
“I knew of him.”
“That isn’t what you said.”
Gabriel paused.
Then he looked back at me.
“Miss Shaw, we should not have this conversation in a hallway.”
Hearing my real last name from a stranger was worse than hearing the threat.
Liam removed the chain.
Gabriel entered.
The moment the door closed, Liam shoved him against the wall.
“How do you know Elizabeth Shaw?”
Gabriel did not resist.
“I worked for Alessandro’s father.”
Every sound in the room seemed to disappear.
“Vittorio Vitali?”
I whispered.
“Yes.”
Vittorio had died eight years earlier.
One year before my parents.
Officially, he suffered a stroke while traveling in Switzerland.
Gabriel straightened his coat.
“Your father and Vittorio Vitali knew each other.”
“That’s impossible.”
“It is not.”
“My father never mentioned him.”
“He was trying to protect you.”
I wanted to laugh.
Instead, tears burned behind my eyes.
Everyone who claimed they had been protecting me seemed to have done it by lying.
Gabriel reached slowly into his coat and removed a sealed envelope.
On the front was one name.
ELIZABETH.
The handwriting belonged to my father.
I recognized it instantly.
My knees nearly gave out.
“Where did you get that?”
“Vittorio gave it to me eight years ago.”
“Why?”
“He instructed me to keep it unless Thomas Shaw was killed.”
My voice shook.
“My father has been dead seven years.”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t you give it to me?”
“Because after your parents died, you disappeared.”
“Patrick knew where I was.”
“Patrick did not trust me.”
“Maybe he had a reason.”
Gabriel’s mouth tightened.
“He did.”
Liam looked between us.
“What reason?”
Gabriel glanced toward the window.
“Because Patrick believed there was a traitor inside the Vitali organization.”
I almost laughed at how absurdly small that word sounded.
Organization.
As if this were merely a company problem.
“My father died because of this, didn’t he?”
Gabriel did not answer immediately.
Then he said the words I had spent seven years both needing and fearing.
“Yes.”
My legs failed.
I sat down hard on the sofa.
Liam moved beside me.
Gabriel placed the envelope on the table.
“There is more.”
“Of course there is.”
My laugh sounded broken.
Gabriel’s gaze lowered briefly toward my stomach.
Then back to my face.
“Alessandro has been looking for Emma Reed since the morning after the gala.”
My pulse jumped.
“Why?”
“He has not explained that to me.”
“And now he knows I’m Elizabeth?”
“No.”
I looked at the phone with the threatening message.
“But it said he knows.”
“That message was designed to make you panic.”
“Then who sent it?”
Gabriel looked at the envelope.
“The same person who has spent seven years wondering whether Thomas Shaw’s daughter actually died.”
Liam’s voice hardened.
“Matteo Vitali.”
Gabriel nodded.
I stared at him.
Then another thought struck me.
“If Matteo knows I’m alive, why hasn’t he come for me before?”
Gabriel’s eyes became grim.
“Because until six weeks ago, he had no reason to believe you possessed anything valuable.”
I looked at my father’s envelope.
Gabriel shook his head.
“I wasn’t talking about the letter.”
His gaze dropped again.
This time unmistakably toward my abdomen.
Cold spread through me.
“He knows about the baby?”
“We believe he suspects.”
“Why would my baby matter to him?”
May you like
Gabriel’s answer came softly.
“Because if that child is Alessandro Vitali’s, the balance of power inside the Vitali empire changes overnight.”
