Chapter 3
The staircase ended beneath the east wing.
Not in a cellar.
In a corridor.
Finished walls.
Electric lights.
Fresh carpet.
Someone had spent money maintaining it.
Gabriel descended first.
Nero beside him.
Olivia followed with the memory cards sealed inside a linen pouch.
Two bodyguards brought Arthur and Caleb.
Arthur laughed.
“Careful, Gabriel.”
Gabriel kept walking.
“You sound nervous.”
“I sound experienced.”
“You sound like a man hoping I turn around.”
Silence.
At the corridor’s end were three doors.
One marked STORAGE.
One unmarked.
One fitted with a keypad.
Nero ignored the first two.
He stopped at the keypad door.
Caleb’s face changed.
Gabriel noticed.
“Code.”
Caleb smiled.
“No.”
Arthur added:
“You don’t get everything because you threaten people.”
Gabriel looked at them.
Then at Olivia.
“Did you ever clean below this wing?”
She shook her head.
“I was told there was no lower level.”
“By whom?”
“Caleb.”
Caleb shrugged.
“Security protocol.”
Arthur smiled cruelly.
“She cleans toilets. We don’t brief her on infrastructure.”
Olivia flinched.
Gabriel looked at Arthur.
“You keep reminding everyone she’s a housekeeper.”
“She is.”
“No.”
Arthur raised an eyebrow.
Gabriel’s voice stayed calm.
“She’s the person who found what my adviser hid.”
That landed harder than shouting.
Nero began scratching near the keypad.
Olivia crouched.
“There’s dust around the frame.”
Gabriel looked.
Not dust.
Scrape marks.
The keypad had been opened repeatedly.
Olivia touched the decorative key hanging from her uniform.
“I use this for old linen closets.”
She slid the narrow key beneath the side plate.
A spring released.
The keypad cover opened.
Caleb swore.
Inside was a manual latch.
Gabriel pulled it.
The door opened.
A long room appeared.
Six desks.
Three phones.
A radio wall.
Stacks of labeled memory-card cases.
And a large map of Moretti territory.
Arthur’s face emptied.
Gabriel stepped inside.
Colored pins marked his warehouses.
Safehouses.
Capo residences.
Even his mother’s grave.
Then Olivia whispered:
“Mr. Moretti…”
She pointed toward a red pin.
His private bedroom.
May you like
And beneath it—
Gabriel’s name had been crossed out.
