Chapter 6 - GIDEON'S PERFECT ALIBI
The theft of the DNA samples should have helped Sophia.
Instead, Gideon used it before sunrise.
His legal team filed a motion claiming Roman had interfered with the court-ordered test to prevent discovery that Gabriel was not Vincent's child.
By 7:00 a.m., business reporters were asking why Roman Callaway had hidden a homeless mother and newborn in a closed hotel.
By 7:20, photographs of Sophia sleeping in the stairwell were online.
By 7:35, an anonymous source described her as Roman's "secret dependent."
At 8:00, Callaway Consolidated stock opened down nine percent.
Sophia watched the television in disgust.
"They made me look like I came to you for money."
Roman turned the screen off.
"That is the point."
"People will believe it."
"Some will."
"You sound like you don't care."
"I care about outcomes, not strangers' first impressions."
Sophia looked at him.
"That is easy to say when strangers have spent your whole life assuming you belong in every room."
Roman had no immediate reply.
She looked away.
"When a poor woman says someone threatened her, people ask what she did wrong.
When a billionaire says it, they call it a security incident."
Roman took that in without defending himself.
"Then we give them something harder to ignore than status."
Owen found the first useful break.
The two men who robbed the medical office had used a stolen delivery van.
Traffic cameras traced it to a garage owned by Meridian Civic Services, a contractor that maintained several Callaway properties.
Roman knew the name because Adrian Cross had negotiated the contract.
"Where is Adrian?"
Roman asked.
Owen replied, "Still supposedly in Boston."
"Supposedly?"
"His hotel keycard was used at 11:13 p.m., but facial recognition from the lobby shows his assistant entering the room, not Adrian."
Roman's eyes hardened.
"So his alibi was staged."
"Possibly."
"Find him."
Sophia heard the name again.
"You thought your chief operating officer's credential was copied."
"I wanted it to be copied."
"Because the alternative hurts more?"
Roman looked at her.
"Because Adrian has stood beside me for fifteen years."
"Vincent was your brother."
"Exactly."
Evelyn arrived with a secure laptop and new information about the Continuity Trust.
Vincent's eighteen-percent block was real, but the second instrument-First Blood-did not transfer shares.
It released evidence to six independent recipients if a verified descendant existed and one of three triggering conditions occurred: unlawful custody transfer, death of the mother, or an attempt to invalidate the child through fraudulent genetic evidence.
Sophia stared at the screen.
"All three things are happening."
"Two are being attempted," Evelyn said.
"And the third is what worries me."
Roman's expression went cold.
"Death of the mother."
Evelyn nodded.
"The trust assumes the mother is the most vulnerable point."
Sophia whispered, "Vincent wrote this before he ever met me."
"Yes."
"Then it was not about me."
"No," Roman said.
"It was about whoever eventually carried his child."
Sophia looked sick.
"That is not comforting."
Evelyn explained that First Blood's evidence would be released through an old escrow service if the trigger was verified by two of three trustees.
One trustee was Silas, now dead.
One was a retired judge named Miriam Hale.
The third was listed only by initials: A.C.
Roman stared at them.
"Adrian Cross."
Evelyn shook her head.
"Could be."
Sophia said, "Could also be whoever wants you to think it is."
Roman glanced at her.
She was learning quickly.
They found Judge Miriam Hale at a retirement community in Connecticut.
Roman wanted to send a team.
Sophia insisted on speaking to her by video first.
The judge appeared on screen in a blue cardigan, white hair neatly pinned back, eyes still sharp.
When Roman introduced himself, she said, "I know who you are.
Your father sent Christmas pears for nineteen years and never once remembered I was allergic."
Roman almost smiled.
"Did you serve as trustee of First Blood?"
Hale's expression changed.
"Who told you that name?"
"Vincent."
"Then he is alive?"
"Apparently."
Hale closed her eyes.
"That foolish boy."
Sophia leaned toward the screen.
"Judge Hale, I am Sophia Maren.
My son is Gabriel."
Hale looked at the baby and seemed to age five years in one breath.
"So it happened."
Roman said, "What happened?"
Hale replied, "Vincent created the trust because he believed Gideon would eventually use Orpheus against a child in the family."
"Why not expose Gideon then?"
"Because Vincent had evidence of crimes but not of who controlled the network.
Gideon was one piece.
There were judges, physicians, private investigators, financial custodians, and people inside your own company."
"Names?"
"Encrypted."
"Where?"
Hale shook her head.
"I was never told."
"Then what was your job?"
"To verify one thing."
She looked at Sophia.
"Whether the mother acted voluntarily."
Sophia's skin prickled.
"Voluntarily about what?"
"About the child's legal identity."
Hale asked Sophia a series of questions.
Had she agreed to alter Gabriel's birth certificate?
No.
Had she agreed to transfer custody?
No.
Had she knowingly accepted payment in exchange for naming Vincent as father?
No.
Had she signed any guardianship agreement?
No.
Hale nodded slowly.
"Then First Blood considers any contrary document presumptively fraudulent."
Evelyn leaned in.
"Can you certify that now?"
"I can."
Roman asked, "What happens if you do?"
Hale looked at him.
"The evidence release begins."
Before she could sign, the video froze.
The screen went black.
Owen checked the connection.
"Her side dropped."
Roman called the retirement facility.
No answer.
He called local police.
The dispatcher said officers were already responding to a fire alarm at the building.
Roman stood.
"We're going."
The retirement center was forty minutes away.
By the time Roman arrived, residents were outside under blankets and firefighters were clearing smoke from a laundry room.
Judge Hale was missing.
Her apartment door had been forced from the inside.
No blood.
No struggle.
A staff member had seen two paramedics escort her toward an ambulance before the fire department arrived.
There was no ambulance listed in the dispatch record.
Sophia had remained in the armored vehicle with Gabriel and Owen.
Roman returned with his expression carved from stone.
"They took her."
Sophia closed her eyes.
"Because she was going to certify me."
"Yes."
"So Gideon knows everything we do."
Roman looked at Owen.
"Or someone near us is telling him."
Owen's jaw tightened.
"You think it is me?"
"I think suspicion is cheaper than another kidnapping."
"I've been with you seventeen years."
"Adrian has been with me fifteen."
"Evelyn longer."
Evelyn, seated in the second vehicle, heard through the comms.
"And I would appreciate being suspected equally."
Roman said, "You are."
Back at the hotel, he split information deliberately.
He told Owen that a second DNA test would occur at a private clinic in Queens.
He told Evelyn it would occur at a university lab in New Jersey.
He told Adrian, by encrypted message, that it would happen at a Callaway research facility in Manhattan.
Sophia watched him.
"And where is it really happening?"
"Nowhere."
"You're setting traps."
"Three."
"What if all three are attacked?"
"Then our problem is larger than one traitor."
Within two hours, police received an anonymous bomb threat at the Queens clinic.
Evelyn's university contact reported two men attempting to access the lab's loading entrance.
And the Callaway research facility's fire system was remotely triggered.
Roman stared at the reports.
"All three."
Sophia whispered, "So all three people leaked?"
"Or our communications are compromised."
Owen swore.
Evelyn said, "Or Gideon is watching every obvious location and did not need leaks."
Roman rubbed his jaw.
"Exactly.
Which means we are reacting to him, not controlling the pace."
Sophia looked at Gabriel.
"Then stop being obvious."
Roman turned.
"Meaning?"
"They expect billionaires, lawyers, private labs, armored cars, and secure buildings."
"Yes."
"Daniel found me at a free legal clinic.
He rented a room over a laundromat.
He used cash.
Maybe he understood something you don't."
Roman's eyes narrowed.
"And what is that?"
"Poor people disappear every day without needing a private jet."
That afternoon, Sophia, Gabriel, Roman, and Owen left the hotel in a plumbing contractor's van.
Evelyn took a different route.
Roman wore work clothes and a baseball cap.
Sophia almost laughed when she saw him.
"You look offended by denim."
"I am."
"Good.
You look more human."
They drove to a small pediatric practice in the Bronx owned by Dr. Lena Ortiz, a physician Sophia knew from the community clinic.
Roman had never heard of her.
That was why he trusted the location more than any building he owned.
Dr. Ortiz performed new buccal swabs and drew a tiny blood sample from Gabriel while Sophia held him.
Roman provided his own sample.
Every step was recorded on two offline cameras.
The samples would be split between three independent labs under different anonymous codes.
As Dr. Ortiz sealed the final envelope, the front bell rang.
Owen reached for his weapon.
A teenage receptionist came back holding a package.
"Courier said it was for Sophia."
There was no return address.
Roman opened it outside under a shield bag.
Inside was a cheap prepaid phone and a photograph of Judge Hale sitting in a chair, alive, holding that day's newspaper.
A message appeared on the phone.
BRING THE BABY TO ST.
ANNE'S.
MIDNIGHT.
NO ROMAN.
Sophia's face hardened.
"They want me alone."
Roman said, "You're not going."
The phone rang.
Sophia answered before Roman could stop her.
Gideon's voice came through.
"Ms. Maren, I am trying to prevent more people from being hurt."
Sophia looked at Roman.
"Then release Judge Hale."
"That depends on you."
"You want Gabriel."
"I want a conversation."
"You tried to drug me and take him."
Gideon sighed.
"Roman tells stories in which he is always the protector.
Ask him what he did the night Vincent died."
Sophia's eyes moved to Roman.
Gideon continued, "Ask him why Vincent was running from his own brother before he disappeared."
The call ended.
Sophia did not look away from Roman.
"What did you do?"
May you like
Roman's face became unreadable.
Then he said, "I chased him."
