Chapter 18 - The Man Standing in the Room
Gabriel did not move.
Neither did Mia.
Ortiz watched his face.
"Who?"
Marco's voice remained low through the phone.
"I need a clear view."
Gabriel turned the phone camera toward the old conference room.
Federal agents stood near the entrance.
Two Romano security officers waited by the elevator.
Adrian leaned against the blue wall.
Ortiz's evidence specialist examined the printer cartridge.
Marco said, "Left side."
Gabriel moved the camera.
"More."
One Romano security officer came into view.
His name was Colin Rusk.
Marco went silent.
Gabriel understood.
"Colin?"
Rusk looked toward him.
That was enough.
Rusk reached beneath his jacket.
Ortiz shouted.
Two federal agents tackled him before the weapon cleared leather.
Mia stepped backward into the Blue Room.
Rusk fought hard.
Gabriel watched him stop only when Ortiz pressed him against the floor.
"Who paid you?"
Rusk laughed.
"Nobody."
Marco's voice came through the phone.
"His wife has late-stage kidney failure."
Rusk's face changed.
Ortiz looked at Gabriel.
Marco continued.
"Vittorio's foundation has been paying for an experimental treatment."
Mia closed her eyes.
Another hostage without chains.
Rusk's anger collapsed into panic.
"He said they would stop treatment."
Ortiz crouched.
"Where is Daniel's ledger?"
"I do not know."
"You switched it."
"Hale switched it."
"On your order."
"Vittorio's order."
"Where did the real ledger go?"
Rusk shook his head.
"Courier bag."
"To where?"
"Old Romano house."
Gabriel went still.
"Which one?"
Rusk looked at him.
"The family mansion."
Gabriel's childhood home.
The same estate where the greenhouse had hidden Elias's toolbox.
Mia understood first.
"He went back."
Adrian looked toward the window.
"Of course he did."
Ortiz stood.
"Nobody goes anywhere until we process this room."
Gabriel stared at her.
"Vittorio has the original ledger."
"And a federal fugitive warrant will be issued."
"He already escaped one armed perimeter."
"Which is why civilians are not pursuing him."
Mia looked at the printer cartridge.
"You do not need us for the next thirty minutes."
Ortiz gave her a flat look.
"No."
"That was not a question."
"I noticed."
Gabriel almost smiled.
Ortiz pointed at him.
"Your warrant is still active."
An agent entered the room quickly.
"Ma'am."
He handed Ortiz a phone.
She listened for twenty seconds.
Her expression changed.
She looked at Gabriel.
"The biometric transfer at 11:18 p.m."
"What about it?"
"News archive shows you speaking live at Daniel's wake from 11:12 to 11:24."
Mia exhaled.
Ortiz continued.
"The challenge phrase on the Crown approval matches words from a television interview you gave six months earlier."
Gabriel stared.
"Replay attack."
Mia nodded.
Ortiz looked at him.
"The government is moving to suspend your warrant."
"Moving?"
"Judges remain slower than bullets."
Mia looked at the clock.
9:06 a.m.
"Then we wait twelve minutes?"
Ortiz sighed.
"You are both exhausting."
Eleven minutes later, Gabriel's federal detention order was suspended.
Mia signed a medical release Price had sent electronically with several hostile comments in the margin.
Ortiz did not authorize them to go after Vittorio.
She did something smarter.
She authorized Gabriel to identify structural features of the Romano mansion while federal teams established a perimeter.
Gabriel interpreted that broadly.
Mia interpreted it as permission to sit in the command vehicle.
Ortiz disagreed.
Mia arrived anyway.
The old estate looked different in daylight.
Police vehicles lined the road beyond the trees.
Federal teams moved through the grounds.
No one had entered the mansion yet.
Vittorio had called the federal command line ten minutes earlier.
He claimed he had hostages.
Two.
Marco Bennett.
Dante Romano.
Gabriel stared at Ortiz.
"Marco was with Hale."
"He disappeared after that call."
"How?"
"His vehicle was found near the estate gate."
Mia looked toward the greenhouse.
"He came here because of the ledger."
Ortiz nodded.
"And walked into a trap."
Gabriel's face hardened.
"What does Vittorio want?"
Ortiz handed him a phone.
A text displayed three demands.
Both Crown master keys.
Adrian Vale.
Gabriel Romano.
Mia frowned.
"He does not ask for me."
Gabriel looked at her.
"Good."
"No."
"Mia."
"He spent all night trying to capture me."
She pointed at the message.
"Now he does not want me inside."
Ortiz understood.
"Because he thinks she knows something."
Gabriel looked at Mia.
"Do you?"
"Not yet."
She opened photographs of the ledger pages taken before it disappeared.
Daniel's notes filled the images.
Mia searched for references to the mansion.
One line appeared beside Vittorio's photograph.
SUNDAY TABLE - RECORDS EVERYTHING.
Mia stared.
"What is the Sunday table?"
Gabriel's face changed.
"Dining room."
"Why would Daniel write that?"
"Our father held family meetings there."
Adrian, standing beside Ortiz with his shoulder bandaged, looked toward the mansion.
"Salvatore recorded them."
Gabriel turned.
"What?"
"For decades."
"You knew?"
"He believed nobody told the truth twice the same way."
Mia almost smiled.
"I may like your father less than Gabriel likes mine."
Adrian ignored that.
"The dining room had microphones beneath the table and a tape system behind the wine cabinet."
Gabriel stared at the house.
"Daniel found the recordings."
Mia nodded.
"And if Vittorio knows, he wants to destroy them."
Ortiz looked at the mansion plan.
"Where is the recorder?"
Gabriel pointed.
"West wall."
"Can it transmit?"
Adrian shook his head.
"Old analog system."
Mia looked at Daniel's note again.
RECORDS EVERYTHING.
"Unless Daniel modified it."
Gabriel looked at her.
"Why would he?"
"Because he left trails."
She searched the phone backup card again.
One application appeared with no icon and no name.
Mia opened it.
A single audio endpoint was listed.
SUNDAY.
Her heart accelerated.
"He did."
Ortiz leaned closer.
"What is that?"
"Remote audio receiver."
"Live?"
Mia connected through a secure local relay.
Static filled the speaker.
Then a voice.
Vittorio.
"You were always weak, Dante."
Gabriel went still.
Dante answered from inside the mansion.
"You shot me."
"In the arm."
"You left me to die at Pier 19."
"You were not dying."
Mia looked at Ortiz.
"We have live audio."
Ortiz signaled her recording team.
Inside the dining room, Vittorio continued.
"Your problem was wanting affection from men who respected usefulness."
Dante laughed bitterly.
"You mean you."
"I mean the world."
Marco's voice entered the recording.
"That speech sounded better when Salvatore used it."
Vittorio struck something.
Marco grunted.
Gabriel's jaw tightened.
Ortiz held up a hand.
"We need him talking."
Mia looked at Gabriel.
"Then give him what he asked for."
"Me."
"Yes."
"And Adrian."
"Yes."
"And the keys."
Mia looked at the sealed Crown case.
"Copies."
Adrian shook his head.
"He knows what the originals look like."
Mia smiled faintly.
"So did Dante."
Gabriel remembered the parking garage.
"And the fake lasted until they tested it."
"Exactly."
Ortiz looked at her.
"Your plan depends on getting close enough to a murderer for him to inspect a fake key."
Mia nodded.
"That has been a recurring weakness tonight."
Gabriel's answer was immediate.
"You stay outside."
Mia looked at him.
"This time, yes."
He blinked.
"That was easy."
"Because Vittorio specifically does not want me inside."
"Which means?"
"I can do more damage from here."
She held up Daniel's live audio receiver.
Inside the mansion, Vittorio spoke again.
"Gabriel has always believed the family loved him."
Marco laughed.
"He stopped believing that around midnight."
Vittorio's voice became colder.
May you like
"Then I suppose we finish his education at the same table where it began."
