Chapter 2 - When the House Went Dark
The darkness swallowed the bedroom so completely that Sadi could no longer see Gabriel's face.
For one second, nobody moved.
Then Enzo shouted from somewhere near the foot of the bed.
"Nobody opens that door."
A hard metallic click came from the hallway.
Another followed from the window.
Sadi heard the guard who had brought the photograph curse under his breath.
Gabriel's voice cut through the room with frightening calm.
"Sadi, get down."
She dropped beside the bed just as glass burst inward from the far wall.
A bullet struck the headboard where her shoulder had been a moment earlier.
The guard fired twice toward the window.
Someone in the hallway began pounding on the locked door.
"Mr. Falcone, security."
Enzo answered immediately.
"Name yourself."
There was a pause.
"Rossi."
The guard beside Sadi whispered through the dark.
"Rossi is downstairs."
Gabriel's breathing changed.
Not faster.
Sharper.
"They are already inside."
Sadi's hand found the edge of the mattress.
She could smell blood, gunpowder, and something faintly chemical beneath both.
A phone screen flashed near the floor as Enzo switched it on for half a second.
That half second was enough.
Sadi saw the surgeon's scan folder on the chair.
She saw the clear tubing leading from a hanging IV bag toward Gabriel's arm.
And she saw a shadow moving beside the IV pole.
"Don't touch that line."
The figure froze.
Enzo's phone went dark again.
A man's voice answered from the corner.
"I'm checking the infusion."
Sadi recognized the exhausted older surgeon who had warned Gabriel about amputation.
"You were told to leave."
"The power failure may have stopped the pump."
Gabriel spoke without raising his voice.
"Step away from me."
The surgeon did not move.
Sadi heard plastic click against plastic.
It was a tiny sound.
It was also the same kind of sound she had heard hundreds of times while helping her mother prepare IV supplies at the kitchen table when she was a child.
A syringe meeting an injection port.
Sadi lunged toward the sound.
Her hand struck a wrist.
The surgeon swore.
Something small hit the floor.
Enzo's flashlight snapped on.
The beam caught the surgeon standing over Gabriel with a syringe in his hand.
For one stunned second, nobody spoke.
Then the surgeon drove his shoulder into Sadi and ran for the bathroom door.
The guard tackled him before he made two steps.
The syringe skidded across the hardwood floor.
Enzo kicked it away.
"Hold him."
The man began shouting.
"You don't understand."
Sadi pushed herself upright.
"Then explain why you were injecting him in the dark."
The surgeon looked at Gabriel.
His face was suddenly less tired than terrified.
"It was pain medication."
Sadi pointed toward the IV tubing.
"Then why didn't you use the labeled medication port on the pump?"
The surgeon's eyes shifted toward her.
That hesitation answered the question before he did.
Gabriel noticed it too.
"Enzo."
Enzo picked up the syringe with a handkerchief and held it beneath his phone light.
There was no label.
The liquid inside was perfectly clear.
The banging outside the bedroom stopped.
The sudden silence was worse.
Gabriel stared at the surgeon.
"Who told you to come back into this room?"
"No one."
"Wrong answer."
The guard tightened his hold.
The surgeon winced.
"I was trying to save your arm."
Gabriel gave him a cold look.
"Twenty surgeons told me my arm could not be saved."
"Exactly."
The man swallowed.
"I thought there was still a chance."
Sadi looked at his hands.
His left cuff was damp.
Not with sweat.
With blood.
Gabriel's blood.
She remembered something from the dining room.
The first men who had crowded Gabriel after the shooting had been guards, paramedics, and one physician who arrived before the ambulance crew.
She had barely noticed him because she had been holding pressure on the wound.
Now she looked more closely at the surgeon's face.
"Were you at Belladonna tonight?"
The man's eyes flicked toward her.
Enzo turned sharply.
"Answer her."
"No."
Sadi stepped closer.
"You are lying."
"I was here."
"Your cuff is stained with blood that was already dry before the power went out."
The room went still again.
Enzo moved the phone light toward the man's sleeve.
The stain was dark and brown at the edges.
Gabriel's expression changed.
"Search him."
The guard found a wallet, two phones, a medical card, and a small plastic packet in the surgeon's inside pocket.
Inside the packet were three clear caps with blue stripes.
Sadi's stomach dropped.
They were identical to the one she had found beneath Gabriel's chair.
Enzo stared at them.
"Son of a bitch."
The surgeon stopped pretending.
His shoulders sagged.
Gabriel watched him with a stillness that felt more dangerous than anger.
"Who paid you?"
The surgeon looked toward the dark window.
"You think money is the reason people do things around you."
"Usually."
"Not this time."
A red emergency light suddenly flickered on near the ceiling.
It illuminated half the room in a dim crimson glow.
The surgeon's face looked almost gray beneath it.
Sadi saw fear there.
Real fear.
Not fear of Gabriel.
Fear of whoever had sent him.
"Who paid you?" Gabriel repeated.
The surgeon laughed once.
It sounded broken.
"You are asking the wrong question."
"Then give me the right one."
The man looked directly at Sadi.
"Ask why she was working tonight."
Sadi felt the room shift around her.
Enzo's head turned.
Gabriel did not blink.
"What does that mean?"
The surgeon's mouth opened.
A gunshot exploded from the hallway.
The bedroom door shook in its frame.
The guard beside the surgeon looked toward it.
That moment of distraction was enough.
The surgeon ripped free, reached beneath his shirt, and pulled out a narrow ceramic blade.
He did not attack Gabriel.
He turned toward Sadi.
Enzo intercepted him.
The two men slammed into the dresser.
The blade flashed once in the red light.
Enzo grunted.
Sadi grabbed the heavy metal scan tray and swung it into the surgeon's wrist.
The blade fell.
The guard drove the surgeon to the floor.
Enzo staggered back with a thin cut across his forearm.
Gabriel looked at Sadi.
"He went for you."
She already knew.
The pounding resumed outside.
This time a voice shouted through the door.
"Fire in the west hall."
Smoke began curling beneath the bedroom door.
Enzo looked toward Gabriel.
"We have to move."
Gabriel tried to sit up.
Pain crossed his face so quickly that anyone standing farther away might have missed it.
Sadi did not.
"You are not walking."
"I wasn't asking."
"Good, because the answer is still no."
Gabriel stared at her for half a second.
Even now, something close to amusement touched his eyes.
Then the emergency light died.
The room fell dark again.
Enzo pulled open a panel beside the fireplace.
A narrow service passage appeared behind it.
Sadi stared.
"Of course you have a secret hallway."
Gabriel's voice came from behind her.
"You sound disappointed."
"I was hoping for one normal thing tonight."
"Wrong house."
The guard and Enzo lifted Gabriel from the bed.
He refused the wheelchair waiting beside the wall.
"Too slow."
"You are bleeding through the bandage," Sadi said.
"Then walk faster."
Smoke pushed into the room as the bedroom door began to splinter.
They moved into the service passage.
Enzo dragged the captured surgeon with them.
Sadi followed last and pulled the hidden panel shut.
The corridor was narrow enough that her shoulders nearly brushed both walls.
Emergency strips glowed faintly along the floor.
They moved ten yards before the surgeon suddenly stopped resisting.
His knees buckled.
The guard caught him.
"Move."
The surgeon made a choking sound.
Sadi turned.
Foam had appeared at the corner of his mouth.
His eyes widened.
"He took something."
Enzo grabbed his jaw.
"What did you swallow?"
The surgeon shook violently.
Sadi crouched beside him.
"Call the doctors."
"No signal in here."
The surgeon's hand closed around Sadi's sleeve.
His grip was shockingly strong.
"Your father," he whispered.
Sadi froze.
"What about my father?"
His eyes moved toward Gabriel.
"He knew."
Sadi leaned closer.
"Knew what?"
The surgeon's mouth worked soundlessly.
Then one word escaped.
"Holdings."
His hand went limp.
Sadi stared at him.
Enzo slowly released the man's jaw.
Gabriel looked toward the dark passage ahead.
"G.F.H."
Enzo said nothing.
That silence caught Sadi's attention immediately.
She turned toward him.
"You know what it means."
Enzo kept his eyes forward.
"Keep moving."
"You know what those letters mean."
"This is not the place."
Sadi stepped in front of him.
"He just said my dead father knew something about holdings."
Gabriel's voice was quiet.
"Enzo."
Enzo stopped.
His jaw tightened.
"G.F.H. was a company."
Sadi waited.
"What company?"
Enzo finally looked at her.
"Giovanni Falcone Holdings."
The name meant nothing to Sadi.
It clearly meant everything to Gabriel.
His face became unreadable.
"That company was dissolved twenty-two years ago," he said.
Enzo shook his head.
"On paper."
A deep thud shook the passage behind them.
Someone had breached Gabriel's bedroom.
Enzo drew his gun.
"We can discuss family history after we survive the next five minutes."
They started moving again.
At the end of the passage, Enzo opened a steel door leading into a basement security room.
Three monitors were still running on backup power.
One showed the front gate hanging open.
Another showed flames crawling along the west hallway.
The third showed the circular driveway.
Six black vehicles were entering the property.
Sadi looked at Enzo.
"Are those yours?"
He did not answer.
Gabriel stared at the screen.
The lead vehicle stopped beneath the camera.
A man stepped out.
He was silver-haired, broad-shouldered, and dressed in a charcoal overcoat.
The armed men already inside the estate immediately lowered their weapons when they saw him.
Gabriel's face hardened.
Sadi looked between him and the monitor.
"Who is that?"
Gabriel answered without taking his eyes off the screen.
"My uncle."
The man on the monitor looked directly into the security camera.
Then he smiled.
"Matteo Falcone," Gabriel said.
The intercom crackled.
Matteo's voice filled the basement.
"Gabriel, I know you are still alive."
A pause followed.
May you like
Then Matteo said the words that made Enzo raise his gun.
"Bring me the Moreno girl, and I will let the doctors save what is left of you."
