Chapter 8 - THE HOUSE WITH NO WINDOWS
Gabriel was awake by the time they reached Bay Ridge.
He was also furious that everyone had assumed he was dying.
Elias stood beside the sofa with his arms folded.
“He fainted because he lost blood, tore stitches, refused pain medication, and decided coffee counted as hydration.”
Gabriel glared at him.
“I did not faint.”
“You fell unconscious while sitting down.”
“That is called sleeping.”
Elena looked at Norah.
“He hit the floor.”
“Very restful.”
Gabriel looked at Norah’s face and stopped arguing.
“What happened?”
“Silas is dead.”
Mateo placed the USB drive on the table.
Gabriel’s expression hardened.
“Talk.”
They told him everything.
The seven-minute blackout.
The kidnapped nephew.
The Saint messages.
The phrase about the heir Gabriel did not know existed.
Gabriel listened without interruption.
Only when Norah mentioned Dominic’s reaction did his eyes move toward his godfather.
Dominic stood near the window.
“You recognized the phrase.”
“Yes.”
“From where?”
Dominic looked at Declan.
Declan’s face had gone unreadable.
Norah noticed again.
Gabriel noticed this time too.
“What are both of you hiding?”
Neither answered.
Gabriel’s voice became quiet.
“Declan.”
Declan rubbed his thumb across his split knuckle.
“Not here.”
“This is the only place you are alive because I allow it.”
Declan looked up.
“And that is exactly why not here.”
Gabriel stood too quickly.
Pain crossed his face.
Norah moved before she thought and caught his arm.
He steadied himself against her.
For one second they were as close as they had been in the safe house before dawn.
Then Norah remembered everything between them and let go.
Gabriel looked at Dominic.
“Does this involve my father?”
“Yes.”
“My mother?”
Dominic hesitated.
“Yes.”
“Elena?”
Dominic looked at her.
“No.”
Elena’s expression tightened.
Gabriel turned to Declan.
“And you?”
Declan’s jaw flexed.
“I learned something six months ago.”
“What?”
Before he could answer, the lights died.
Norah’s stomach dropped.
Mateo drew his pistol.
“No shots outside.”
A second later, the apartment’s fire alarm began screaming.
Smoke poured beneath the hallway door.
Elias swore.
“This building is empty.”
Mateo checked the rear stairwell.
“Fire below us.”
Gabriel looked toward the windows.
A black SUV stopped across the street.
Then another.
Declan stared down.
“This is not a fire.”
The tailor shop beneath them erupted in flame.
Heat rolled through the floorboards.
“Roof.”
Mateo shoved open the access hatch.
They climbed onto the roof as smoke filled the stairwell.
The neighboring buildings were separated by narrow alleys.
Gabriel could not jump them in his condition.
Norah looked at a maintenance ladder bolted to the rear wall.
It descended toward a courtyard.
Mateo shook his head.
“Too exposed.”
Gunfire cracked from the alley.
The rooftop vent beside them sparked.
Declan fired back.
Dominic pointed toward an old laundry line stretched between buildings.
“We go over.”
Elena stared at him.
“You expect me to cross a clothesline?”
“It is a steel maintenance cable.”
“That is not better.”
Mateo clipped a utility belt to the cable and rigged a sliding loop.
Elena went first.
Then Elias.
Norah followed with the investigation bag strapped across her chest.
Halfway over the alley, a bullet struck the brick below her feet.
She stopped moving.
Gabriel shouted from the roof.
“Norah, move.”
She forced her hands forward.
The cable shook.
She reached the other building and collapsed behind a chimney.
Declan came next.
Dominic followed.
Gabriel was last.
Mateo secured the belt around him.
Another burst of gunfire tore across the roof.
Gabriel pushed away from the edge.
The cable sagged under his weight.
Norah watched him slide over the alley, one hand pressed against his wound.
Then the cable anchor tore loose from the first building.
Gabriel dropped.
Norah lunged forward.
Mateo caught the loose cable from the far side.
Gabriel slammed against the brick wall one story below them.
His body disappeared beneath the ledge.
“Gabriel!”
Norah crawled to the edge.
His left hand gripped the cable.
Blood ran from his reopened wound.
Mateo and Declan hauled him upward.
By the time he reached the roof, his face was gray.
Norah knelt beside him.
“You are not allowed to call that sleeping.”
He managed a breathless smile.
“I wasn’t planning to.”
They escaped through a neighboring building and split again.
Elias took Gabriel with Mateo.
Dominic took Elena.
Norah insisted on taking a separate car with Declan because the USB drive needed to be examined somewhere isolated.
It was a mistake.
They knew it three blocks later.
A police cruiser appeared behind them.
Declan checked the mirror.
“No siren.”
“Maybe that is good.”
“It is never good.”
A second cruiser pulled from a side street and blocked the intersection.
Declan reached for his pistol.
Norah grabbed his wrist.
“Real police?”
“Maybe.”
“Then do not turn a traffic stop into a funeral.”
The officer approached with one hand raised.
“Driver, step out of the vehicle.”
Declan opened the door slowly.
Norah watched the officer’s uniform.
Everything looked correct.
Then she saw his boots.
No department issue.
Military soles.
“Declan.”
The officer fired a stun gun before Declan could turn.
His body locked and hit the pavement.
Norah reached for the door handle.
Someone yanked it open from outside.
A cloth covered her mouth.
A chemical smell filled her nose.
She kicked, scratched, and bit a gloved hand.
Then the street tilted and went black.
Norah woke strapped to a metal chair.
The room had no windows.
Concrete walls.
One fluorescent light.
A drain in the floor.
Her investigation bag was gone.
The brass key marked 814 sat on a table ten feet away.
So did Daniel’s ledger.
A man in a navy suit sat opposite her.
He was handsome in the careful, expensive way of people who paid others to do ugly work.
Norah recognized Luca Varga from newspapers.
“You are difficult to kidnap.”
Her mouth tasted like chemicals.
“You should put that on a customer review.”
Varga smiled.
“I understand Gabriel likes you.”
“Gabriel likes accurate numbers.”
“He carried you across a roof under gunfire.”
“You have excellent surveillance.”
“Better than his.”
Norah tested the restraints.
Varga poured himself coffee from a stainless-steel thermos as if kidnapping an accountant before breakfast were a normal meeting.
Norah watched the hand holding the cup.
No tremor.
No ring.
A pale scar crossed his thumb.
“You knew the safe house location before the attack.”
Varga looked at her over the rim.
“I knew a location.”
“From a tracker.”
“From a person.”
Norah’s pulse changed.
“The tracker was insurance.”
His smile told her she had found something.
“So someone inside gave you the address directly.”
“Someone inside gave my client enough information to make the tracker useful.”
“That is not the same answer.”
“You are very attached to precision.”
“It keeps people from hiding murder inside grammar.”
Varga set down the cup.
“The safe house was supposed to be empty by four in the morning.”
Norah stared at him.
“We were still there.”
“Yes.”
“Why was it supposed to be empty?”
“Your client expected Gabriel to move after you found the Delaware company.”
“Where?”
Varga smiled.
“Another safe site already prepared for him.”
Norah felt cold.
The attack had not simply been an assassination attempt.
It had been a funnel.
Someone expected Norah’s discovery to trigger Gabriel’s security routine and drive him toward a second location.
The tracker existed in case he chose differently.
“Which site?”
“I do not know.”
“You were paid to kill him without knowing where he would be?”
“I was paid to control exits, not decisions.”
Norah remembered the boots above the culvert receiving a phone call and changing orders.
“They called your men away because Gabriel did not take the expected route.”
Varga’s eyes narrowed.
“You really do hear everything.”
“No.”
Norah looked at the ledger on the table.
“I just notice when expensive plans fail.”
“What do you want?”
“The key.”
“It is on the table.”
“The other key.”
She kept her face blank.
Varga leaned forward.
“Daniel Vale gave Dominic Santoro a key the night before he died.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the man who hired me knows everything Daniel did that week.”
“Then ask him.”
“I cannot.”
“Why?”
Varga’s smile disappeared.
“Because the Saint never speaks twice from the same mouth.”
Norah thought of filtered calls, disposable phones, dead intermediaries, and charity pins.
“The Saint is a protocol.”
“Sometimes.”
“Not a person.”
Varga tilted his head.
“You are close.”
“What does key 814 open?”
“You tell me.”
“I found it this morning.”
“Your father found it first.”
Norah’s pulse changed.
“Was Martin Keene alive after my father died?”
Varga smiled again.
“That is a much better question.”
“Answer it.”
“No.”
“Then we have nothing to discuss.”
Varga stood.
“You think Gabriel will come for you.”
“I think you think he will.”
“That confidence is why people fall in love with dangerous men.”
Norah stared at him.
“I am not in love with Gabriel.”
Varga laughed.
“I did not say his name.”
Norah hated him for the satisfaction on his face.
A door opened behind her.
One of Varga’s men entered and whispered something.
Varga’s expression changed.
“Already?”
The man nodded.
Varga looked at Norah.
“Your boss is either very loyal or very stupid.”
Gunfire sounded somewhere beyond the walls.
Norah’s heart slammed against her ribs.
Varga picked up Daniel’s ledger.
“You should know one thing before he gets here.”
“What?”
“Your father did not die because he discovered A14.”
Norah stopped breathing.
May you like
Varga moved toward the door.
“He died because he tried to give A14 to Gabriel.”
