Chapter 16 - GABRIEL’S LAST SECRET
Gabriel did not draw a weapon.
Instead, he removed a small black notebook from his jacket and placed it on the table.
Victor stared at him.
“What is that?”
“The part Elena never knew.”
Gabriel replied.
Victor’s rage shook beneath his skin.
“You gave Mercer her location.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Mercer told me Raymond had found her first.”
Elena’s voice had accused Gabriel.
Gabriel now accused Mercer.
Victor was finished believing anyone.
“Start from the beginning.”
Gabriel looked tired.
“Your father recruited me when I was nineteen.”
“To protect you.”
“Not the organization.”
“You.”
Victor said nothing.
“Salvatore knew Raymond would eventually come after his children.”
“He wanted one person whose loyalty was only to his eldest son.”
“That was me.”
Victor laughed bitterly.
“You have a strange definition of loyalty.”
Gabriel accepted it.
“When Elena planned the fake crash, I helped.”
“When the truck changed course, I followed.”
“I was shot.”
“That part was true.”
“Mercer found me.”
“He told me Elena had survived.”
“He told me Raymond’s men were searching every hospital.”
“So I gave him the lake-house location.”
Victor stepped closer.
“You gave away my wife.”
“I thought I was saving her.”
Gabriel replied.
“Mercer moved her before I reached the house.”
“Then he told me she disappeared.”
Victor’s eyes hardened.
“You believed him for eleven months?”
“No.”
“I investigated.”
“Quietly.”
“Why not tell me?”
“Because by then Mercer was treating Ethan.”
Gabriel’s voice broke.
“And he showed me photographs.”
Victor felt cold.
“What photographs?”
“Ethan sleeping.”
“Ethan with nurses.”
“Ethan in the garden.”
“He told me if I exposed him, the next picture would be Ethan dead.”
Lily listened on the speakerphone from St. Catherine’s.
She understood.
Gabriel had been blackmailed.
That did not erase his choices.
But it changed them.
Victor stared.
“You let my son remain near the man threatening him.”
“I watched Mercer every day.”
“You missed the drugs.”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“You missed Serena.”
“Yes.”
“You missed the kidnapping.”
“Yes.”
Each answer sounded like punishment.
Victor wanted to hate him simply.
Nothing in his life was simple anymore.
Adrian picked up the notebook.
Inside were dates.
Locations.
License plates.
Mercer’s meetings.
One name repeated repeatedly.
R.H.
Raymond Hale.
Nicholas frowned.
“Mercer worked for Raymond.”
Gabriel nodded.
“At first.”
“What changed?”
“I think Mercer began building his own leverage.”
Victor looked at him.
“Elena.”
“Yes.”
Gabriel replied.
“Mercer realized a living Elena Blackwood was worth more than a dead one.”
Adrian understood.
“He could blackmail Raymond.”
“And Victor.”
Gabriel nodded.
“And eventually control the trust through Ethan.”
Nicholas looked sick.
“Everyone wants that money.”
Victor stared toward the lake.
“No.”
“They want power.”
“Money is just how power introduces itself.”
They left for the address Elena had given.
It was not a rehabilitation center.
It was a farmhouse forty miles west.
Victor approached alone.
He refused to risk spooking Elena.
He opened the front door.
A woman stood in the hallway.
For eleven months, he had imagined this moment only in dreams cruel enough to wake him.
Elena was thinner.
A scar ran along her hairline.
She leaned slightly on one leg.
But she was alive.
Victor stopped.
Elena covered her mouth.
He could not move.
Neither could she.
Then Ethan cried from another room.
Reality returned.
Victor crossed the distance.
Elena stepped into him.
They held one another.
No words.
No explanations.
No accusations.
Not yet.
Eleven months of grief broke silently between them.
Victor buried his face against her hair.
“You’re alive.”
Elena cried.
“I’m sorry.”
He pulled back.
“Don’t.”
“I left you.”
“You were taken.”
“I planned the crash.”
“You planned to come back.”
“I should have trusted you.”
Victor looked at her.
“Yes.”
The word hurt.
It was also true.
Elena nodded through tears.
“Yes.”
Ethan cried again.
They went to him.
He sat inside a portable crib.
His cast remained.
His eyes widened when he saw Victor.
“Da.”
Victor lifted him.
Elena watched.
Her face collapsed.
“He knows you.”
Victor looked at her.
“He knows Lily too.”
Elena smiled faintly.
“I know.”
Victor frowned.
“How?”
“Mercer showed me videos.”
The joy disappeared.
Victor’s expression hardened.
“Where is he?”
“Gone.”
“When?”
“An hour before you arrived.”
“Why did he leave you?”
Elena looked toward the window.
“Because he thinks I finally agreed.”
“To what?”
“To help him expose Raymond and take control of the Blackwood trust.”
Victor laughed coldly.
“He wants you to sign something.”
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
Elena looked at Ethan.
“But I told him I would.”
“Why?”
“So he would bring Ethan to me.”
Victor understood.
“You traded yourself.”
“I traded a promise.”
Elena replied.
“There’s a difference.”
Victor almost smiled.
That was Elena.
Still.
Even after everything.
Lily arrived with Dominic and the federal agents an hour later.
When she saw Elena, she stopped at the door.
Elena looked at her.
“You’re Lily.”
Lily nodded.
Elena walked over.
Then hugged her.
Lily froze.
“Thank you.”
Elena whispered.
“For what?”
“For loving my son when I couldn’t be there.”
Lily’s eyes filled.
Victor looked away.
Serena arrived later with Nicholas and Adrian.
The moment Elena saw Serena, the room became ice.
Serena stopped.
“Elena.”
Elena stepped forward.
Victor moved slightly.
Not to stop her.
Only to be ready.
Elena slapped Serena once.
Serena accepted it.
No argument.
No defense.
“I deserved that.”
Elena’s eyes burned.
“You helped them take my life.”
“Yes.”
“You hurt my son.”
Serena closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
Elena’s voice broke.
“I trusted you.”
“I know.”
Serena began crying.
Elena did not forgive her.
Not then.
Maybe never.
But she stepped back.
Nicholas watched.
He saw his mother accept consequences without manipulation for the first time.
Something in his face softened.
Only slightly.
Dominic brought Thomas’s paper ledger.
Elena recognized it.
“Page 411.”
She said.
Lily opened it.
A name appeared.
Dr. Samuel Mercer.
Beside it, Thomas had written.
NOT RAYMOND’S MAN.
Everyone froze.
Lily looked up.
“But Gabriel said—”
Elena shook her head.
“Mercer worked with Raymond.”
“Thomas’s note means something else.”
She turned the page.
Another sentence.
MERCER ANSWERS TO THE FOURTH.
Victor frowned.
“The fourth what?”
Elena looked at Adrian.
Then Raymond’s old family photograph.
Three Blackwood brothers.
Salvatore.
Michael.
Raymond.
Lily understood.
“The fourth brother.”
Adrian shook his head.
“There wasn’t one.”
Elena looked at Victor.
“Yes.”
“There was.”
Victor stared.
“Who?”
Elena whispered.
“Your biological father.”
Silence.
The room changed again.
Victor’s face went blank.
Elena continued.
“Thomas discovered Salvatore’s wife had an affair.”
“The baby born in 1985 was not Salvatore’s son.”
“Your father was a man named Samuel Mercer Senior.”
Victor stared at Dr. Mercer’s name.
Elena’s voice softened.
“Victor.”
“Dr. Mercer is your half-brother.”
Nothing moved.
Then Ethan began crying.
May you like
And Victor realized the man who had kidnapped his wife, manipulated his son’s medical records, and played both Raymond and the Blackwoods was not trying to steal the family from outside.
He believed it belonged to him.
