Chapter 16 - THE MAN INSIDE THE WALLS
Nobody slept that night.
Dominic tore apart his apartment security system.
Every camera.
Every access log.
Every employee schedule.
No breach appeared.
Yet someone had stood within feet of Leo and taken his photograph.
Victor moved Leo and Caleb to a secure property outside the city.
This time I agreed.
I went too.
The house looked ordinary from the road.
Inside, it had reinforced walls, independent power and enough surveillance equipment to embarrass a military base.
Leo called it “the boring house.”
Victor called it temporary.
I called it exhausting.
For three days, nothing happened.
Then Leo found a door.
A tiny one behind the bookcase in his room.
He came downstairs holding a dusty toy soldier.
“Elise, look.”
Victor froze.
“Where did you get that?”
“The secret hallway.”
Everyone moved at once.
Behind the wall was a narrow maintenance passage.
Old.
Built before Victor bought the property.
It connected bedrooms, basement and garage.
Dominic looked sick.
“Someone knew.”
Victor stared down the dark corridor.
“Gabriel.”
We found cigarette ash.
Food wrappers.
A blanket.
Someone had been living inside the walls.
Watching.
Listening.
Waiting.
Then I found photographs.
Dozens.
Victor sleeping.
Leo playing.
Me changing my bandages.
Caleb reading.
Adrian talking on the phone.
It was violation on a level I could barely process.
Victor wanted me out immediately.
I refused until we searched the final room.
It contained a desk.
Maps.
Timelines.
And one massive family tree.
Romano.
Salazar.
Vega.
Carter.
Every name connected.
Mine circled in red.
Under it:
THE BRIDGE.
Victor stared.
“That’s why he needs you.”
“To connect families?”
“To control them.”
Adrian studied the wall.
“Or destroy them together.”
Another note sat beneath my name.
BRIDE.
I looked at Victor.
“Still think the engagement was your idea?”
His face darkened.
“No.”
“Maybe Gabriel wanted us married because it would unify the organizations.”
Mateo, who had joined us that morning, nodded slowly.
“If Victor marries Marisol’s daughter…”
“You get a symbolic alliance.”
“Yes.”
Adrian looked at me.
“And if I’m publicly acknowledged as both Romano and Salazar…”
“Three branches merge.”
Victor stared at Gabriel’s family tree.
“He wants one empire.”
I shook my head.
“But he said he wanted to end the war.”
“He wants to end it by owning everything afterward.”
Then Caleb called from the hallway.
“Elise?”
Something in his voice made me run.
He held an opened envelope.
“What is it?”
“It was under my pillow.”
Victor grabbed it.
Inside were medical records.
Mine.
Blood tests from the shooting.
Genetic analysis.
I stared.
“They tested my blood.”
Exactly as Isabella warned.
Victor read.
Then stopped.
“What?”
He handed the page to me.
I understood very little medical terminology.
Caleb understood.
His face changed.
“Elise.”
“What?”
“You match.”
“Match what?”
He looked toward Adrian.
“Bone marrow.”
I frowned.
“What?”
Caleb pointed at the report.
“You’re a near-perfect match for Adrian.”
“That makes sense if we’re siblings.”
“Yes.”
“But why would Gabriel care?”
Victor found another page.
Patient file.
Unnamed male.
Acute leukemia.
Needs stem cell transplant.
My stomach turned.
“Gabriel is sick.”
Adrian shook his head.
“Or someone close to him.”
Mateo read the genetic markers.
Then went pale.
“These are Salazar markers.”
Victor looked at him.
“Meaning?”
Mateo sat down.
“Gabriel.”
Silence.
Gabriel had not only brought me into the Romano estate to manipulate family alliances.
He needed my blood.
Not symbolically.
Literally.
I looked at the dates.
The first genetic request was submitted two weeks before the attack.
“They shot me because they needed a hospital blood panel.”
Victor’s expression became murderous.
“They could have taken blood any other way.”
“Not without exposing themselves.”
Caleb nodded.
“A trauma patient gets extensive testing immediately.”
“And Gabriel had someone inside the hospital.”
Victor looked toward Adrian.
“Your visit.”
Adrian understood.
“Someone lured me there so suspicion would land on me.”
I sat slowly.
Everything was uglier than we thought.
Gabriel had designed the attack to do three things.
Make me save Leo.
Push Victor toward marriage.
And spill enough of my blood to discover whether I could save Gabriel too.
My phone rang.
Unknown.
Victor shook his head.
I answered anyway.
“Hello?”
Gabriel’s voice.
“You found the file.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“You could have asked.”
He laughed weakly.
“For your bone marrow?”
“Yes.”
“You would have said no.”
“You shot me three times.”
“Before that.”
I thought about it.
“If you had come to me as a sick man instead of a psychopath, maybe.”
Silence.
That answer surprised him.
“Elise.”
“You murdered Sofia.”
His voice hardened.
“I did what was necessary.”
“No.”
“You don’t understand what she would have done.”
“She would have exposed you.”
“She would have destroyed everything.”
“Good.”
Another pause.
“You sound like Marisol.”
“Stop using my mother.”
“I met her.”
My heart stopped.
“What?”
“Once.”
“When?”
“The year before she died.”
I stood.
“Where?”
“She came to Chicago.”
“No.”
“She did.”
“Why?”
“To find Adrian.”
Adrian froze.
Gabriel continued.
“She knew he was her son.”
My breath left me.
“She knew?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Because she planned to bring him home first.”
Adrian sat down hard.
Victor looked at him.
“What happened?”
Gabriel coughed.
For the first time, he sounded sick.
“She found me instead.”
My stomach twisted.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
“I told her Adrian was dead.”
Adrian closed his eyes.
“You stole eight years,” I whispered.
“I needed her gone.”
“Why?”
“Because she recognized me.”
Victor’s eyes sharpened.
“From where?”
Gabriel did not answer.
Then I understood.
The warehouse massacre.
My mother had seen Anthony Romano kill three men.
Maybe Gabriel had been there too.
“You helped Anthony.”
Silence.
Gabriel was older than we believed.
Not forty.
Maybe closer to fifty.
Old enough.
Mateo whispered, “You were there.”
Gabriel ended the call.
Seconds later, Victor’s security alarm sounded.
A convoy approached the property.
Five black SUVs.
No plates.
Dominic shouted from the security room.
“Positions!”
Victor pulled me toward the basement.
“No.”
“This time, you listen.”
“Victor—”
“I almost lost you once.”
His eyes burned.
May you like
“I will not watch it happen again.”
Before I could answer, the outer gate exploded.
