Chapter 5 - THE MAN IN THE FIRE
“A man?” Gabriel roared into the radio. “Who is in the cottage?!”
“I don't know, sir! We can't see his face!” the guard yelled over the crackle of the radio. “The whole front porch is engulfed!”
My heart hammered against my ribs. The gardener’s cottage had been empty since Margaret moved into the main house last week. Nobody was supposed to be in there.
Gabriel didn't hesitate. He broke into a sprint across the lawn toward the billowing black smoke.
“Stay here!” Dante shouted to me, running after his boss.
I gripped Lucy’s hand tightly. “Don't move, sweetheart. Stay with Grandma Rosa.”
Rosa pulled Lucy into a tight hug, her frail body shaking. “Go, Sarah. We’ll be right here.”
I ran.
The heat hit me before I even reached the treeline. Vanessa’s silver Mercedes was smashed through the front bay window of the old wooden cottage, its engine smoking and flames licking up the hood toward the dry shingle roof.
Vanessa was standing on the lawn, coughing and clutching a heavy black duffel bag. She looked manic, her red gown covered in soot.
“I got it!” she shrieked to nobody in particular, clutching the bag of money. “It’s mine!”
Gabriel ignored her completely. He and Dante were already at the front door, trying to kick it open, but the heavy oak was jammed from the structural damage of the crash.
Through the shattered, flaming window, I saw him.
A man in a dark coat, coughing violently, trapped under a fallen support beam in the living room.
He lifted his head, his face blackened with soot and ash.
I stopped dead in my tracks. The breath was punched out of my lungs.
It couldn't be.
It was impossible.
The man struggling under the beam had a jagged scar above his left eyebrow. A scar from a childhood bicycle accident.
“Daniel!” I screamed, my voice tearing through the roar of the fire.
Gabriel whipped his head around to look at me, then looked back into the burning cottage.
The man inside locked eyes with me.
“Sarah!” he coughed out.
It was him.
My husband was alive.
“Get him out!” I shrieked, running toward the flames.
Dante caught me, throwing me back onto the grass. “You’ll burn to death, ma'am! Stay back!”
Gabriel grabbed a heavy stone planter from the porch and smashed it through the remaining glass of the front window. He ignored the flames licking at his suit jacket and vaulted into the burning living room.
“Boss, no!” Dante yelled, climbing in after him.
I scrambled to my feet, sobbing hysterically. Four years I had mourned him. Four years I had raised our daughter alone. Margaret had just confessed to poisoning him!
How was he here?
I watched in agonizing terror as Gabriel and Dante heaved the burning support beam off Daniel’s legs. The roof was groaning, sparks raining down on them.
“Move, move, move!” Dante barked.
Gabriel hauled Daniel over his shoulder and lunged back out the window just as the interior ceiling collapsed in a shower of sparks and ash.
They crashed onto the damp lawn, coughing and gasping for air.
I threw myself onto the grass beside Daniel.
He was breathing heavily, his leg twisted at an awkward angle, but his eyes—those familiar, warm brown eyes—were locked onto mine.
“I’m sorry,” he rasped, reaching a soot-stained hand up to touch my cheek. “I’m so sorry, Sarah.”
“You’re alive,” I sobbed, burying my face in his chest, not caring about the soot or the smoke. “You’re alive.”
Gabriel stood over us, brushing embers off his ruined suit. He looked furious, confused, and utterly exhausted.
He turned toward Vanessa, who was still standing by her crashed car, staring at the resurrected man in horror.
“You,” Gabriel growled, marching toward Vanessa. He snatched the heavy black duffel bag from her grip.
“That’s mine!” Vanessa shrieked.
“It’s evidence,” Gabriel corrected her coldly.
He unzipped the bag.
But it wasn't full of cash.
Gabriel pulled out a heavy, leather-bound folder.
He opened it, scanning the documents inside. The glow of the burning cottage illuminated his face as his expression shifted from anger to pure shock.
“Gabriel?” Dante asked, stepping closer. “What is it?”
Gabriel looked up from the folder, his dark eyes locking onto my husband on the ground.
“Daniel,” Gabriel said, his voice eerily calm. “Why do you have the original blueprints for the Bellini family bank vaults?”
Vanessa let out a strangled cry and lunged for the folder, but Dante easily restrained her.
I looked down at my husband. “Daniel? What is he talking about?”
Daniel swallowed hard, wincing in pain.
“I’m not a groundskeeper, Sarah,” Daniel whispered, squeezing my hand tightly. “I never was.”
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He looked up at Gabriel.
“My name is Special Agent Daniel Mitchell. I work for the FBI. And I’ve been undercover in this family for ten years.”
