Chapter 8 - THE CARTEL KINGPIN
“The cartel?” I repeated, the word tasting like ash in my mouth.
I stood up from the sofa, my legs trembling so violently I thought I might collapse. “Gabriel, that’s impossible. Daniel is a groundskeeper. He planted tulips. He built Lucy a treehouse.”
Gabriel’s face was carved from stone. He walked over to the mahogany desk in the corner of the room and pulled out a sleek, black laptop.
“Dante didn't just check the badge,” Gabriel said, his fingers flying across the keyboard. “He hacked the federal database. The Bureau has been hunting a ghost known as El Jardinero—The Gardener. He’s the ghost head of the Miami syndicate. He’s been systematically dismantling the Bellini and Moretti operations from the inside for ten years.”
He turned the screen toward me.
It was a federal wanted poster, heavily classified. The picture was grainy, taken from a surveillance camera outside a Miami nightclub three years ago.
But the jagged scar above the left eyebrow was unmistakable.
It was my husband.
“He wasn't investigating the Bellinis to put them in jail,” Gabriel realized, the anger rolling off him in waves. “He was investigating them to steal their laundering routes. The blueprints in the duffel bag weren't evidence. They were his blueprint for a hostile takeover.”
I backed away from the laptop, my hand flying to my mouth.
“He married me,” I whispered, the horrifying truth crashing over me. “He had a child with me.”
“Cover,” Gabriel said gently, though the word felt like a knife. “Who would suspect a humble family man tending roses at a mafia estate?”
“Margaret didn't poison him,” I realized, my voice rising in panic. “He poisoned himself. He faked his death because he had all the intel he needed, and he wanted to run his new empire from the shadows.”
Gabriel closed the laptop with a sharp snap.
“And tonight, he came back for the final piece,” Gabriel said. “The money under the floorboards wasn't Bureau funds. It was the seed money he needed to buy out the final Colombian supplier.”
“He lied to me,” I sobbed, the anger finally overwhelming the grief. “He looked me in the eye tonight and lied again.”
“He’s a sociopath, Sarah,” Gabriel said, crossing the room to stand in front of me. “He doesn't care about you. He doesn't care about Lucy.”
At the sound of her name, my motherly instincts flared into a blinding, protective rage.
“Where is he?” I demanded, wiping the tears aggressively from my face.
“Dante said he slipped out of the hospital,” Gabriel replied. “He broke the paramedic’s nose, stole an ambulance, and vanished. The police are looking for him, but a man like that... he has resources.”
“He knows we’re here,” I realized, panic seizing my chest. “Gabriel, he knows I’m with you.”
Gabriel reached out and gripped my shoulders firmly, grounding me.
“He is not coming anywhere near this penthouse,” Gabriel swore, his dark eyes fierce and unyielding. “I have ten armed guards in the lobby. The elevators are locked down. You and Lucy are untouchable here.”
I looked up at him, shaking my head. “You don't understand. If he’s a kingpin, he won't stop. He’ll use us to get to you. To take over your territory.”
“I’m out of the territory, Sarah,” Gabriel reminded me. “I’m giving it all up.”
“He won't believe that!” I cried.
Before Gabriel could answer, the lights in the penthouse flickered.
Then, they went completely black.
The hum of the city below seemed to vanish, replaced by an eerie, suffocating silence. The backup emergency lights didn't kick on.
Gabriel immediately pulled me behind him, his hand reaching for the holster at his hip. He drew a sleek, black handgun.
“Stay behind me,” he whispered, his voice deadly calm.
The glass elevator doors at the end of the hall dinged.
But the doors didn't open. The elevator hadn't come up.
Instead, the heavy steel door of the emergency stairwell slowly creaked open.
Footsteps echoed in the dark hallway. A slight, rhythmic limp.
“Gabriel,” a voice echoed from the shadows.
It was Daniel.
“I have to admit,” my husband called out casually, the darkness hiding his face. “I’m impressed you figured it out so fast. But Dante always was a little too smart for his own good.”
Gabriel raised his gun, aiming directly at the darkness. “Where are my guards, Daniel?”
Daniel chuckled, a dry, humorless sound that made my blood run cold. “Sleeping. Gas in the ventilation system. They’ll wake up in a few hours with a hell of a headache.”
A flashlight clicked on, blinding us.
Daniel stepped into the beam of light, leaning heavily on a stolen hospital crutch. He was wearing stolen scrubs, his broken leg in a temporary splint.
But he held a suppressed pistol in his right hand.
“I didn't want to do this, Sarah,” Daniel said, looking past Gabriel to me. His voice didn't hold a shred of the warmth it used to. It was cold. Empty. “I really did love you. In my own way.”
“You don't know what love is,” I spat, clutching Gabriel’s sweater.
Daniel sighed. “Probably not. But I do know business. And Gabriel, you’re in the way of my business.”
“I’m out of the game,” Gabriel said, stepping slightly to block me more fully. “Take the routes. Take the territory. I don't care.”
“I can't leave loose ends,” Daniel said, raising his pistol. “You know too much. And Sarah... well. She’s a liability now.”
He aimed the gun directly at Gabriel’s chest.
“Say goodbye to the maid, Moretti,” Daniel sneered.
May you like
But before Daniel could pull the trigger, a small, terrified voice echoed from the hallway behind him.
“Daddy?”
