Chapter 5 — The Men Who Came When He Called

“I’m not leaving.”

I said it before I knew whether he could still hear me.

His fingers moved against mine.

Dr. Mitchell pressed fresh gauze into place and told me to support Gabriel’s shoulder while he adjusted the dressing.

My arm hurt.

I held him anyway.

The monitor made a sound I didn’t understand.

Mitchell looked at it, changed something, and reached for another bag from the supply drawer.

“Is he getting worse?”

“He’s unstable.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“It’s the only honest one I have.”

I looked at him.

He wouldn’t meet my eyes.

For hours, I had been frightened because I didn’t know enough.

Now I was frightened because the man who did know enough had already been wrong.

A voice shouted beyond the door.

“Open up.”

Mitchell froze.

Gabriel opened his eyes.

“Who?”

The doctor went to the small security screen beside the entrance.

“Paul.”

I recognized the name. One of the guards Carmine had pulled away earlier.

“Mr. Rossi?” Paul called. “We heard shots.”

Gabriel shook his head.

Mitchell kept the door closed.

“Medical complication,” he called back.

“Why’s it locked?”

“We’re treating someone.”

“Treating who?”

The doctor looked helplessly toward the bed.

Gabriel’s lips barely moved.

“Tell him Rossi ordered privacy.”

Mitchell repeated it.

A pause followed.

Then Paul said, “He needs to answer his phone.”

“Give us a minute.”

The handle moved once.

I turned toward it.

The lock held.

Footsteps retreated, but not far. I could hear the man shifting in the corridor.

Gabriel watched me.

“What did you hear?”

I understood what he meant.

“In the dining room?”

He nodded.

I told him about the keys to his study. The armory. The men Carmine had called inside. I repeated the instructions about the van arriving at six and the body leaving the east wing.

Mitchell kept working, his shoulders hunched.

Gabriel listened without interrupting.

“Who was at the table?”

I gave him every name I knew.

Some I could only describe.

“The man with the burn on his wrist. He said the harbor crews would follow whoever paid them.”

“Anthony,” Gabriel murmured.

“And the one who drives the silver sedan said Dominic wouldn’t accept it.”

“Good.”

My throat tightened.

“I didn’t know what mattered.”

“You remembered.”

“I thought they were just being cruel.”

“They were.”

A thud sounded outside.

Then another.

Someone swore.

I rose from the bed.

Gabriel caught my fingers.

“Wait.”

The door opened.

Lorenzo came through first, gun held low. Dominic followed, then three men I recognized from Gabriel’s personal security detail.

Their eyes went to the bed.

Lorenzo stopped so abruptly that Dominic almost walked into him.

For several seconds, nobody spoke.

Then Lorenzo lowered his weapon.

“Jesus Christ.”

“Later,” Gabriel said.

Lorenzo crossed the room.

He looked at the monitor, Gabriel’s bandages, and Carmine on the floor.

His expression changed when he reached the last of them.

“Did he—”

“He opened the warehouse.”

Lorenzo looked back at him.

“I knew somebody did.”

“Did you know it was him?”

“No.”

Gabriel held his gaze.

Then nodded once.

Dominic went to the door.

“Paul’s secured outside. He had Rossi’s phone on him.”

“Keep it,” Gabriel said. “Nobody deletes anything.”

Lorenzo called the men farther into the room.

The space became crowded with weapons and blood and men trying not to stare at someone they had been told was dead.

I drew my hand from Gabriel’s.

He let me, but his eyes followed me as I stepped aside.

“Matilda heard Rossi’s orders,” he told Lorenzo. “She can identify some of the men who took them.”

Lorenzo turned toward me.

For once, his attention didn’t pass over my face on its way to someone more important.

“Tell me.”

I did.

My voice shook at first. Then it steadied.

Dominic wrote names on his phone.

When I described Anthony, one of the guards nodded.

“He took two men to the west gate.”

“Get them,” Lorenzo said.

A guard left.

“Don’t mix the staff in with this,” I said.

Everyone looked at me.

I felt heat rise through my face.

“Mrs. Bell was following instructions. The kitchen staff didn’t know anything.”

Lorenzo glanced at Gabriel.

Gabriel’s eyes remained on me.

“You heard her.”

Dominic stepped into the corridor to give orders.

Almost immediately, the sounds in the house began changing.

Men were no longer moving wherever they pleased. Doors closed. Radios crackled with names and locations. Somebody demanded to speak to Rossi, then fell quiet.

Lorenzo returned to the bedside.

“We need you somewhere secure.”

“Here, until Mitchell says otherwise.”

Dr. Mitchell looked relieved at having been consulted.

“Moving him now would be dangerous.”

“Then make the room safe,” Gabriel said.

Lorenzo looked at the broken cabinet.

Only then did his gaze move to my torn sleeve.

“Are you hurt?”

I shook my head.

Gabriel said, “She’s bleeding.”

“It’s only my hand.”

“And your shoulder?”

“It hit the cabinet.”

“And your ribs?”

I looked at him.

He had seen more than I realized.

Lorenzo pulled a chair toward me.

“Sit down.”

“I should get shoes first.”

He looked at my bare feet, then at the glass.

“Sit.”

I obeyed.

The moment my weight settled into the chair, my body seemed to remember everything I had asked it to ignore.

My knee throbbed.

My ribs hurt when I breathed.

I couldn’t stop shaking.

A woman arrived carrying a medical bag. I recognized her from previous visits to the estate, though I had never learned her name.

Lorenzo spoke to her.

“Both of them. Don’t let Mitchell make decisions alone.”

The doctor looked up.

“I don’t need supervision.”

Gabriel turned his head.

“Yes, you do.”

The woman introduced herself as Ruth and knelt beside my chair.

“May I see your hand?”

Her voice was calm.

That nearly undid me.

She cleaned the cuts while I stared at the floor.

One of the men brought my shoes from beside the bed and set them neatly at my feet.

Such a small thing.

I began crying.

Ruth stopped.

“Am I hurting you?”

“No.”

I couldn’t explain that being treated gently hurt in a different way.

She waited until I could breathe, then continued.

Across the room, Lorenzo was asking Gabriel about the warehouse.

I heard the words Corsicans and loading door.

I heard Gabriel say he had seen Carmine step outside.

The missing pieces of the night began joining together, and I wished they wouldn’t.

This wasn’t a house that had lost its master.

It was a house someone had tried to take.

Ruth finished my palm and checked my shoulder. She said the cuts would heal, but the bruises would need watching.

“You need food and rest.”

“I can stay until he’s moved.”

Gabriel looked over.

“You need food and rest,” he repeated.

“I heard her.”

His mouth twitched.

Lorenzo hid what might have been a smile.

Then Gabriel’s expression grew serious.

“Prepare the master suite.”

Dominic looked toward him.

“For you?”

“For both of us. The adjoining room.”

I stared.

Gabriel continued before I could speak.

“Matilda no longer reports to housekeeping. Tell Mrs. Bell.”

My stomach tightened.

“I don’t need to be dismissed.”

“You aren’t dismissed.”

“I need my wages.”

“You’ll have them.”

“For doing what?”

The room went quiet again.

I regretted asking in front of everyone, but I couldn’t take it back.

Gabriel’s eyes softened by a fraction.

“We’ll discuss that when neither of us is bleeding.”

Ruth stood and helped me rise.

Gabriel looked at Lorenzo.

“No one gives her orders. No one questions her about tonight without my knowledge.”

Lorenzo nodded.

I let Ruth lead me through the medical doors.

Dawn had begun to lighten the windows.

At the foot of the grand staircase, Mrs. Bell waited with a clean blanket. She wrapped it around my shoulders without a word.

Upstairs, Ruth opened a door I had polished dozens of times.

The master suite smelled of wood smoke and cedar.

I stopped at the threshold.

I knew where the cleaning cloths were kept.

I had no idea where I was supposed to stand.