Chapter 10 - The False Victory
Gabriel returned to the Gold Coast penthouse just as the morning sun began to rise over Lake Michigan.
The massive, ruined doors had been temporarily secured, and his remaining loyal guards were standing watch.
He walked into the master bedroom and found Mia sleeping peacefully on the massive bed, with baby Leo curled safely against her side.
Gabriel dropped his bloody tactical vest on the floor and sat gently on the edge of the mattress.
He reached out and softly stroked Mia’s cheek, feeling an incredible, overwhelming sense of absolute peace.
The brutal war was finally over, and the men who had threatened his family were entirely dead.
Mia stirred and opened her beautiful brown eyes, smiling warmly when she saw him sitting there alive.
“You came back,” she whispered, reaching up to gently touch his tired face.
“I told you I would,” Gabriel smiled genuinely, leaning down to kiss her softly.
The immediate, terrifying threat of Damian Sterling had been completely and utterly neutralized.
Gabriel felt like he could finally breathe for the first time since his brother Daniel had died eighteen months ago.
He stood up to go wash the blood and soot from his exhausted body in the master bathroom.
Mia sat up slowly, wincing at her bandaged thigh, and gently placed Leo in his portable crib.
She decided to completely finish the task that had started this entire nightmare in the first place.
She booted up her heavily encrypted laptop on the bedside table and entered the master decryption key to unlock the stolen ledgers.
The massive offshore accounts finally decoded, revealing the exact names of the people who had been funding Sterling's mercenary army.
She scrolled through the hidden transaction history, her heart pounding happily with the thought of finally closing the case.
But as she opened the final, most deeply encrypted folder, her entire world completely shattered.
It was not a financial document; it was the original, highly classified kill order for Gabriel’s brother, Daniel.
She read the bold signature stamped violently at the very bottom of the brutal assassination contract.
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The deadly order had not been signed by Damian Sterling or Vincent Russo.
The signature explicitly demanding the murder of Daniel Romano belonged entirely to Marco Bennett.
