Chapter 5 - The Betrayal Came From the One Person I Had Trusted With My Life
We had won.
Or so we thought.
Vincent refused to name the real traitor.
He only said the person had been close to Gabriel from the beginning.
That narrowed it to three people.
My mother.
Roman.
Clara.
I trusted none of them.
We returned to the diner.
It felt strange to stand behind the counter again.
Normal.
Safe.
Except nothing was normal.
Nico sat in a booth with crayons.
Elias was helping Maya connect her phone to Wi-Fi.
Roman stood by the window.
For the first time, they looked like a family.
Then a man entered.
He was wearing a police uniform.
Detective Morris.
He had investigated the original fire.
He had called my memories hallucinations.
He looked at me.
“I owe you an apology.”
I stared.
He put a file on the counter.
“The night of the fire, I was told there was no child.”
“Who told you?”
“Commissioner Hayes.”
I opened the file.
Inside were missing reports.
Photographs.
An order to suppress evidence.
And my father's name.
Gabriel Marino.
Morris looked ashamed.
“Your father worked with the department.”
“What happened to him?”
“He was investigating Commissioner Hayes.”
My stomach turned.
Hayes was the real traitor.
He had been working with Vincent's network.
He had ordered the destruction of evidence.
He had erased Nico.
And he had orchestrated Gabriel's disappearance.
But there was another revelation.
My mother had known.
She had suspected Hayes for years.
She had hidden the truth because she believed exposing him would get me killed.
I confronted her.
She cried.
“I did what I thought would keep you alive.”
“You stole my father from me.”
“I know.”
“You stole twenty-eight years from me.”
“I know.”
I wanted to hate her.
But she looked so broken that the anger became grief.
That night, Roman found me outside.
“I owe you an apology too.”
“For what?”
“I knew Gabriel longer than you did.”
“You knew he was investigating Hayes.”
“Yes.”
“You knew he was hiding Elias.”
“Yes.”
“You knew your father had ordered Nico's disappearance.”
Roman looked down.
“Yes.”
I stepped closer.
“How much else?”
He met my eyes.
“I knew I was in love with you before I ever met you.”
I froze.
“What?”
“Your father talked about you.”
“When?”
“Before he disappeared.”
Roman took a breath.
“He said there was one person who could remind me I wasn't my father.”
I looked away.
“I don't know what to do with that.”
“You don't have to do anything.”
He turned to leave.
I caught his arm.
“Stay.”
He stopped.
I leaned closer.
The kiss was soft.
Careful.
Almost afraid.
And for a moment, the world stopped.
Then Nico's wheelchair rolled toward us.
He held up a drawing.
Four children.
And behind them, a burning house.
But this time there was something else.
A fifth figure.
A man.
With a badge.
Detective Morris saw the picture and went pale.
He whispered:
“That man isn't Commissioner Hayes.”
I looked at him.
“Then who?”
Morris stared at the drawing.
“Deputy Commissioner Cole.”
The man who had been investigating Hayes.
The man who had signed my mother's protection papers.
The man who had supposedly helped my father.
Another traitor.
Another layer.
The conspiracy was larger than we had imagined.
May you like
And Cole had one advantage.
He was inside the police.
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