Chapter 5 - The Brother Who Forgot His Name
The Montreal lead became a cabin in northern Michigan.
Federal investigators traced the clinic patient to an alias.
Daniel Grant.
The man using that name had crossed into the United States three years earlier.
He rented a small cabin near Lake Superior.
Dominic insisted on going personally.
Emma insisted on coming.
“No.”
“He was going to marry me.”
“He may be dangerous.”
“So are you.”
Dominic stared at her.
“That argument is irritatingly effective.”
They left Lily with Dominic’s aunt Sofia, one of the few relatives he trusted completely.
By sunset, Dominic and Emma stood outside a weathered cabin surrounded by pine trees.
Dominic knocked.
No answer.
He tried again.
A man appeared behind them holding a hunting rifle.
Emma stopped breathing.
The beard was gray at the edges.
The face thinner.
A scar ran from his temple into his hairline.
But it was Gabriel.
Dominic’s voice broke.
“Gabe.”
The rifle trembled.
Gabriel stared at him blankly.
“Who are you?”
Dominic looked as if he had been stabbed.
Emma stepped forward.
“Gabriel?”
His eyes moved to her.
Something flickered.
Pain.
Recognition.
Fear.
He whispered, “Bluebird.”
Emma began crying.
“That’s right.”
Gabriel dropped the rifle.
She crossed the distance and threw her arms around him.
For one second, he remained stiff.
Then his hands rose slowly to her back.
“Emma.”
Dominic turned away, fighting emotion.
Gabriel remembered pieces.
A doctor later explained that the explosion eight years earlier had caused traumatic brain injury. For nearly two years, Gabriel had remembered almost nothing.
Memories returned in flashes.
Chicago.
Emma.
Dominic.
Betrayal.
But by then he believed returning would put them in danger.
“I saw someone watching the clinic,” Gabriel said inside the cabin. “I thought Matteo’s people had found me.”
Emma wiped tears from her face.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I tried.”
“When?”
“Four years ago.”
Emma frowned.
“I never got a call.”
Gabriel looked at Dominic.
“I called the number I had memorized. A man answered. He said Emma Carter died in a car accident.”
Emma went cold.
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“Matteo.”
Gabriel nodded.
“I believed him.”
He looked at Emma.
“I’m sorry.”
She wanted to be angry.
Instead she saw a broken man who had spent years mourning a woman who was alive.
“There’s someone you need to meet.”
Gabriel’s face changed.
Emma took out her phone.
She showed him a photograph of Lily.
He stared.
His lips parted.
“That’s…”
“Your daughter.”
Gabriel sat down.
“No.”
“Her name is Lily.”
His eyes filled instantly.
“How old?”
“Six.”
He covered his face.
Emma knelt in front of him.
“She knows you were brave.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You tried to protect us.”
“I left you alone.”
“You didn’t choose that.”
He looked at her.
“Does she hate me?”
“She doesn’t know enough to hate you.”
Gabriel laughed once through tears.
Then Dominic sat beside him.
For several seconds, the brothers simply looked at each other.
Dominic finally said, “My last words to you were unforgivable.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“No. My last act was worse. I didn’t trust you.”
“You had reason.”
“I was wrong.”
Dominic’s voice cracked.
“I thought you were dead.”
Gabriel pulled him into an embrace.
Two men who had survived bullets, betrayal, and years of grief held on to each other like boys.
Emma stepped outside.
She needed air.
Dominic joined her several minutes later.
“You okay?”
“I don’t know.”
He nodded.
“Me neither.”
Emma looked through the cabin window at Gabriel.
“This changes everything.”
“Yes.”
Dominic’s face was unreadable.
Emma knew what he meant.
Gabriel was Lily’s father.
Gabriel had once been Emma’s great love.
Dominic had entered their lives only three weeks earlier.
Whatever had grown between them had no right to matter.
Yet it did.
She looked at Dominic.
He looked away first.
The return to Chicago was carefully planned.
Gabriel would remain hidden while Agent Klein prepared arrests.
But Matteo moved first.
At 2:13 a.m., Dominic’s phone rang.
A security guard at the estate had been found unconscious.
Aunt Sofia was missing.
So was Lily.
Emma screamed.
Dominic became terrifyingly still.
On the kitchen counter, security found a single white lily.
Beneath it lay a note.
BRING THE LEDGER.
COME ALONE.
OR GABRIEL’S DAUGHTER DIES LIKE HER GRANDFATHER.
Gabriel read the note.
His face emptied.
“I’ll go.”
Dominic shook his head.
“No.”
“She’s my child.”
“She’s my family too.”
Emma looked at both men.
“No one is going alone.”
Dominic turned to her.
“Emma—”
“No.”
Her voice shook but did not break.
“For eight years, men have made decisions about my life because they thought they were protecting me. Gabriel disappeared to protect me. Matteo hunted me because of what Gabriel left. You moved me into your home to protect me.”
She picked up the ledger.
“My daughter is in this because of all of you.”
May you like
Then she looked at Dominic.
“So this time, I decide.”
