Chapter 18 - THE FALSE VICTORY
Gabriel Bennett was alive.
Elena found him inside an abandoned warehouse beside the Hudson River.
Two hired guards surrendered when federal agents entered.
Gabriel was seventy-one.
Thin.
Gray-haired.
Exhausted.
But when Elena walked into the room, he stared at her as though he had been waiting twenty-eight years.
“Isabel?”
Elena stopped.
“No.”
Gabriel’s eyes filled.
“Elena.”
She couldn’t speak.
He knew her name.
“You knew about me?”
“Not until six years ago.”
Elena felt anger cut through her relief.
“You had six years.”
Gabriel lowered his head.
“Your mother made me promise.”
“She was already dead.”
“I know.”
“Then why didn’t you find me?”
Gabriel looked toward the agents.
“Because Thomas found me first.”
He explained that Thomas had threatened Elena if Gabriel contacted her.
For years, Gabriel had quietly collected information instead.
He had been the anonymous person sending warnings.
The text about the fake federal agent.
The messages about the keys.
Elena sat beside him.
“You were protecting me?”
“I was trying.”
She wanted to be angry.
Part of her was.
But another part saw the fear in his face and remembered Isabel’s letters.
They returned to Harrington Tower expecting the nightmare to be over.
Vale had been arrested.
Thomas had been arrested.
Victoria had survived.
Richard’s attorneys had presented Samuel’s evidence.
Prosecutors were reviewing his release.
The board suspended Thomas’s takeover.
For twelve hours, it looked like victory.
Then the first problem appeared.
Thomas refused to speak.
The second problem came from the company.
Two hundred million dollars disappeared from Harrington accounts overnight.
The third arrived at Elena’s apartment.
Her door had been forced open.
Nothing valuable was taken.
Only one thing was missing.
The photograph of Isabel.
Elena called Julian.
He arrived twenty minutes later.
They searched the apartment.
On Elena’s kitchen table sat a single envelope.
Inside was a recent photograph.
Isabel.
Alive.
Older.
Standing beside a window.
Elena dropped the picture.
“No.”
Julian picked it up.
“There has to be an explanation.”
“My mother died four years ago.”
She had identified the body.
Arranged the funeral.
Held her mother’s hand hours before death.
Yet the woman in the photograph had Isabel’s scar above her eyebrow.
Her silver ring.
Her unmistakable eyes.
A message was written on the back.
ASK GABRIEL WHAT REALLY HAPPENED THE NIGHT ISABEL DIED.
Elena called him immediately.
Gabriel answered.
She didn’t waste time.
“Is my mother alive?”
Silence.
Elena’s heart stopped.
“Gabriel.”
He began crying.
May you like
And Elena knew the answer before he spoke.
“Yes.”
