Chapter 3 - Poisoned Pills and Paper Trails
At two o'clock in the morning,
the mansion was plunged into silence.
The red alarm lights had been switched back to standard security mode,
and the guards posted outside Gabriel's master suite rotated shifts.
Inside the suite,
I sat on the edge of the large mahogany desk,
swinging my legs while Gabriel worked at his encrypted computer setup.
The blue glow of three monitors illuminated his sharp face,
casting deep shadows across his collarbones.
"My uncle thinks I'm a broken piece of furniture,"
Gabriel said,
his fingers flying across the custom mechanical keyboard with terrifying speed.
"He’s been slowly re-routing shipping manifests through offshore shell companies in Panama."
"Over the last four months,"
"he’s drained twelve million dollars from the syndicate’s primary logistics account."
"Which explains why he needs you dead or permanently sedated,"
I noted,
pointing at a spike on the financial graph displayed on the central screen.
"If you perform your bi-annual audit next month,"
"you'll see the shortfall immediately."
"Exactly,"
Gabriel growled.
"He attempted the shooting tonight because he realized I was cutting down my medication doses."
"He knew I was gaining mental clarity."
"He panicked."
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small glass vial containing three of the tampered pills I had covertly swapped out earlier that evening.
"I replaced your midnight dose with plain sugar supplements from my personal kit,"
I told him,
setting the glass vial on the desk next to his mousepad.
"Your system will be completely clear of the depressants within twenty-four hours."
"When the fog lifts,"
"your nerve response tests should show improvement."
Gabriel stopped typing.
He looked down at the tiny glass vial,
then reached out and picked it up.
His long,
calloused fingers held the glass delicately,
as if it contained raw dynamite.
"Why are you doing this,
Maya?"
he asked,
using my first name for the very first time.
The sound of my name on his deep,
gravelly voice made my heart do an unexpected flip inside my chest.
"I hired you to clean my coffee stains and hand me pills."
"I didn't hire you to risk your life uncovering a syndicate conspiracy."
I looked at the Persian rug beneath our feet,
remembering the way he had tackled me to the ground,
how his body had shielded mine without a second thought when the bullet shattered the glass.
"You covered me when the glass blew in,"
I said quietly,
meeting his dark,
unreadable eyes.
"You didn't know me from a hole in the wall,"
"and you treated me like something worth protecting."
"Where I come from,"
"people don't do that unless they mean it."
"Besides,"
"your uncle treated me like garbage."
"I hate snobs more than I hate getting shot at."
A genuine,
unfiltered smile broke across Gabriel Moretti’s face,
transforming his harsh,
intimidating features into something breathtakingly handsome.
It was a rare sight,
like a flash of lightning over a dark ocean.
"You're a terrifying woman,
Maya,"
he murmured,
his voice dropping an octave as he leaned back in his chair,
watching me intently.
"I know,"
I smiled back,
hopping down from the desk.
"Now,"
"let's talk about the offshore bank accounts."
"I may not know how to run a mafia empire,"
"but I worked two years as a bookkeeping assistant at an auto repair shop."
"Show me the fake invoices."
"I'll find where Carmine hid the rest of the paper trail."
For the next three hours,
we sat side by side at the desk.
My shoulder brushed against his arm every time I leaned in to point at a suspicious wire transfer code.
Every time he leaned over to type a decryption password,
the faint scent of cedarwood,
expensive tobacco,
and dark roast coffee enveloped me.
By four AM,
we had laid out a digital trap that would expose Carmine’s entire embezzlement network to the syndicate's governing board.
"He has a meeting scheduled with the council heads this Thursday,"
Gabriel explained,
highlighting an entry on the private calendar.
"He intends to present a forged medical report claiming I have terminal neurological decay."
"He wants to vote himself in as temporary Capo."
"Then we let him speak,"
I said,
my eyes sparking with malicious glee.
"We let him stand in front of all his powerful friends,"
"read his fake medical report,"
"and demand his vote."
"And then what?"
Gabriel asked,
a dark amusements playing in his eyes.
"Then I walk into the dining room with a tray of iced macchiatos,"
I grinned,
holding up my smartphone.
"And we project his bank statements,"
May you like
"his camera loop logs,"
"and his toxicology reports onto the wall right behind his head."
