Chapter 5 - THE GOLD WATCH
The freezing rain battered the roof, but Anna couldn’t feel the cold.
She stared at the tablet in Gabriel’s hand. The face on the screen was older, lined with cruelty and power, but the resemblance was undeniable.
Vittorio Moretti.
The ruthless patriarch of the Chicago syndicate. The man whose funeral Gabriel had paid for three years ago.
“Hello, Gabriel,” Vittorio’s voice crackled through the tablet’s speaker, tinny but unmistakable.
Gabriel stood perfectly still. The wind whipped his dark hair across his forehead, but his expression was carved from stone. He didn’t drop the tablet. He didn’t yell.
He simply looked down at Serena, who was still kneeling in a puddle on the roof.
“You’ve been working for my father,” Gabriel said. It wasn’t a question.
Serena didn’t answer. She pulled her wet, ruined designer coat tighter around herself, her tears suddenly stopping. The terrified, desperate fiancée vanished. The woman looking up at Gabriel now was cold, calculating, and utterly unapologetic.
“He offered me twenty million dollars, Gabriel,” Serena said, her voice steady. “You offered me a ring and a lifetime of looking over my shoulder. It wasn’t a hard choice.”
Answer one, open two.
Russo hadn’t orchestrated the coup. Julian hadn’t planned the bombing. Serena wasn’t a victim.
Vittorio Moretti had faked his own death to escape federal indictment, leaving his son to inherit a crumbling empire. Now, Vittorio wanted his money back, and he used his son’s fiancée to get it.
“You were going to let him blow up a hotel full of innocent people,” Gabriel said quietly.
“Innocent?” Vittorio laughed through the screen. “The people in that dining room were politicians, judges, and rivals who turned their backs on me when the feds came knocking. I was tying up loose ends, son. You were just collateral damage.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“You stole the offshore accounts, old man,” Gabriel said. “But you didn't get me. And as long as I’m alive, you can’t reclaim the syndicate.”
“Oh, Gabriel,” Vittorio sighed, a sound of mock pity. “You think you survived? Look at the tablet.”
Gabriel looked at the screen.
Vittorio pressed a button on his end.
The tablet chirped.
A countdown timer appeared on the screen, ticking down from five minutes.
04:59.
“The detonator in the dining room was a proximity trigger,” Vittorio said smoothly. “But the receiver in the basement has a failsafe. A manual override tied to this tablet. I just activated it. You have five minutes to get off the roof, son. Give my regards to your mother.”
The screen went black.
Anna’s heart stopped.
Five minutes. To get down forty flights of stairs.
It was impossible.
Serena scrambled to her feet, panic finally breaking her composed facade. “He promised he wouldn't activate it until I was on the chopper!” she screamed. “He lied!”
Gabriel didn't look at her. He spun around, grabbing Anna by the lapels of his heavy overcoat.
“Can the service elevator be brought up manually?” Gabriel demanded, his eyes burning with a desperate intensity.
“I… I don't know,” Anna stammered. “It’s locked out for maintenance!”
“If I break the lockbox, can you hotwire the relay?”
Anna thought about the late-night shifts with the maintenance crew. The times she had watched them bypass the safety switches when they were too lazy to fetch the master keys.
“Yes,” Anna gasped. “Yes, I can do it.”
“Go,” Gabriel ordered, shoving her toward the roof access door.
Serena lunged forward, grabbing Gabriel’s arm. “Gabriel, don't leave me! Please!”
Gabriel looked down at the hand holding him. The diamond bracelet Vittorio had likely bought her flashed in the dim light.
Gabriel ripped his arm away.
“You chose your ride, Serena,” Gabriel said coldly. “Now wait for it.”
He turned his back on her and ran after Anna into the stairwell.
They sprinted down to the fortieth floor. The service elevator bay was dark, the heavy steel doors shut tight. A red maintenance lockbox was bolted to the wall beside the call button.
04:12.
Gabriel didn't hesitate. He raised his pistol and fired a single shot directly into the lockbox lock.
The metal shattered. He ripped the cover open, exposing a tangle of red, blue, and yellow wires.
“Do it,” Gabriel said, stepping back.
Anna dropped to her knees. Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely grasp the wires. She remembered the gruff maintenance guy, Sal, explaining the bypass. ‘Blue to yellow drops the safety brake. Red to green calls the car.’
She stripped the blue and yellow wires with her fingernails and twisted them together.
Sparks flew, burning her thumb, but she didn't stop. She grabbed the red and green wires and forced them together.
The elevator shaft groaned.
A heavy, metallic thud echoed from deep within the building.
The digital floor indicator above the doors flickered to life.
It read 30.
Then 31.
“It’s coming up,” Anna gasped, tears of relief mixing with the sweat on her face.
03:05.
They stood in agonizing silence, watching the numbers climb.
35. 36. 37.
When the indicator hit 39, a gunshot echoed from the stairwell behind them.
Gabriel spun around, raising his weapon.
Julian burst through the fire door. He was dragging his shattered leg, his face pale and contorted in agony, but he was holding his pistol with a frantic, desperate grip.
“I’m not dying alone!” Julian screamed, raising the gun toward Anna.
He didn't care about Gabriel anymore. He wanted to punish the woman who had ruined his plan.
Gabriel moved instantly. He shoved Anna behind the heavy steel frame of the elevator doors, stepping directly into Julian’s line of fire.
Julian pulled the trigger.
The bullet struck Gabriel in the chest.
Gabriel staggered backward, grunting in pain, but he didn't fall. He raised his own gun and fired.
Julian collapsed backward through the stairwell doors, dead before he hit the concrete.
“Gabriel!” Anna screamed, rushing forward.
Gabriel was leaning heavily against the wall, clutching his chest.
Anna grabbed his hand, her nurse’s instinct taking over. She ripped his ruined dress shirt open.
There was no blood.
Nestled in his breast pocket, completely crushed by the impact of the bullet, was a heavy, solid gold pocket watch.
The bullet was lodged in the center of the shattered gold face.
“My grandfather’s watch,” Gabriel gasped, staring at the ruined heirloom. “It stopped the round.”
The Reversal was terrifyingly lucky. The heavy Kevlar coat he had given Anna was meant to protect him, but the old piece of family history he kept in his pocket had saved his life.
The elevator doors chimed and slid open.
01:45.
Gabriel grabbed Anna’s hand, pulling her into the freight car. He slammed his fist onto the button for the loading dock.
The doors closed, and the elevator plummeted.
The descent felt like an eternity. Anna watched the numbers tick down, her heart hammering in her throat.
10. 9. 8.
00:30.
When the doors opened in the loading dock, they sprinted.
The massive garage was empty. Russo had cleared it out to ensure the bomb blast would travel upward without obstruction.
Gabriel led Anna toward the heavy roll-up doors leading to the Lower Wabash alleyway.
They hit the freezing night air just as the timer hit zero.
A deep, guttural roar echoed from beneath the concrete street. The ground violently shook, knocking Anna off her feet. A massive shockwave rippled through the alley, blowing out the windows of the cars parked nearby.
Dust and debris rained down, choking the air.
But the building didn't fall.
Anna opened her eyes, coughing on the dust.
Gabriel was crouched over her, shielding her body.
He looked back at the Ashford Hotel.
The East Wing was still standing. A plume of black smoke poured from the basement vents, but the structural columns held.
“The fiber optic jam,” Gabriel realized, a profound sense of awe in his voice. “You didn't just jam the proximity trigger upstairs, Anna. You jammed the detonation sequence of the secondary charges. You saved the building.”
Anna stared at the towering limestone structure, a wave of exhaustion washing over her.
They had survived.
But as Gabriel helped her to her feet, a black SUV slowly pulled into the alleyway, blocking their only exit.
May you like
The tinted window rolled down.
Sitting in the backseat, holding a suppressed pistol, was Anna’s younger sister, Lily.
