Chapter 8 - THE DRAWING
The floodlights from the SUVs cut through the rain, trapping us in a blinding white glare.
“Get behind me!” Gabriel roared, shoving Dominic to the gravel and raising his pistol toward the SUVs.
Isabella threw herself over Leo, shielding his small body with hers. I grabbed Lily and pulled her behind the heavy steel wheels of the nearest boxcar.
“Gabriel, put the gun down,” Victoria called out, her voice amplified over a megaphone from the lead SUV. She stood safely behind the open car door, resting the barrel of the shotgun on the window frame. “You have one pistol. I have ten men with automatic rifles. It’s over.”
Gabriel didn’t lower his weapon. He stood directly in front of Isabella and Leo, a human shield. “You’re not walking out of this yard, Victoria. Marco is already on his way.”
“Marco is busy cleaning up the mess at your mansion,” Victoria laughed. “By the time he gets here, I’ll have the boy and the ledger. And you’ll be dead.”
Dominic slowly pushed himself up from the gravel, his hands raised. “Victoria, listen to me. I have the ledger. Let Isabella and the kids go, and I’ll hand it over.”
“You don’t negotiate anymore, Dominic!” Victoria screamed, her composure cracking. “You ruined everything! You were supposed to let her die in the fire three years ago! Because of you, I had to play stepmother to a brat who wouldn’t even look at me!”
Behind the boxcar wheel, Lily was shaking violently. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small, folded piece of paper.
“Claire,” she whispered, her voice tiny and terrified.
I looked down. She was holding a child’s drawing. It was the one I’d found in her room months ago—the drawing of a woman with long dark hair. But she had flipped it over. On the back, in crayon, she had drawn a picture of Gabriel holding her hand, and next to them, a little boy.
“I knew,” Lily whispered, tears streaming down her face.
“You knew what, sweetie?” I asked, keeping my body between her and the line of fire.
“I saw Mommy outside the gate last Christmas,” Lily sobbed quietly. “I saw her holding a little boy’s hand. I didn’t tell Daddy because Victoria said if I talked about Mommy, she would send me away to boarding school.”
My heart broke. Victoria had terrorized this child in her own home.
Out in the clearing, the tension was at a breaking point.
“Give me the boy, Isabella,” Victoria commanded. “Hand him over, and I’ll make Gabriel’s death quick.”
Isabella looked up from the gravel, her eyes burning with a mother’s absolute rage. “You will never touch my son again.”
“Fine. Kill the wife first,” Victoria ordered her men.
The mercenaries raised their rifles.
Gabriel stepped fully in front of Isabella. “I love you,” he whispered to her without turning around.
Isabella squeezed her eyes shut, holding Leo tight. “I love you too.”
I closed my eyes, bracing for the deafening roar of gunfire.
But it didn’t come.
Instead, a different sound pierced the heavy rain.
WUM-WUM-WUM-WUM.
The rhythmic, thunderous chopping of helicopter blades suddenly deafened us.
A massive black chopper descended from the sky, its spotlight pinning Victoria and her SUVs to the pavement. The downdraft whipped the rain into a horizontal frenzy, forcing Elias’s men to shield their eyes and lower their weapons.
Before the helicopter even touched the ground, the side doors slid open.
Marco leaned out, holding a heavy machine gun. Beside him were six of Gabriel’s most loyal enforcers, all aiming directly at Victoria’s men.
“Drop your weapons!” Marco’s voice boomed over the chopper’s loudspeaker. “Or you die right where you stand!”
Elias’s mercenaries were killers, but they weren’t martyrs. Seeing they were outgunned from above, they slowly placed their rifles on the wet gravel and raised their hands.
Victoria stared in absolute shock. Her army had surrendered in seconds.
“No!” she screamed, raising her shotgun toward Gabriel. “I won’t let you have her!”
Gabriel raised his pistol.
But he didn’t fire.
Because before Victoria could pull the trigger, Dominic tackled her from the side.
The shotgun went off, blasting a hole into the side of the boxcar, inches from where I was hiding with Lily. Dominic wrenched the gun from Victoria’s hands, pinning her to the wet gravel.
“It’s over, Victoria,” Dominic gasped, holding her down as she thrashed and shrieked like a wild animal.
Gabriel didn’t look at Victoria. He dropped his gun.
He fell to his knees in the mud, right in front of Isabella and the little boy.
Isabella slowly looked up, the blinding light of the chopper illuminating the tears streaming down her face. She let go of Leo, pushing him gently toward Gabriel.
Gabriel reached out with shaking hands.
Leo, terrified but brave, looked up at the giant, blood-soaked man kneeling before him.
“Are you my dad?” Leo asked, his voice tiny.
Gabriel let out a ragged sob. He pulled the boy into his arms, burying his face in Leo’s dark hair. “Yes, Leo. Yes, I am.”
Isabella collapsed against Gabriel’s chest, and his massive arms wrapped around her, pulling them both tight against his heart.
I couldn’t hold back anymore.
“Lily,” I smiled through my tears, letting go of her shoulders. “Go to them.”
Lily stepped out from behind the boxcar.
Gabriel looked up, his eyes wide. He held out his arm.
Lily ran across the gravel, throwing herself into the embrace. Gabriel held his wife, his daughter, and his son. The family that had been broken, manipulated, and kept apart for six grueling years was finally, beautifully whole.
I watched from the shadows, knowing my job was done.
But as the police sirens finally grew louder in the distance, Dominic stood up from where he had zip-tied Victoria. He walked over to the puddle where Leo had dropped the green ledger.
Dominic picked it up. He looked at Gabriel, his expression unreadable in the rain.
“Gabriel,” Dominic called out quietly.
Gabriel looked up from his family.
“Elias isn’t the one who ordered the hit on Isabella six years ago,” Dominic said, holding the ledger.
The reversal hit us like a second storm.
“What?” Gabriel asked, standing up slowly.
May you like
Dominic opened the ledger to the very first page. He held it up so Gabriel could see the signature at the top of the illicit accounts.
“Elias was just the middleman,” Dominic said softly. “The man who wanted Isabella dead… was our father.”
