Chapter 5 - Someone Inside the Family
Gabriel had us out of the suite in under ninety seconds.
No elevators.
Service stairs.
Private vehicles.
Different hotel.
Phones placed in signal-blocking bags.
By 8:00 a.m., Luke was tearing apart our digital lives.
“We have a leak,” he said.
Daniel frowned.
“From Adrian?”
“Maybe.”
“No,” I said.
Everyone looked at me.
“The picture was taken after Adrian was arrested.”
“He could have people working for him,” Michael said.
“He could.”
I looked around the room.
“But how did they know which suite?”
Silence.
Gabriel's security protocols weren't public.
The hotel room had been booked under a corporate account.
Only a small group knew where we were.
My brothers.
Their staff.
And me.
Luke looked at Gabriel.
“Check internal logs.”
Gabriel nodded once.
An hour later, we had a name.
Peter Hall.
Deputy operations director at Gabriel's company.
Employed nine years.
Trusted enough to know family movements.
Peter's phone records showed repeated contact with a number linked to Cole Strategic Group.
Gabriel looked devastated.
“I promoted him.”
Daniel asked, “Where is he now?”
“Missing.”
Of course.
Meanwhile, Adrian made bail.
Money still opened doors.
His attorney issued a statement claiming the birthday incident had been a “private marital disagreement distorted by emotional witnesses.”
I watched the statement on television.
Then turned it off.
“A disagreement?”
Gabriel muttered something I couldn't repeat.
I looked at Noah.
“What about the money?”
He rotated his laptop.
“We found one pathway.”
Transactions moved through shell companies in Delaware, London, and the Cayman Islands.
Then they converged.
A company called Halcyon Capital Partners.
I knew the name.
My blood ran cold.
“Adrian wanted me to invest in them.”
“When?”
“Two years ago.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
I remembered the argument.
Adrian had called me paranoid.
Ungrateful.
Financially naive.
For three days, he barely spoke to me.
Noah kept reading.
“Halcyon has four beneficial owners hidden behind trusts.”
Luke said, “Three are still concealed.”
“And the fourth?”
Noah stared at me.
“Richard Cole.”
Adrian's father.
I stood.
So the affair wasn't the biggest betrayal.
Not even close.
My phone, now transferred to a secure line, rang.
Gabriel answered it first.
“Who is this?”
A woman's voice shook through the speaker.
“Please don't hang up.”
Vanessa.
Gabriel looked at me.
I nodded.
He put the call on speaker.
Vanessa started crying.
“Adrian came to my apartment.”
“When?” I asked.
“Twenty minutes ago.”
“Where are you now?”
“In my car.”
“What does he want?”
“He thinks I took something.”
“What?”
“A key.”
I exchanged looks with Noah.
“Did you?”
Silence.
Then Vanessa whispered, “Yes.”
“What does it open?”
“I don't know.”
“Then why take it?”
“Because I heard Adrian and his father arguing last month.”
“About what?”
Her breathing became uneven.
“A storage vault.”
Noah leaned toward the phone.
“Where?”
Vanessa gave an address.
Luke typed it into his laptop.
His eyes widened.
“What?” Gabriel demanded.
Luke turned the screen.
The address belonged to a private high-security document storage facility outside Manhattan.
Vanessa spoke again.
“There was one more thing.”
“What?”
“When I took the key, there was a tag attached.”
“What did it say?”
She swallowed.
“Evelyn Mercer.”
Not Cole.
Mercer.
Then Vanessa screamed.
A crash exploded through the speaker.
May you like
The call disconnected.
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