Chapter 5 - The Confession in Brooklyn
Rain poured heavily over the industrial waterfront of Red Hook, Brooklyn.
An hour after leaving the estate, Gabriel’s motorcade screeched to a halt outside an old, rusted sugar refinery. Gabriel stepped out into the downpour, flanked by eight heavily armed operatives.
Inside the warehouse, tied to a wooden chair beneath a single flickering light bulb, was Dr. Benjamin Adler. The former head of neonatal medicine was terrified, his clothes filthy, his face bruised from hiding in the underbelly of the city for weeks.
Gabriel walked into the light, his polished leather shoes clicking sharply against the wet concrete. Mateo, Gabriel’s chief enforcement officer, stood behind the doctor with a silent, imposing presence.
"Dr. Adler," Gabriel said smoothly, pulling up a chair and sitting directly opposite the trembling physician. "You ran away very quickly after my wife died."
"Mr. Moretti... please!" Adler gasped, his voice cracking with fear. "I didn't want to do it! They forced me! They threatened my daughter!"
Gabriel tilted his head, his face an unreadable mask of ice. "Who threatened your daughter, Benjamin?"
Adler swallowed hard, tears cutting tracks through the dirt on his face. "Three weeks before your wife went into labor, a man approached me. He gave me a synthetic hormone compound—an undetectable uterine stimulant that causes rapid, violent arterial tearing during labor."
Gabriel’s fists clenched so hard his knuckles turned white, but his voice remained terrifyingly calm. "Go on."
"He told me to inject it into Mrs. Moretti’s IV bag the moment the second child was delivered," Adler sobbed. "I refused! I swore an oath! But then... then he showed me photos of my daughter leaving her high school in Chicago. He said if I didn't do it, she would die."
"Who was the man, Adler?" Mateo growled from the shadows, stepping forward.
"I didn't know his name at first!" Adler whimpered. "He wore expensive suits... he walked with a slight limp... gold-rimmed glasses!"
Gabriel froze. Julian Vance walked with a slight limp from a hunting accident ten years ago.
"Julian," Gabriel whispered, the name tasting like ash on his tongue.
"Yes! Vance!" Adler cried out. "He said he was restructuring the Moretti empire! He said if Mrs. Moretti died and the twins failed to survive, you would be emotionally destroyed and relinquish power to the executive board! But... but there was a mistake!"
Gabriel’s eyes snapped back to the physician. "What mistake?"
Adler looked down, weeping hysterically. "The night your wife was delivered... another woman was in labor across the hallway. Emma Brooks. Her baby girl was healthy, Mr. Moretti! She was born perfectly healthy!"
Gabriel felt as though the concrete floor had opened up beneath him. "What did you say?"
"Vance's assassin... he swapped the medical charts!" Adler confessed, his chest heaving. "The synthetic poison was meant to be injected into Mrs. Moretti, but in the chaos of the storm, the nurse accidentally gave the poisoned IV to Emma Brooks first! Miss Brooks’ baby died of sudden cardiac arrest from the toxin meant for your wife! When Vance realized the mistake, he forced me to personally administer a double dose directly to Mrs. Moretti’s line to finish the hit!"
Gabriel stood up so fast his chair crashed to the ground. The air in the warehouse turned dead, suffocating, and terrifyingly cold.
Emma’s baby... Grace... had not died of natural causes. She had been murdered by the poison meant for Gabriel’s family. Emma had lost her child because she happened to be in the wrong room at the wrong time in Gabriel Moretti’s war.
"My God..." Gabriel choked out, staggering back a step, gripping the edge of a rusty table as a wave of immense, crushing guilt crashed over him.
Emma’s milk—the milk that was currently keeping his twins alive—was produced by a body grieving a child that his own insider war had killed.
"Where is Vance now?" Gabriel demanded, his voice dropping into a guttural, terrifying roar.
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"He... he knows you were looking for me," Adler whimpered. "He’s moving tonight! He has a team going to your estate while you're away! He knows Miss Brooks is the only witness who saw him near the hospital archives!"
Gabriel pulled his weapon, turning toward the exit with absolute, frantic speed. "Mateo! Call the estate! Get Emma and the twins into the panic room NOW!"
