Chapter 8 - The Price of Survival
The silence that fell over the warehouse was absolute.
Up on the mezzanine level, the shadow behind the glass office window froze. A second later, the office door swung open, and Natalie stepped out onto the metal landing.
She wore a dark utility jacket over black cargo pants, her wheat-blonde hair pulled back into a tight ponytail. Her face was pale, thinner than I remembered, but the hazel eyes looking down at us were unmistakably hers.
Then she saw me standing beside Gabriel.
Her jaw dropped. For three seconds, she didn't breathe.
"Lauren?" she whispered, her voice cracking in disbelief. "How... how are you here? You were supposed to stay in Seattle. You were supposed to read the email, go to the funeral, and mourn me safely from three thousand miles away!"
"Surprise, sister," I called up, my voice cold enough to freeze boiling water. "Turns out I’m harder to get rid of than you thought."
Before Natalie could answer, the second figure stepped out of the office behind her—a tall, heavily built man with a salt-and-pepper beard, holding a compact submachine gun pointed directly at Gabriel’s chest.
"Drop the weapon, Donatelli," the man snarled, his finger tightening on the trigger. "Or I put a dozen rounds through your fiancée’s twin before she even reaches the stairs."
"Don't do it, Thomas!" Natalie screamed, lunging toward the man and grabbing his forearm. "She’s my sister!"
"She’s a liability!" the man—Thomas—shouted back, shoving Natalie hard against the railing.
It happened in less than a heartbeat.
Gabriel didn't hesitate. He raised his Glock, tracked the target through the dim light of the warehouse, and fired a single, flawless shot.
Bang.
The bullet caught Thomas square in the chest. He dropped his weapon, staggered backward against the glass wall of the office, and collapsed in a heap of dead weight.
Natalie screamed, dropping to her knees beside him, her hands flying up to cover her mouth as blood pooled across the concrete landing.
Gabriel kept his weapon raised, his eyes scanning the mezzanine for any secondary threats. When none appeared, he lowered the barrel by an inch and walked toward the metal staircase.
I followed right behind him, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
We climbed the metal steps, the sound of our boots ringing out like a death knell. Gabriel pushed past the dead man on the landing and stepped into the office, his dark eyes fixing entirely on my twin sister.
Natalie sat on her knees, shaking uncontrollably, looking up at us with a mixture of terror, guilt, and profound exhaustion.
"You faked your own death," Gabriel said, his voice deathly quiet, devoid of all human warmth. "You used a corpse to fake a murder, you framed the Outfit to start a war, and you lured your own twin sister into a crossfire just to save your own skin."
"They were going to kill me, Gabriel," Natalie wept, tears streaming down her pale cheeks, tracking through the dust on her face. "Victor Moretti found out I copied the master ledger. He put a bounty on my head. There was no other way out. If I didn't die, they wouldn't stop hunting me."
"So you let me mourn you?" Gabriel stepped closer, his shadow falling over her like a shroud. "You let me stand in that cathedral believing the only person I ever allowed myself to love was lying in a box?"
"I didn't want you to come looking for me!" Natalie sobbed, looking up at him with desperate, pleading eyes. "If you tried to protect me, Moretti would have destroyed your entire organization. This was the only way to cut the cord cleanly."
I stepped past Gabriel, my face hardened into a mask of absolute fury. I looked down at the twin sister who shared my face, my DNA, and my history—and for the first time in my life, I didn't see family. I saw a stranger who had traded everything we were for a chance at survival.
"You didn't cut the cord, Natalie," I said softly, my voice trembling with suppressed rage. "You tied a noose around my neck and handed the other end to a mafia boss."
Natalie looked up at me, her hazel eyes wide with a sudden, devastating realization of what she had done.
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"Lauren... I'm sorry," she whispered, reaching out a trembling hand to touch my sleeve. "I never meant for them to trace it to you. I swear to God, I didn't."
Before I could pull away, the heavy double doors at the ground level of the warehouse blew open with a deafening crash.
