Chapter 9 - THE FOURTH MAN
The watcher’s name was Nathan Vale.
Former military intelligence.
Private security contractor.
Officially dead for four years.
Unofficially working for Gabriel Voss.
Rachel’s team arrested him two blocks from the gala.
He carried three passports.
Encrypted drives.
And a photograph of Isabel Hawthorne taken the week before her death.
Nathan refused to speak.
Until Grace entered the interview room.
His expression changed.
“You.”
Grace sat across from him.
“You photographed Noah.”
Silence.
“You threatened my family.”
Nothing.
Grace placed one photograph on the table.
Noah asleep.
“You stood beside his crib.”
Nathan finally spoke.
“I was ordered to observe.”
“By Gabriel?”
He smiled.
“You still think Gabriel is the top.”
Grace’s stomach dropped.
“Who is?”
Nathan leaned back.
“The person your boss has trusted longest.”
Grace thought of Cole.
Nathan smiled wider.
“No.”
“Not him.”
Grace felt cold.
“Then who?”
Nathan whispered,
“Ask Damian who taught Gabriel everything he knows.”
Damian was brought in.
Nathan looked at him almost sympathetically.
“You really don’t know.”
Damian’s jaw tightened.
“Know what?”
“Gabriel didn’t build the Continuity Council.”
“Who did?”
“Your father.”
“I know.”
Nathan shook his head.
“No.”
“Before Elias.”
Damian stared.
Nathan said one name.
“Evelyn Hawthorne.”
Damian froze.
Grace knew the name.
Damian’s grandmother.
Matriarch of the Hawthorne family.
Ninety-one years old.
Living in a private estate outside Lake Geneva.
Believed to be suffering from advanced dementia.
Nathan smiled.
“Still think the old lady can’t remember anything?”
The room went silent.
Damian left immediately.
Evelyn received him in a sunroom overlooking the lake.
She sat in a wheelchair.
Silver hair.
Sharp eyes.
Nothing about her seemed confused.
“You took long enough,” she said.
Damian stared.
“You’re not sick.”
“I’m old.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Evelyn smiled.
“Dementia is useful when men believe age makes women harmless.”
Grace watched from behind Damian.
Evelyn noticed her.
“The nanny.”
Grace nodded.
“You’re inconvenient.”
“I’ve been told.”
Evelyn laughed softly.
Then Damian demanded the truth.
Evelyn gave it.
She created the Continuity system decades earlier.
Not to steal the empire.
To prevent any single Hawthorne man from controlling everything.
Gabriel later corrupted it.
Evelyn discovered the corruption.
Elias tried to expose Gabriel.
That was why Elias died.
“Did Gabriel kill him?”
Evelyn looked at Damian.
“He ordered it.”
“And Isabel?”
“Yes.”
Damian closed his eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you were exactly what Gabriel needed.”
Damian stared.
“Angry.”
“Proud.”
“Certain violence could solve every problem.”
Her words landed hard.
“If I told you ten years ago, you would have killed Gabriel.”
“Yes.”
“And then his network would have killed you.”
Damian said nothing.
Evelyn looked at Noah sleeping in Grace’s arms.
“Your son gave you something power never could.”
“What?”
“A reason to survive.”
Then Evelyn revealed the final secret.
Gabriel wasn’t trying merely to control Hawthorne Holdings.
He planned to sell the organization to an international syndicate.
Ports.
Shipping routes.
Politicians.
Police contacts.
Everything Elias had spent years trying to dismantle.
The transaction would occur in seventy-two hours.
“And the buyer?” Damian asked.
Evelyn’s expression darkened.
“Judge Adrian Mercer.”
Cole stared.
“The council member?”
Evelyn nodded.
“He isn’t Gabriel’s partner.”
May you like
“He owns Gabriel.”
The enemy had changed again.
