Chapter 10 - Fire on the LakeBy dawn, the boathouse was a skeleton of black beams smoking against a pink winter sky.
Firefighters moved through steam and ash. Police floodlights washed the snow in harsh white. Officers searched the shoreline. Divers prepared near the frozen edge of Lake Geneva, though no one truly believed Vanessa Sterling had drowned.
Women like Vanessa did not run without a second road.
Gabriel stood at the edge of the scene in silence.
Evelyn watched him from the back of an ambulance while a medic cleaned glass from her palm. Sofia sat wrapped in three blankets beside her, refusing to release Titan’s collar. Oliver had been taken to the hospital under police guard, but before he left, he had gripped Gabriel’s sleeve and whispered, “There are more.”
More children.
More files.
More rooms.
More years of a beautiful woman smiling under chandeliers while people disappeared into the spaces powerful families never searched.
The medic taped Evelyn’s hand. “You need stitches.”
“I have been told.”
“And your knee needs imaging.”
“It is very photogenic but not urgent.”
The medic stared.
Evelyn sighed. “Fine. Later.”
Sofia leaned against her. “Are they going to take me away?”
Evelyn’s heart twisted. “The doctors need to check you.”
“No. After.”
She meant the system. Foster care. Agencies. Strangers with clipboards. Rooms with rules she did not choose.
Gabriel heard the question.
He turned from the burned boathouse and came to the ambulance. For once, he looked less like a man built from authority and more like an uncle who had arrived twelve years late.
“No one is taking you where I cannot find you,” he said.
Sofia’s eyes filled. “You didn’t want me.”
Gabriel flinched.
Evelyn wanted to answer for him. She did not.
Some things had to come from the person whose silence had caused the wound, even if the silence had been built from lies.
Gabriel crouched in the snow before the ambulance doors. “I thought you were dead.”
“Calvin said you knew.”
“I did not.”
“Victor said Mama betrayed you.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened. “Your mother saved my life more than once. She was the bravest person I knew.”
Sofia studied him, desperate to believe and terrified to.
“Why didn’t you look?” she whispered.
There it was.
The question no man with power could threaten, buy, or command away.
Gabriel lowered his eyes.
“Because grief made me selfish,” he said. “Because people I trusted told me there was nothing to find. Because I was afraid that if I opened her room, I would have to lose her again.”
Sofia cried then.
Gabriel did not touch her until she reached for him.
When she did, he gathered her carefully, as if she were made of glass and fire. His face broke against her hair.
Evelyn looked away.
It felt too private to witness.
Titan, however, watched shamelessly, then rested his heavy head on Gabriel’s shoulder as if grudgingly approving the reunion.
Detective Harris approached, boots crunching over ice. “We found a vehicle track beyond the north service road. Likely switched cars.”
Gabriel released Sofia slowly but kept one hand near her blanket. “Victor?”
“No body. No confirmed exit either.”
“He is alive,” Gabriel said.
Harris looked at him. “You sound certain.”
“I know him.”
“Apparently not as well as you thought.”
The words were blunt. Gabriel accepted them.
Harris glanced at Evelyn. “Ms. Hart, we also ran the SUV that fired into your cottage. It was stolen two counties over. But one partial print came back to a known associate of Martin Kell.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
Gabriel’s head turned. “Kell is involved?”
“Maybe separately. Maybe not.” Harris looked toward the burned boathouse. “But here is the interesting part. Martin Kell’s largest shell company received a donation from the Sterling Foundation three days after you testified against him.”
Evelyn felt cold move through her.
Vanessa had not simply used Gabriel.
She had been connected to the man Evelyn had tried to bring down long before Evelyn entered the Romano estate.
“Why would she care about me?” Evelyn asked.
Harris’s expression softened slightly. “Maybe she did not. Until Titan chose you.”
Gabriel looked at Titan.
Evelyn understood.
A maid with no power had earned the trust of the one creature connected to Sofia. That made her dangerous.
Vanessa had tried to remove her before she could open the right door.
Rosa came running from the mansion, coat flapping, face pale. “Mr. Romano!”
Gabriel stood. “What?”
Rosa held up a tablet. “Every television station in Milwaukee has it.”
On the screen was breaking news.
CHILD FOUND IN ROMANO MANSION — SOURCES CLAIM CRIME BOSS HID SECRET HEIR FOR YEARS.
Beneath it was a photo of Gabriel, dark and severe, taken at some gala.
And beside it, somehow, was a picture of Evelyn leading Sofia out of the mansion.
The headline under Evelyn’s face read:
MYSTERY MAID MAY BE ACCOMPLICE.
Sofia began shaking.
Gabriel’s eyes went black.
May you like
Vanessa had lost the house.
So she had taken the story.
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