Chapter 146

Chapter 146

Third Person
Gael’s signal was a short whistle.
Two notes. Sharp. Like a nocturnal bird that didn’t exist in Connecticut—but one his private roster had spent thirty years recognizing as the order to move.
Everything unfolded within the exact ninety seconds Alejandro had calculated.
The west perimeter guard stepped inside to report. The corner of the wooden deck was left uncovered. And ten men emerged from the forest like swift shadows, crossing the thirty meters of open lawn between the tree line and the stone house.
Gabriel led, Alejandro to his right and Mateo to his left. Gael’s men behind them, covering the flanks. No flashlights. No words. Only the sound of boots on damp grass and the deafening thud of their own heartbeats.
They reached the deck in twelve seconds.
Alejandro pressed himself against the wall beside the back door. Gabriel took the other side. Mateo stood three steps behind, holding a weapon one of Gael’s men had handed him fifteen minutes earlier—gripping it with the steadiness of someone who had learned to shoot on his father’s estate in Sussex, but had never aimed at a person.
The second whistle came from the east.
Gael entering through the service door with his team.
The distraction.

The first shot came from the front-door guard.
He didn’t aim at anyone in particular. He fired toward the sound at the service entrance when Gael’s men forced the lock. A warning shot that ricocheted off the stone frame and triggered a chain reaction that turned the next three minutes into the most controlled chaos Gabriel had ever lived through.
The front-door guard turned east. The three perimeter guards inside ran out through the main entrance toward the source of the gunfire. And the west back door was left uncovered for exactly the four seconds Alejandro needed to kick it in.
The wood gave on the second strike.
They went in.
A large kitchen. Dark. The smell of cold coffee and reheated food. Alejandro first, the weapon he’d carried since Gabriela’s rescue months ago now an extension of his arm. Gabriel behind him. Mateo covering the rear.
The kitchen corridor opened into a wide foyer that led to the main living room and the stairs to the second floor. From there came the sound of gunfire from the east, where Gael’s team was engaging the guards.
“Up or down?” Alejandro said without stopping.
“Down,” Gabriel answered. “Lucía’s in the basement.”
“And Victoria?”
“Upstairs. My father saw her on the second floor.”
“Then we split. I go up. You go down.”
“No. You come with me to the basement. Mateo covers the stairs. If Victoria comes down, he stops her.”
“Gabriel, if Victoria comes down with a gun, Mateo alone can’t—”
Glass shattered.
The foyer window exploded inward. A guard had fired from outside, spotting movement. Fragments rained across the wooden floor, and Alejandro shoved Gabriel against the wall on instinct.
“Down!”
The three of them dropped behind a solid wooden cabinet separating the foyer from the living room. Gunfire from outside continued. Two. Three. Four impacts against the wall and doorframe.
Alejandro leaned out from the side of the cabinet and fired twice toward the shattered window. The shooting outside paused for a second.
“Mateo. The stairs. Cover the stairs. If anyone comes down, shoot the legs. Don’t kill unless you have no choice.”
“Understood.”
Mateo crossed the foyer in three strides and positioned himself at the foot of the staircase, weapon aimed upward. Gabriel and Alejandro moved down the hallway leading to the basement.
Another shot from outside.
This one came through a side window, striking the wall half a meter from where Gabriel had been standing a second earlier. Plaster burst into a white cloud, dusting his hair and shoulder.
“Move, Gabriel!”
They moved down the hallway crouched. Fast. No hesitation.
The basement door stood at the end. Closed. An electronic panel glowing red. Code required.
“Shit,” Gabriel said. “William said he didn’t know the code.”
“Can you force it?”
“It’s reinforced. Steel. You don’t force that without tools.”
Alejandro studied the door for three seconds. Then he raised his weapon and fired four times into the electronic panel. Sparks flew. The panel died. The red light went out.
“Push.”
Gabriel pushed.
The door didn’t budge.
“Again. Together.”
They slammed into it shoulder-first. The electronics were fried, but the mechanical backup lock still held.
“We need something heavy,” Alejandro said, scanning around. “Something that—”
A shot from upstairs.
The sound was different. Sharper. Closer. A smaller weapon. Indoor.
And then Mateo’s voice.
“Contact! Second floor! Someone fired from above!”
Alejandro turned toward the hallway.
“Stay here. Keep working the door. I’ll help Mateo.”
“Alejandro—”
“Your son is down there, Gabriel. Open that door. I’ll handle upstairs.”
Alejandro ran back down the hallway toward the foyer.
Gabriel was left alone in front of the steel basement door.

The gunfire outside intensified.
Gael’s men had neutralized two of the four guards, but the other two had taken cover behind the black SUVs at the rear, firing intermittently toward the house and the forest.
Gael was inside, entering through the east service door, when he heard a sound that changed his expression.
A cry.
Sharp. Terrified. A baby crying somewhere inside the house.
The sound came from upstairs. From a closed room at the end of the hallway.
Gael went up.
No hesitation. No backup. Nothing but the primal instinct of a grandfather hearing his grandson cry for the first time—and physically incapable of standing still while that sound existed.
He took the stairs two at a time. Reached the second floor. Four doors. Three closed. One ajar at the end, yellow light spilling out.
The crying came from the second door. Closed, but unlocked.
He opened it.
A small room. A single bed. A rocking chair by the window. A young woman sat in it, terror written across her face, holding a baby crying with the desperation of someone who had been calling for his mother for hours and couldn’t find her.
The nanny.
And in her arms, a dark-haired baby, face flushed from crying, fists clenched—and a jaw Gael recognized instantly, because it was the same jaw he saw in the mirror every morning.
Matías.
“Give me the child,” Gael said firmly.
“Who are you?” The nanny held him tighter.
“I’m his grandfather. Give him to me. Now.”
“Mrs. Harrington said no one could—”
“Mrs. Harrington will be in prison before dawn. Give me the child, or I take you with her.”
The nanny processed it in two seconds. Looked at Gael. Looked at the door. Heard the gunfire below.
And made the right choice.
She handed over the baby.
Gael took him with both hands.
Matías stopped crying for three seconds when he felt the new arms. He looked up with those wide, dark eyes—Gabriel’s eyes at eleven months, just like in the photos Aurora kept in the family album. He stared with that terrified confusion babies have when they don’t understand what’s happening, but can feel when they’re being held with the intent to protect.
Then he cried again. But differently. Softer. As if something in those arms told him the danger wasn’t over—but at least he wasn’t alone anymore.
Gael held him against his chest.
“There, there, my boy. It’s over. Grandpa’s got you.”
Three seconds. That’s all he allowed himself before the CEO took over again.
He went downstairs with the baby pressed to his chest, one arm shielding his head. In the foyer, he ran into Alejandro coming from the side hallway, weapon raised.
“Gael! Is that—?”
“It’s Matías. My grandson. Take him outside. Now. Into the woods. Away from the house.”
“And Gabriel?”
“Gabriel’s at the basement door. I’m going down with backup.”
“Gael, I can—”
“Alejandro, take the child. That’s an order. He’s an eleven-month-old baby in the middle of a firefight. Get him into the woods. Keep him safe. Don’t come back until I call you.”
Alejandro looked at the baby in Gael’s arms. Matías looked back at him, still not understanding anything—but no longer crying with the same desperation.
“Give him to me.”
Gael transferred the baby with a care that clashed with everything happening around them. Alejandro took him with his left arm, his right still holding the weapon. He pressed him to his chest. Matías grabbed onto the fabric of his tactical vest with that absurd strength babies have when they feel they’re being carried somewhere.
“I’m going.”
Alejandro turned toward the back door. Took three steps.
The shot came from the staircase.
Victoria.
Standing on the second-floor landing with a small silver pistol that hadn’t been there two minutes earlier. Hair loose. Eyes unhinged. A glass of wine still in her other hand, as if she had stood up from the couch without realizing she was still holding it.
The bullet passed fifteen centimeters from Alejandro’s head.
He dropped to the floor, covering Matías with his entire body. The baby screamed—a sharp, primal wail.
Mateo fired from the base of the stairs. Two shots upward. Victoria retreated. The wineglass fell, shattering on the steps, red spilling down like blood.
“Out, Alejandro! Get the child out!” Mateo shouted.
Alejandro got up, Matías wailing against his chest, and ran for the back door.
Another shot from above.
This one hit.
The bullet tore through the back of his left thigh and exited clean through the front. Alejandro staggered—but didn’t fall. Momentum and the weight of the baby kept him moving on pure instinct. He crossed the back door. The deck. Reached the lawn.
He limped the thirty meters to the tree line, blood pouring down his leg, Matías screaming against his neck, the November cold slapping his face, keeping him conscious.
He made it into the woods.
Collapsed behind a thick oak.
Set Matías down between his legs. Checked his face. His hands. His body. Nothing. The baby was unharmed. Terrified—but unharmed.
He tore a strip from his sleeve with his teeth and tied it around his thigh above the wound, tightening until the pain blurred his vision.
“There, there, little man. It’s okay. We’re outside. You’re safe.”
Matías looked at him, face soaked with tears and snot, expression saying I don’t believe you, but I have no other choice.
Alejandro laughed.
A short laugh that hurt all the way down—but came out anyway, because the baby had exactly the same look Gabriela gave him when he told her everything would be fine.
A Moretti.
Without a doubt, a Moretti.

Inside the house, chaos continued.
Gael had reached the basement hallway with two of his men and found Gabriel slamming a fire extinguisher against the steel door he had ripped from the wall.
“Son!”
“It won’t open, Dad! The damn door won’t open!”
“Where’s Mateo?”
“Upstairs covering the stairs. Victoria fired from the second floor. She hit Alejandro in the leg.”
“Alejandro has the baby. He’s in the woods. The baby is safe.”
Gabriel froze mid-swing.
“The baby’s safe?”
“He’s safe, son. Alejandro got him out. Wounded, but he got him out.”
Something changed in Gabriel’s face. Something loosened in his jaw and hardened in his eyes at the same time. As if knowing his son was out of the house had lifted the weight of panic and left only determination behind.
“Dad.”
“What.”
“Go upstairs. Help Mateo. Neutralize the remaining guards. I’ll open this door and go down for Lucía.”
“Gabriel, you can’t go down alone. Victoria could’ve left someone down there.”
“William said the basement has one entrance. This door. If Victoria’s upstairs shooting at Alejandro, she’s not down there. Lucía’s alone.”
“Gabriel—”
“Dad. Watch my back upstairs. Come down with backup when you can. I’m going in.”
Gael looked at his son. At the man who had spent thirty-five years speaking to him in short sentences—and was now asking him to trust him with a clarity he had never heard before.
“Son.”
“What.”
“Be careful.”
“You too, Dad.”
Gael went upstairs with his men.
Gabriel stood alone in the hallway in front of the steel door.
He lifted the extinguisher.
Struck. Once. Twice. Three. Four. Five.
On the sixth blow, something gave in the internal mechanism. The backup lock bent just enough for a thin line of yellow light to seep through the edge.
On the seventh, the door opened fifteen centimeters.
On the eighth, enough for a man to slip through sideways.
He dropped the extinguisher.
Breathed.
And went in.

Ten concrete steps. A wide room at the bottom lit by harsh fluorescent white. Beige walls. A single bed. A small table. An adjoining bathroom.
And in the center of the room—Victoria.
Standing behind Lucía, who sat in a chair. No longer tied—but she didn’t need to be. Victoria’s left hand was tangled in her hair, yanking her head back. In her right hand, a long kitchen knife, the blade pressed against the skin of Lucía’s neck with just enough pressure for a thin line of blood to run down her collarbone, staining the gray sweater she wore.
Lucía’s eyes were open. Staring at the ceiling because Victoria forced her head back. Her whole body trembling.
But alive.
Alive.
Victoria looked at him.
Gabriel looked at her.
And the world stopped in that soundproof basement, where upstairs the gunfire continued—unheard by all three of them.
“Hello, Gabriel,” Victoria said, in the voice of someone who had already crossed the line and knew there was no going back. “You made it just in time.”