“Who Are You Dressing Up For?” the Jealous Mafia Boss Demanded of His Secretary

He carried a leather briefcase and looked as though he had aged several years since the previous afternoon.

Gabriel met him in the study.

Chastity remained beside the desk, a notebook open in front of her.

Andrew placed the briefcase on the table.

“My father kept these records separate from his professional files. He must have believed that someone would eventually come looking for them.”

Gabriel opened the case.

Inside were handwritten letters, bank statements, a medical report, and a small cassette recorder.

Chastity looked at the recorder.

“Does it work?”

“I had the tape digitized this afternoon.”

Andrew removed a small drive and placed it beside the laptop.

“My father recorded a conversation with Richard Mercer two days before his death.”

Gabriel stared at the drive.

“Why?”

“Perhaps he wanted proof. Perhaps he was afraid.”

“Of whom?”

Andrew hesitated.

“I believe he was afraid of your father.”

The answer changed the atmosphere in the room.

Gabriel inserted the drive.

A recording appeared on the laptop.

The audio was old and imperfect, filled with static and the low hum of a mechanical fan.

Then Richard Mercer's voice emerged.

“You said the money would be enough.”

A second voice answered.

“The money was never the problem.”

Chastity leaned forward.

The second voice sounded familiar, but the recording was too distorted to identify it immediately.

Richard continued.

“The girl has done nothing wrong.”

“That is precisely why she must remain outside your world.”

A pause.

Then Richard spoke again.

“If anything happens to her mother, I will know who is responsible.”

The second voice gave a short, humorless laugh.

“If anything happens to Elena, your son will never forgive you.”

Gabriel stopped the recording.

His hands were clenched against the edge of the desk.

“Play that again.”

Chastity replayed the final thirty seconds.

This time, she listened to the second voice.

The cadence.

The slight rasp.

The deliberate pauses between sentences.

She looked at Andrew.

“Who was your father's closest professional associate?”

Andrew's expression became troubled.

“Thomas Vale.”

“The judge?”

“Yes.”

Gabriel stared at him.

“Thomas Vale died in 2011.”

“According to the official report.”

Chastity opened the records from the storage unit.

The payment to Thomas Vale's holding company had been made on the day Richard died. The company remained dormant until the year of Vale's supposed death.

Then its assets had been transferred to an overseas trust.

A trust that had recently received a series of small deposits.

The latest deposit had been made three days earlier.

“Someone is still using the structure,” she said.

Gabriel looked at the screen.

“Can you identify the account holder?”

“I can identify the legal administrator. The beneficial owner will require additional records.”

Andrew sat down.

“There is something else.”

Gabriel's eyes moved toward him.

“My father was not the only person who disappeared after Richard's death. Samuel Reed's wife filed a missing-person report six days later. The report was closed without an investigation.”

“Why?”

“Because the police were told Reed had left the state voluntarily.”

Chastity opened the report.

The signature authorizing the closure belonged to a detective who had later become head of a major organized-crime task force.

She looked at Gabriel.

“This was not one person hiding a secret. It was an entire network protecting it.”

Gabriel's face hardened.

“Then we find every person involved.”

“No,” Chastity said.

He turned sharply.

She continued before he could interrupt.

“We identify them. We document what they did. We preserve the evidence. And we make sure the truth can survive even if someone tries to destroy the records.”

Gabriel stared at her.

“You want to build a case.”

“I want to make it impossible for anyone to rewrite history.”

He looked at the documents.

For years, his response to betrayal had been immediate and absolute. He had never needed a court to establish guilt. He had never needed witnesses to confirm what he already believed.

But this was different.

If he acted violently, the truth could disappear beneath the consequences.

If he waited too long, someone else might bury it.

Chastity understood the calculation.

“We need an independent investigator,” she said. “Someone with no connection to your family, the city government, or the old criminal organizations.”

Andrew nodded.

“I know a former federal prosecutor who might help.”

Gabriel looked at him.

“Why should I trust your recommendation?”

“You shouldn't trust it without verification.”

Andrew's answer was immediate.

“My father taught me that loyalty was more important than truth. I spent my career believing him. I will not make that mistake again.”

Gabriel studied him.

Then he nodded once.

“Give Chastity the contact details. She will decide whether the investigator is suitable.”

Andrew turned toward her.

She accepted the information without comment.

The meeting continued until nearly three in the morning.

By the time Andrew left, they had assembled a timeline covering the final week of Richard Mercer's life.

It was incomplete.

But it was the first coherent account anyone had constructed in eighteen years.

Chastity closed the laptop.

“We need sleep.”

Gabriel remained seated.

“I need to know who killed my father.”

“You need to be able to recognize the answer when we find it.”

He looked up.

She held out her hand.

“Come to bed.”

For several seconds, he did not move.

Then he took her hand and stood.

In the bedroom, Gabriel lay awake long after Chastity had fallen asleep.

He watched the rise and fall of her breathing.

She had spent the evening challenging every instinct he possessed. She had refused to let him turn suspicion into certainty or pain into permission.

It irritated him.

It also reminded him that the woman beside him had never been impressed by his power.

She had been impressed by his ability to use it responsibly.

He turned onto his side and touched her shoulder lightly.

She stirred.

“What is it?”

“Nothing.”

She opened one eye.

“That is a lie.”

He almost smiled.

“I was thinking about my father.”

“Of course you were.”

“I keep wondering whether I ever knew him.”

Chastity became fully awake.

She turned toward him.

“You knew parts of him.”

“Perhaps the worst parts.”

“Perhaps the parts he allowed you to see.”

Gabriel looked at the ceiling.

“He taught me that love was something you protected by controlling everything around it.”

“And what have you learned?”

He was quiet for a long time.

“That I have spent years becoming a man I once hated.”

Chastity reached for his hand.

“You are not finished becoming anything.”

He looked at her.

“Is that supposed to comfort me?”

“It is supposed to remind you that you still have choices.”

He pressed her hand against his chest.

For the first time that night, his breathing slowed.

He fell asleep shortly before dawn.

The next afternoon, the independent investigator arrived.

Her name was Vivian Shaw.

She was fifty-two, with silver-streaked hair, a direct manner, and the kind of patience that made evasive people uncomfortable.

She reviewed the evidence without expressing an opinion.

When she finished, she placed the documents into separate folders.

“This is enough to justify a formal investigation,” she said. “It is not enough to identify a killer.”

Gabriel nodded.

“What do you need?”

“Access to the original financial records. Statements from everyone who handled the trust. The medical records related to your mother's death. And a verified timeline of your father's final forty-eight hours.”

“You will have access.”

Vivian looked at him.

“I also need a guarantee that no one will interfere with witnesses.”

Gabriel's expression tightened.

“You are asking me not to protect myself.”

“I am asking you not to turn an investigation into a war.”

Chastity watched him carefully.

Finally, Gabriel said, “You have my word.”

Vivian did not appear impressed.

“Your word is useful. Evidence is better.”

Chastity smiled faintly.

“I think we will get along.”

Vivian returned the smile.

“I suspect we will.”

For the next several days, the investigation proceeded quietly.

Records were requested. Witnesses were interviewed. The financial trail was reconstructed.

Then Vivian discovered something unexpected.

The medical report concerning Mara Bellini's death had been altered.

The original hospital record showed that she had been admitted under an alias two days before her death. The attending physician had recorded signs of poisoning, but the final report listed a natural cause.

The physician's signature was genuine.

The authorization to amend the report was not.

It belonged to Thomas Vale.

Vivian called Gabriel personally.

“We have evidence that your mother's death was investigated as a possible homicide and then deliberately reclassified.”

Gabriel sat very still.

“Was she murdered?”

“I cannot say that yet. But someone interfered with the medical record.”

Chastity placed a hand on his shoulder.

Gabriel closed his eyes.

For eighteen years, he had believed his mother had died because life was cruel and illness was unpredictable.

Now he had to consider that someone had deliberately taken her from him.