Chapter 10 - The Lake HouseThe lake house had not changed.
That was the cruelest part.
The same dark roof. The same stone chimney. The same narrow dock stretching into gray water. The same line of pines bending under rain.
Gabriel had not been there since Daniel died.
Before that, not since the winter Daniel fell through the ice.
Now he stood in the doorway with Mia beside him and Marco behind them, carrying Elias Wren’s blood on his shirt.
Elias was alive.
Barely.
Dr. Harlan had stabilized him at the cottage while Gabriel’s men secured the roads. The attackers had vanished into the rain, but one abandoned car had already tied back to a company Vincent secretly owned.
Everything was moving faster now.
The city. The press. The family. The lies.
And somewhere inside this house, Daniel had left the truth.
Mia held the key Elias had given her.
Her hand shook.
Gabriel noticed.
“Pain?” he asked.
“Fear.”
He appreciated the honesty.
“Of the house?”
“Of what we’ll find.”
Gabriel looked into the dim hallway.
“So am I.”
That surprised her.
He saw it.
“You think I don’t get scared,” he said.
“I think you don’t admit it.”
“Same thing in my family.”
Mia’s expression softened.
For a moment, the storm outside felt far away.
Then Marco cleared his throat.
“Sentiment later. Dead brother mystery now.”
Mia almost laughed.
Gabriel shot Marco a look.
Marco shrugged. “You pay me for priorities.”
They entered.
The air smelled like cedar, dust, and old winters.
Every room was covered in sheets except the study. That door stood slightly open.
Gabriel pushed it wider.
Inside, everything was exactly as Antonio had left it. Leather chair. Dark shelves. A locked liquor cabinet. A framed photograph of Gabriel and Daniel as boys standing beside their mother on the dock.
Mia stepped toward the photograph.
“You look miserable.”
“I usually was.”
“Daniel isn’t.”
“He usually wasn’t.”
She studied the picture. “Your mother was beautiful.”
Gabriel looked at the image.
Elena Romano had been more than beautiful. She had been warmth in a house built on control. She sang in the kitchen, hated locked doors, and once threw Antonio’s favorite watch into the lake because he made Daniel cry.
Gabriel had forgotten that.
Or forced himself to.
Mia turned the frame slightly.
Something clicked.
A panel behind the bookshelf opened.
Marco stared. “Of course.”
Gabriel looked at Mia.
She blinked. “What?”
“How did you know?”
“The frame was too clean.”
Marco muttered, “Accountants.”
Inside the panel was a small steel box.
The key fit.
Mia opened it.
There was a flash drive, a stack of original trust documents, and a sealed envelope with Daniel’s handwriting.
MIA.
She stopped breathing.
Gabriel saw the way her face changed.
“Open it,” he said quietly.
Mia shook her head. “Not here.”
“Mia.”
“I can’t read a dead man’s letter in front of his brother like it belongs to me.”
Gabriel’s voice softened. “If Daniel wrote your name on it, it does.”
She looked at him.
The rain beat against the windows.
Slowly, she opened the envelope.
Daniel’s letter was three pages.
Her hands trembled so badly Gabriel almost offered to hold them down.
She read silently.
Then her face broke.
Gabriel waited, every second worse than the last.
“What does it say?” he asked.
Mia pressed the letter against her chest.
“He knew.”
“About the trust?”
She nodded.
“About Vincent?”
“Yes.”
“About Cassandra?”
“Yes.”
Gabriel’s patience cracked. “Mia.”
She looked up, tears spilling now.
“He also knew I was going to run.”
Gabriel frowned.
“Run?”
“I told him I wanted to quit. Leave Chicago. My father was scared. I was scared. Daniel said he understood.” She laughed through tears. “He said courage didn’t always look like staying.”
Gabriel said nothing.
Mia unfolded the last page.
“He asked me to do one thing if he died.”
“What?”
“To make sure you didn’t become your father.”
Gabriel looked as if she had struck him.
Mia immediately regretted the words.
But Daniel’s handwriting was there.
Truth had no mercy left.
Gabriel turned away.
For most of his life, becoming Antonio Romano had been presented as destiny. The highest compliment. The family’s survival.
But Daniel had feared it.
His mother had planned against it.
Mia had hidden from it.
And Gabriel had never asked himself whether power was still protection if everyone good had to fear it.
Marco’s phone rang.
He answered, listened, and looked at Gabriel.
“Vincent filed an emergency petition.”
Gabriel’s eyes sharpened. “For what?”
“Temporary protective oversight of Leo’s trust interests. Claims Sofia is emotionally unstable and under your coercive control.”
Mia whispered, “Already?”
Marco nodded. “Hearing scheduled for four p.m. Private emergency docket.”
Gabriel almost smiled.
Vincent had moved exactly as Elias predicted.
That meant he was scared.
Good.
Mia grabbed the documents from the box.
“We need copies.”
“Already happening,” Marco said.
Gabriel looked at Daniel’s letter in Mia’s hand.
“What else did he say?”
Mia hesitated.
The hesitation told him it was personal.
He should have let it go.
He could not.
“Mia.”
She looked down.
“He said if I ever had to choose between protecting the truth and protecting his brother’s pride…”
Gabriel waited.
A faint, broken smile touched her mouth.
“He said to hurt your feelings.”
For one second, Daniel was in the room.
Gabriel laughed.
It came out rough and surprised and almost painful.
Mia laughed too, then winced and clutched her ribs.
Gabriel stepped forward.
She lifted a hand. “Don’t say bed.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were thinking it.”
“I often think wise things I don’t say.”
Marco made a sound that might have been a cough.
Then the lights went out.
The entire house plunged into darkness.
Marco’s weapon was in his hand instantly.
Outside, tires crunched over wet gravel.
Not one car.
Several.
Gabriel moved Mia behind him.
Marco looked toward the window.
“Vincent found us.”
A voice came through a speaker hidden somewhere in the house.
Old. Smooth. Familiar.
“Gabriel,” Vincent said. “You always did come back to places that hurt you.”
Mia’s hand closed around Daniel’s letter.
Gabriel stared into the dark hallway.
Vincent’s voice continued.
“Send out the girl, and I will let you keep the memory of your brother clean.”
Gabriel’s answer was quiet.
“No.”
The speaker crackled.
May you like
Vincent sighed.
“Then I’ll bury you beside him.”
