Chapter 5 - No Safe Place

Gabriel hit the floor and pulled his mother down with him.

Chloe dropped beside the cabinet as glass sprayed across the rug.

"Lights off!" Mateo shouted.

The room went black.

More shots cracked from outside.

A bullet buried itself in the wall where Beatrice's head had been seconds earlier.

Chloe's whole body went cold.

This was not intimidation.

Someone was trying to kill her.

Mateo dragged a heavy dresser in front of the shattered window while Gabriel crawled to Beatrice.

"Ma, are you hit?"

She slapped his hands away and signed.

I am fine. Chloe?

"She is asking if I am okay," Chloe whispered.

Gabriel looked at her. "Are you?"

"Ask me after my heart restarts."

A man shouted downstairs.

Then another gunshot.

Mateo pressed his earpiece. "East shooter is down. Second vehicle escaped."

Gabriel rose slowly.

His face looked carved from stone.

"Bring the shooter alive."

Mateo hesitated.

"He is dead."

Gabriel's jaw tightened.

They moved to an interior room with no windows.

Beatrice refused to sit.

She pointed at the flash drive in Gabriel's hand.

Open it.

Gabriel looked at Chloe.

"She says open it."

Mateo brought a laptop that had never touched the house network.

The flash drive contained three folders.

ACCOUNTS.

PORT.

VINCENT.

Gabriel opened the third.

Photographs filled the screen.

Vincent meeting with rival boss Dominic Rinaldi.

Vincent entering a pharmacy after midnight.

Vincent handing an envelope to a city medical examiner.

Then an audio file.

Gabriel clicked it.

Carlo's voice filled the room.

"If you are hearing this, I waited too long. Vincent has been moving money through the port. He has been paying Rinaldi for protection while telling me Rinaldi is stealing from us. I confronted him this morning. He cried. Swore he would fix it. I do not believe him."

The recording paused.

Carlo inhaled.

"Gabriel, if I am gone, listen to your mother. She sees more than any of us because fools talk freely in front of a deaf woman."

Gabriel closed his eyes.

Beatrice stared at the screen.

Carlo continued.

"And for God's sake, learn her language. She should not have to live in silence because you are too busy to use your hands."

Nobody spoke.

Gabriel looked at his mother.

Beatrice looked away.

Chloe felt suddenly like she had stepped into a private grief too large for the room.

Then the laptop chimed.

A new file appeared on the screen.

Mateo frowned. "That should be impossible."

The file name read:

HELLO, GABRIEL.

"Do not open it," Chloe said.

Too late.

The screen went black.

White text appeared.

YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT THE OLD WOMAN UNHEARD.

Beatrice's face hardened.

A second line appeared.

NOW THE WAITRESS IS PART OF THIS.

Chloe stopped breathing.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket.

Unknown number.

She opened the message.

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