Chapter 10 - WHAT ELENA KNEW
Sofia finally cracked.
Not dramatically.
No sobbing.
No begging.
She simply looked older.
“I helped Anna disappear.”
Gabriel stared at her.
“But not for Kane.”
“Then why?”
“Elena asked me.”
Gabriel looked lost for the first time.
Sofia continued.
“Anna had discovered Kane’s return. Elena wanted someone inside his operation.”
“So you staged Anna’s death.”
“Yes.”
“Without telling me.”
“Elena didn’t trust your temper.”
Gabriel laughed once.
A dark sound.
“My wife ran an intelligence operation behind my back?”
“Because she wanted Lily to grow up without burying you.”
That silenced him.
Sofia looked at Claire.
“Anna was supposed to feed Kane false information.”
“But she betrayed them,” Claire said.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Three months ago.”
“Why didn’t Elena stop her?”
“She tried.”
Gabriel’s voice went low.
“The shooting.”
Sofia nodded.
“Elena discovered Anna planned to use Lily.”
Claire’s stomach tightened.
“She knew her daughter was a target?”
“For forty-eight hours.”
Gabriel slammed both palms onto the table.
“And nobody told me?”
“You were in Montreal.”
“I have a phone!”
“Elena thought she could fix it before you came home.”
Gabriel turned away.
Claire understood his anger.
But beneath it was something worse.
Grief.
His wife had died trying to protect him from becoming exactly what he was now becoming.
Sofia continued.
“Kane’s plan was simple. Hit the convoy. Take Lily during the confusion. Keep her alive. Trade her for access to Gabriel’s port contracts.”
“But Elena got shot.”
“Kane ordered that. Anna didn’t expect it.”
Claire looked toward Lily.
“How did Lily get away?”
Sofia shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Lily answered from the doorway.
“Mommy’s bracelet.”
Everyone turned.
The child reached beneath her pajama sleeve.
“I had it.”
Gabriel crouched.
“What bracelet?”
Lily whispered, “The button one.”
Gabriel stopped breathing.
Elena had worn a panic bracelet linked to a private tracking system.
The night she died, investigators never found it.
Lily had taken it from her mother’s wrist.
She pressed it in Anna’s car.
Gabriel’s backup team tracked the signal.
That was how security found Lily wandering near a warehouse forty minutes later.
Claire stared at Gabriel.
“Your daughter saved herself.”
Lily started crying.
This time, real tears.
“She told me to run.”
Claire knelt.
“Who?”
“Mommy.”
Gabriel’s face crumpled.
Lily sobbed.
“Mommy woke up. She said run.”
Gabriel crossed the room and dropped to his knees.
For the first time, Lily let him hold her.
He pulled her against his chest.
She buried her face in his shirt.
Gabriel cried silently.
Claire turned away.
Then Vincent’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed instantly.
“What?”
He listened.
Then looked at Gabriel.
“Kane knows we have Sofia.”
Gabriel stood.
“How?”
May you like
Vincent’s face went pale.
“Because someone in this room just sent him a message.”
